Dear SCA Families,

I share with our SCA family the very sad news that Mr William Beale, father of Jai (6 Green) and Shaylan (4 Blue), passed away last week. William was a loving father who will be missed by all, especially his family. At this time, we pray for William and his family.

Following this news, your child may wish to speak about it at home. This can be difficult, especially as we may also be upset. However, talking about these things together, as openly and honestly as you can, will help your child to understand what’s happening.

If you or your child would like to speak with someone at school, please contact us immediately. You may speak with your child’s teacher, Mrs Karen Snowball, or myself.

Eternal rest grant unto William, O Lord,

And let perpetual light shine upon him.  

May he rest in peace. Amen.

 Beanie Day

On behalf of those needing a helping-hand, thanks to our students and families for your generous support of our Beanie Day. Our students and staff contributed $892 to this cause. Click here for an update and to see where I am on the CEO leaderboard.

Save the Date - Community Council Open Meeting

All parents and guardians are invited to the SCA Community Council Meeting on Tuesday 18^th June and 6.00pm.

Would you like us to address a specific issue? Do you have a question for the Council or staff? Do you have a compliment or suggestion about the way in which we do things?

At this meeting, we will address questions and issues raised by you, the parents in our school. To manage the process, please send us your question or comments by 5.00pm on Tuesday 11^th June. Please include your name and contact details in case we are unable to answer your question on the night. These may be sent to sca@cg.catholic.edu.au.

We will also:

• Update progress on our Annual Improvement Plan;
• Present an outline of our approach to teaching phonics;
• Hear from our Community Council Chairperson; and
• Provide input into future strategic and improvement plans.

It’s a problem

Traffic congestion on Heidelberg Street and Box Hill Avenue is leading to incidents of dangerous driving, obnoxious behaviour and even road rage. Please folks, let’s work together.

• The Donut and front pick up areas must only be used by children who can buckle their own seat belts. If they can’t, the driver must park and collect their children.
• Drivers and other passengers are not to exit the vehicle when in these areas.
• If children are delayed, you will be asked to move on and park.
• Cars must turn left when leaving the school between 2.45pm and 3.30pm.

ACT Policing have informed us that they will be patrolling the area and will book drivers who park illegally (Including on nature strips around the school).

If our 420 families all decide to collect their children at the same time, there will obviously be some delays. Please bear this in mind by either coming a little later, or be prepared to POLITELY deal with delays.

Please also be polite to our staff. We are not trained police officers. We are however, professional educators who will do what we think is best for the safety of the children in our care. Please follow our directions. This may cause you five minutes of “inconvenience”, but is will also go a long way towards creating a safer environment for every child in our school.

Student Leaders

In recent weeks we have held two Open Day for prospective families. Some of our Year 6 students were the official tour guides, showing our visitors around our wonderful school.

Every single one of our visitors commented on the great job our guides did.

Congratulations to our Year 6 students. You were excellent ambassadors for our school and we are proud of you.

Disco

Thank you to Rachel Mikulandra, with the support of Karen Snowball, for organising our disco last week. The children all really enjoyed themselves. Thanks also to the many parent and staff helpers who pitched in with supervision and other behind the scenes tasks.

School Fees

School fees are now due. To help us pay our bills, please pay yours. Thanks to those families who are up to date. As always, if you are facing difficulties in meeting your fee commitments, please arrange a time to meet with me.

2019 Key Improvement Goals

In last week’s newsletter we reminded you of our four Key Goals for school improvement for 2019. Elsewhere in this week’s newsletter is a short update on the first of third of these; Catholic Identity and Faith Formation.

Public Holiday – Monday 10 June

Enjoy the long weekend – that’s two in three weeks!

It was once said…

Being a parent is like folding a fitted sheet. No one really knows how.” – Unknown

Blessings to you and your family.

Matt Egan-Richards

Principal

2019 Improvement Plan Update

One of our improvement goals for 2019 is to Enhance our Catholic Identity and faith formation. In trying to do so, we identified four target areas:

1. Make our school theme of leadership more visible throughout each term.
2. Provide opportunities for staff formation.
3. Enhance the relationship between parish and school.
4. Provide opportunities for parents to experience the faith dimension of our school.

 With more than half the year to go, we still have plans for further improvements. However, so far this year we have:

• Displayed our theme of ‘Know the Way, Go the Way and Show the Way’ in learning areas across the grade levels.
• Based assembly prayers on the leadership theme.
• Planned class masses around themes being taught in the classroom.
• Shared regular lessons around leadership, so far based on ‘Leaders We Know’ and ‘Jesus is Our Leader’.
• Included spirituality awards in our white card presentations.
• Introduced the ‘Way to Go’ award for Christian Leadership for our Year 6 students.
• Participated in staff faith formation opportunities provided by Catholic Education and in our own school context.
• Invited parents and carers to class masses and liturgical celebrations.
• Invited our parish priests to join classes for visits, both formal and informal.
• Invited our parish priests to special events in the school.

 If you would like to discuss any aspect of our improvement plan, please don’t hesitate to email, call, or arrange a time for a meeting.

Did you know?

 Did you know, that across the world, children who read the most read the best regardless of social levels, income levels or where they live? 

Did you know that reading is one of the most important skills a child can learn because it will be difficult for a child to master any subject without knowing how to read? 

Did you know that fifteen year old students whose parents often read books with them during their first year of primary school, show markedly higher scores than students whose parents read to them infrequently or not at all? 

Did you know that listening comprehension comes before reading comprehension and that you must hear a word before you can say it or read and write it? 

Did you know that children learn an average of 4 000 to 12 000 new words each year as a result of book reading? 

Did you know that children who grow up in homes where books are plentiful have higher reading scores?  

Did you know that parents are the key reading role models?  High frequency reading parents are six times more likely to have high frequency reading children. 

All children can achieve high results if they have access to books at home.

Karon Graham 2012

Book Club closes on Friday 14 June.  Remember you can pay online with your credit card using the LOOP process.