LENTEN SEASON

Last week on Ash Wednesday we celebrated and prayed together as a school in our learning hub.

Our students heard the following message:

Our Pope Francis also gives us a message as we begin our Lenten journey this year.

“Lent is a time to remove all distractions and bitterness from one’s life in order to better hear God and those who suffer silently and need help” Pope Francis Source: CNS.

Year 5-6 Camp

On Wednesday myself, Megan Moore, Maegen Berends, Kath Barca, Edward Dooley and Sandra Renehan head off to Camp Rumbug Foster with our year 5-6 students. I am very much looking forward to spending time with our year 5-6 students and encouraging them to take risks, work as a team and have fun. Camp is a great opportunity for staff and students to build positive relationships, resilience, build confidence and a sense of achievement.  Thank you to parents for trusting school and camp staff to look after your precious children and enjoy many learning experiences with them.

Many staff attending camp  have needed to make alternative arrangements for their own children and families in order to be away with our students. I would like to acknowledge and thank the school staff attending the camp. I am very grateful for our positive and dedicated staff, who continually focus on providing our students with positive learning experiences.

In my absence Carmel Donlon, supported by Michael Juliff will ensure our school continues to operate as per normal.

St Catherine’s Open Day

Our school will be open on Friday 13 March from 9:30-11:00am. This is a great opportunity for new families considering enrolling their children to visit our school. We are now taking enrollment applications for 2021 Foundation. If you know of any neighbours, family or friends living in the area, please let them know about this date or to contact the school office.

Parent Student Teacher Meetings -Term 1 2020

Bookings are now open for term 1 Parent Student Teacher Meetings

Please click on the link below to book a meeting time.

Meetings will take place on

Monday 23 March- 3:45-6:30pm

Tuesday 24 March-3:45-6:30pm

It is important for each family to make an appointment with their child’s teacher. Students are encouraged to attend meetings.

Click on the link

https://scmoorabbin.schoolzineplus.com/view-session/4

Once you click on the link, please select a teacher.

Select the date from the drop down menu or click on the calendar icon.  Select the time.

The following link is a booking guide for parents

https://scmoorabbin.schoolzineplus.com/sk-booking-guide

Cyber Safety

I encourage all parents to check and monitor their child’s use of social media sites and apps, along with checking appropriate age recommendations. In many cases these sites are not recommended for children under the age of 13.

School does not encourage students at school to talk about posts or information from social media sites.

ThinkUKnow is a website where parents can access information to help them with online cyber safety. Some helpful messages for parents:

• Start the cyber safety conversation with your child and let them teach you about what they do online.
• Stay in the know- take an interest in how our child uses technology. Why not have a go and trial the apps for yourself?
• Speak with your child about respectful relationships.
• Create a Family Online Safety Contract. thinkuknow.org.au
• Know what your kids are doing online, who they are friends with and who they may be talking to

Parents can access future information and resources online.

https://www.thinkuknow.org.au/parents-portal

2020 SRC students

Congratulations to the following students who will form our Student Representative Council this year.

Students will meet with Mrs Maree Hills each fortnight. Meetings are a forum for student voice and an opportunity for students to work with peers and staff to ensure our school is a great place to grow and learn.

Ben Castrillon, Maggie Willmott, Cameron McKell, Mia Wang, Miki Nowak, Lola Grainger, Alexandra Pound, Bianca Treagus, Jack Canning, Holly Anstee & Veronika Cary.

Lynda O'Donnell

Principal

Learning to open the heart

To close ourselves off from the wisdom of the world around us in the name of God is a kind of spiritual arrogance exceeded by little else in the human lexicon of errors. It makes of life a kind of prison where, in the name of holiness, thought is chained and vision is condemned. It makes us our own gods. It is a sorry excuse for spirituality.
 
The sin of religion is to pronounce every other religion empty and unknowing, deficient and unblessed. It is to ignore the call of God to us through the life and wisdom and spiritual vision of the other. The implications of that kind of closing out the multiple revelations of the mind of God are weighty: once we shut our hearts to the other, we have shut our hearts to God. It is a matter of great spiritual import, of deep spiritual summons. Openness to the presence of God, the Word of God in others, is of the essence of contemplation.
 
Learning to open the heart requires first that we open our lives. The home of whites that has never had a person of color at the supper table is a home that has missed an opportunity to grow. The man who has never worked with a woman as a peer, better yet as an executive, has deprived himself of the revelation of the other half of the world. The comfortable contemplative who has never served soup at a soup kitchen, or clerked in a thrift shop, or spent time in inner-city programs, lives in an insulated bubble. The adult who has never asked a child a question and really listened to the answer is doomed to go through life out of touch and essentially unlearned. The world they know cannot possibly give them the answer that they seek. “When someone comes to the gate,” the Rule of Benedict instructs, “say ‘Thanks be to God.’” Say, in other words, ‘Thanks be to God,’ that someone has come to add to our awareness of the world, to show us another way to think and be and live beyond our own small slice of the universe.
 
Openness is the door through which wisdom travels and contemplation begins. It is the pinnacle from which we learn that the world is much bigger, much broader than ourselves, that there is truth out there that is different from our own. The voice of God within us is not the only voice of God.
 
Openness is not gentility in the social arena. It is not polite listening to people with whom we inherently disagree. It is not political or civil or “nice.” It is not even simple hospitality. It is the munificent abandonment of the mind to new ideas, to new possibilities. Without an essential posture of openness, contemplation is not possible. God comes in every voice, behind every face, in every memory, deep in every struggle. To close off any of them is to close off the possibility of becoming new again ourselves.
 
To be a contemplative it is necessary to throw open the arms of our lives, to take in daily one experience, one person, one new idea with which we have no familiarity and ask what it is saying to us and about us. Then God, the Ultimate Reality, the Life beyond life can come to us in deep, in rending, new ways.

 —from Illuminated Life: Monastic Wisdom for Seekers of Light, by Joan Chittister (Orbis Books)

On Wednesday after the Ash Wednesday Prayer service the new SRC members were announced. The students all received a certificate and their SRC badge. The purpose of the SRC is to develop positive attitudes amongst students and to provide a forum for student expression and voice.

I would like to acknowledge all of the students who wrote an application. The standard this year was extremely high, with so many students providing wonderful ideas about what it means to be a leader at our school and why they would like to be the student voice for their class.

Congratulations to the 2020 School Representative Council Members:  Holly Asntee, Bianca Treagus, Alexandra Pound, Lola Grainger, Veronika Cary, Cameron McKell, Miki Nowak, Mia Wang, Ben Castrillon and Maggie Willmott.

Maree Hills

Last Friday was the annual School Clean Up Day. This day coincides with Clean Up Australia Day which was yesterday. This year each class chose an area around the school to clean up. The school was a buzz with students raking, sweeping and picking up rubbish taking great pride in looking after our school environment.

Did you know?

• Plastics are the most common rubbish item found on Clean Up Australia Day, representing over 33% of all rubbish collected over the past 10 years. This includes drink containers, confectionary packets and water bottles, all of which pose a huge threat to wildlife and our environment. Recycling plastic saves energy, valuable resources and helps to protect our environment.
• The energy saved by recycling one plastic drink bottle will power a computer for 25 minutes.
• It takes 25 two litre plastic bottles to make an adult fleece jacket
• 
  

The staff prepared, cooked and served delicious pancakes to students and parents last Tuesday. Why do we celebrate Shrove Tuesday? The name Shrove comes from 'shrive', meaning absolution for sins by doing penance. The day gets its name from the tradition of Christians trying to be 'shriven' before Lent. ... Pancake Day itself came much later as a way of using up rich foods, like eggs, milk and sugar before the 40 days of fasting - Lent . As you can see from the photos...it was a great way to start the day.

Last Wednesday the students participated in a prayer service to begin the start of Lent. On Ash Wednesday, Catholics and many other Christians will have ashes applied to their foreheads in the shape of a cross. People generally wear the ashes — which symbolize penance, mourning and mortality — throughout the day to publicly express their faith and penance.

Carmel Donlon

Coordinating Leader

Students have been enjoying colouring and word find activities in the courtyard.

The Term 1 Interschool Chess Competition will be held at St Catherine’s Primary School on Thursday, 12th March. The event will be in the School Hall between 9am and 2.30pm.  Students need a good knowledge of the game in order to participate. The cost is  $24.00 per participant which covers the Kidsunlimited official and equipment. Please send the cash payment to school in a clearly marked envelope. Students who have not paid will not be able to participate.

Children are to wear their full school uniform (Not sport), and require snacks, lunch and a drink. We are looking forward to a great day.

Kind Regards

Carmel Donlon- Coordinating Leader

cdonlon@scmoorabbin.catholic.edu

Holt Swimming Sports 2020

The Highett Junior Football Club and Highett FC Auskick are hosting a free community fun day in partnership with the St. Kilda FC at RSEA Park on the 21^st of March.

On the Friday the 22nd of February St Catherines had 10 students compete in the HOLT swimming carnival. All students participated well and were encouraging to their teammates. A big thank you to all the parents who came along to support their children and a special thanks to Pen Lovegrove and Anna Khodr for their contribution in time keeping.

Here are some reflections from the students:

“This year  I built my confidence up. Even in freestyle, I was tired in the middle of the race but I was at the same  pace the whole race. I wanted that third ribbon and I came third and won!”

- Alexander

“The race is going really fast,but I didn’t want to look back because my swimming teacher says if you look back you slow down and you lose. So I kept going and I got out and Ramy was half a second behind me.”

- Jay 

“I was so nervous before my race as I got in the pool and lined up for the start. Then I heard the siren and started. I raced to the finish trying my best and went as fast as I could and came 4th!”

- Cohen

“ Everyone was an  amazing swimmer. Everyone looked so tired going back to school. Big thanks to Anna Khodr and Pen Lovegrove for helping out with the times and thank you to all the parents that came to see their children.Thank you Mrs Berends and Mrs Barca for taking us to the swimming sports and Mrs Patto for organising everything!”

- Lola