Term 2 Week 4
From the Principal
Dear families and friends of St Anthony’s,
This week we have focussed on care for our environment as it is Laudato Si Week. Laudato Si is Pope Francis’ letter to the world asking for us all to take more care for our common home - our Mother Earth. Although it was written in 2015 (almost 9 years to the day), it is still relevant to us today. In the letter, Pope Francis draws on his namesake St Francis and his teaching about care for creation and the world in which we live. At St Anthony’s we have an amazing environment of which we are very proud and our students do a great job of taking care of it. This week we have spoken about how we can care for our wider environment by recycling, putting our rubbish in the correct bins and reducing how much water we use as well as other ideas. I’d encourage you to discuss with your family what measures you already take to care for the environment.
With that theme in mind, I’d like to invite you to participate in our upcoming Working Bee to be held on Saturday 15th June 8am - 11am. This is your chance to take action to care for our environment! We will need help with many jobs around our courtyard as well as our Kitchen Garden and no experience or expertise is necessary, just a helping attitude. We will provide a breakfast bbq for all volunteers so bring your whole family! Please let me know if you have any questions. I hope to see you all there.
Cross Country
I’d like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the school, to thank the parents and grandparents who volunteered to help out at this week’s Cross Country. These events are not possible without that support but it’s more than that; we really appreciate the encouraging and friendly attitude that you all contributed to the day. It was a genuine carnival atmosphere which was appreciated by all of our students from Early Learning through to Grade 6. Congratulations to all that participated and did their best and to those students that made it into the representative team for the NIJSSA Cross Country on Wednesday 12th June.
Sincerely,
Jason Perry, Principal
Code Club!
At St Anthony's, we are passionate about providing opportunities for our students to grow and flourish.
We have introduced a lunchtime code club for our Year 3-6 students that aims to give the students skills, confidence and opportunity to shape their world.
Through coding, children develop sophisticated and important life skills. Coding is all about applied problem solving through logical, critical and creative thinking. It allows students the ability to think more logically and algorithmically.
Stay tuned for more information for an Early Childhood (Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 students) Code Club beginning in Week 5.
TASSIE MUMS COATS FOR KIDS 2024
WEDNESDAY 1ST MAY - FRIDAY 31ST MAY 2024
Be part of a statewide community effort to make sure no disadvantaged, vulnerable or at-risk Tassie kids go without a warm coat this winter.
New and excellent CLEAN second-hand coats, jackets, vests, raincoats and other warm children's coats and clothing can be donated. Coats that are CLEAN with working zips and empty pockets mean we can help children in need quickly.
Please drop any donations to the library before Thursday 30th May. Donations will be taken to Tassie Mums on Friday 31st May 2024.
Family Mass
Sunday 19th May 2024
A great turn out for our first Family Mass of the year! The Pentecost Sunday service was just lovely and the Church was filled with Parishioners, students, staff and families. It was terrific seeing some new faces! Well done to all of our readers, choir and those who took part in the Offertory. If you couldn’t make it to this Mass, we will be having one next term.
Prep - Grade 6 Showcase 2024 - One Night Only!
This year’s Student Showcase for Prep to Grade 6 will be held on:
Date: Thursday 27th June 2024 (Week 9)
Time: 3.30 - 8.30 (20 minute sessions with 3 - 4 groups in the classroom at a time)
Our Showcase is one night where your child will ‘showcase’ their learning to you. They will
lead you through the learning that they are most proud of this year. You are invited into their
classroom, where you will be given a guided tour of your child’s learning by the students
themselves. Unlike parent/teacher, you will be sharing the room with other students and their
families showcasing their learning.
Forms with booking information were sent home with students and published on Compass
on Wednesday. Booking forms for EACH child must be returned by Wednesday 19th June.
You will be notified of your booking time on Monday 24th June, this will be in the form of a
slip sent home with students. Please check your child’s school bag.
Congratulations!!
Recently John Pau Sian Van celebrated his First Reconciliation at Sacred Heart Church. May the Lord's love be with you always.
Grade 5/6B
We have been spending the last few months studying a novel called 'War Horse' by Michael Morpurgo.
In the deadly chaos of the First World War, one horse witnesses the reality of battle from both sides of the trenches. Bombarded by artillery, with bullets knocking riders from his back, Joey tells a powerful story of the truest friendships surviving in terrible times. One horse has seen the best and the worst of humanity. The power of war and the beauty of peace. This is his story.
Written from the perspective of a horse during the war, the book has been a great way of introducing us to the realities of WWI. Along with the story, we have been planning and writing our own narratives, also with an animal as the main character.
Our favourite things about the novel study so far have been:
- Munching on our fruit while we listen to the story.
- Pausing to discuss important aspects of the story.
- Predicting which character is going to die next. (It's a very sad book at times! Some of us cried in one chapter, including Ms Bartush, so Thomas kindly volunteered to read the end of the chapter for her.)
- Cliff hangers at the end of each chapter. We never want the chapter to end and beg to read another one!
Having time to plan for our writing. (Usually, we only get a little while to write, but we’ve had weeks to work on our own story, adding more each day.)
- Carefully writing the story in sections, allowing us to think about each part and feeling motivated each day.
- Learning and analysing new words from the story and adding them to our vocabulary.
- Creating our characters slowly, bit by bit. This made us feel in control.
- Feeling proud of our story as it improves each week and as we refine our writing.
- Learning different literary devices for each section, e.g. Mental verbs, onomatopoeia, etc.
We love the book and recommend it to others to read! We are also excited to publish our books, including our hand-drawn illustrations, so that we may show our Buddy Class, as well as our parents on Showcase night!
From Grade 5/6B
CLARE CLAIMS DOMINANT CROSS COUNTRY VICTORY
On a beautiful sunny day, and with perfect underfoot conditions, Clare house produced a consistent all-round performance to claim the overall win in the Cross Country Carnival. Clare led the carnival from start to finish pulling further away as the day went on to win by more that 100 points. Great running from our Francis competitors in the early years races ensured that they surged past Anthony to claim second spot on the day.
A change of venue paid dividends with a great carnival atmosphere at Windsor Park with all students cheering and supporting their housemates through all the races. It was also great to see our Kinder and Early Learning runners competing for the first time, which helped to add the carnival feel to the day.
Many thanks to all the volunteers and staff that helped on the day, with special thanks to Mrs Marshall and Mrs de Deuge for organizing the carnival in my absence, and a final congratulations to all students who all tried their best on the day. Attention now turns to the NIJSSA Carnival which takes place on Wednesday 12th June at Windsor Park. We wish all our runners the best for that upcoming event.
National Simultaneous Storytime 2024
Have you heard about the bowerbird?! St Anthony’s students, along with Early Learning, participated in this year's National Simultaneous Storytime and listened to author Aura Parker read her story ‘Bowerbird Blues’. It was such a lovely story and we recommend everyone read it.
