ADVENT

Advent is the first season of the Church year where we prepare ourselves to celebrate the wonderful feast of Christmas. Yesterday Sunday 29 November was the first Sunday of Advent. Pope Francis says, 

“Joy, prayer and gratitude are three attitudes that prepare us to live Christmas in an authentic way.”

Let us pray, 

Lord, as Advent begins, help me to put my eyes on You.  Help me to open my ears to Your voice.  And help me to open my heart to Your glorious presence.  May I be attentive to You in every way You desire to come to me. Jesus, I trust in You. May I enter this Advent season with a hope filled heart as I await the Christ child. 

Amen

Student Sign In/Out

We are currently trialing a new and simple Sign In/Out system. This system is to be used on the day of a late arrival or an early pick up.

If your child is late for school, finishing early or needing to leave throughout the day you have two options to sign your child in or out.

Option 1- Contactless Sign In/Out

Parents/Guardians can access the Student Sign In/Out tile on the school zsapp app and complete details and submit the form. Parents can complete this on your phone without coming into the office.

Option 2- Onsite Sign In/Out

Parents/Guardians can choose to come into the office and use their phone or the school ipad to sign their  child in/out using the QR code at the office desk.

All students arriving late to school must collect a late pass from the office and give this to their teacher. Parents must notify the class teacher or office if a child is leaving early or leaving for an appointment during the day.

This system is not in place of notifying the school about a student’s absence.

We are keen to know how this new system works for parents so please contact Laura Bailey in the office to offer your feedback. laura.bailey@scmoorabbin.catholic.edu.au

Visitors Sign In

All visitors to the school must present at the school office. Visitors can now use their mobile phone or the school ipad to sign in using a QR code. 

Confirmation  

Recently, the Most Reverend Peter Comensoli D.D., Archbishop of Melbourne, issued the latest COVID-19 Liturgical Guidelines and issued a decree granting to Parish Priests within the Archdiocese the faculty to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation during this time of emergency. Fr Jacob will be administering the Sacrament of Confirmation this year.

With limited time left in the year parents of year 6 students have been given two choices:

1.Students to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation with members of their class on Thursday 10 December.

2.Defer the reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation till 2021 when they will be invited to join next year’s Grade six group.

From 2021 confirmations for St Catherine’s students of Holy Trinity Parish children will be administered here at St Catherine’s, not St Patrick’s Cathedral.

Liturgies

Due to restrictions on public gatherings indoors we are able to accommodate 1 adult for each year student to attend the following liturgies. Adults attending will need to wear a mask and adhere to social distancing restrictions. For indoor gatherings we are required to follow strict guidelines of 1 adult per 4m2. This includes staff.

The Foundation Nativity Liturgy will take place on Tuesday 8 December at 9:30am in the church. 

The Confirmation Liturgy will take place on Thursday 10 December at 11:30am in the church

The Year 6 Graduation Liturgy will take place on Tuesday 15 December at 9:15am in the church.

2021 School Board Nominations

We are now seeking nominations for two positions on our school board for 2021. If you are interested in nominating for a place on the school board, please read the Federated School Board Guidelines and complete and return the school board nomination form to the school office by Friday 4 December. The  School Board Guidelines and nomination forms are available on our Zsapp school app or a hard copy is available from our school office.

If you would like to know more about our school board please contact one of our current board members or myself. We are looking forward to welcoming new members to our school board next year.

St Vincent De Paul  Conference - Moorabbin

The St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia has more than 60,000 members and volunteers, who work hard to assist people in need and combat social injustice across Australia. Internationally, the Society operates in 153 countries and has over 800,000 members.

Each year our school supports our local St Vincent De Paul Conference with their Christmas Appeal. This year, times have been particularly tough for many more families. St Vincent De Paul has asked our school community to support by purchasing gift cards from Woolworths or Coles for families in need, instead of the donation of food items.

Our school is asking families to donate a gold coin donation in turn for students wearing free dress on Tuesday 1 December. We will forward this onto St Vincent De Paul to purchase gift cards. If you would like to purchase and donate a Woolworths or Coles gift card as a family instead of a gold coin donation, you can send this along on the free dress day and we forward it onto St Vincent De Paul.  Thanks for your support.

Best Wishes

At this time of the year we wish all the best to staff members who are moving on. We acknowledge and thank the following staff members for their commitment to supporting the learning of students and families at our school. We thank Edward Dooley and Nicole Bush for their outstanding teaching and commitment to our school.

Edward Dooley has worked across the Federated Schools of Holy Trinity Parish for 4 years. In this time Edward has led staff in Faith, Spirituality and Curriculum Development, along with supporting the parish Sacramental Program. Edward has also been a valued member of the Federated Leaders Team, leading and supporting many initiatives across three schools. Edward’s contributions to our school will be sadly missed and we wish him all the best for the future.

Nicole Bush, one of our Arrowsmith teachers, sadly will not be returning to St Catherine’s next year. Nicole joined St Catherine’s in 2015, leading the Arrowsmith Program at St Catherine’s. Nicole has been passionate about supporting students learning and will be sadly missed by the many students and families. We wish her all the best for next year.

Last Week of Term 4

MONDAY 14 DECEMBER

Last newsletter for the year

TUESDAY 15 DECEMBER

Big Day In for Year 6

Last Day for Year 6- Guard of Honour to say goodbye- 3:25pm

Graduation Liturgy for Year 6

Reports go home for all students

WEDNESDAY 16 DECEMBER

Last day of the term for students. Students will finish at 3:30pm

End of term Liturgy for years Foundation to Year 5 Students (students and staff attendance only)

COVID-19 UPDATE

Victorian Schools are still required to maintain COVID safe practices. A combination of strategies are still required to minimise any transmission risk. These strategies include:

• Stay at home when unwell
• Practice food hygiene
• Ensure physical distancing (1.5m)
• Wear a face mask when physical distancing is not possible
• Promote outdoor ventilation and activities
• Limit access to outside visitors
• Maintain cleaning practices
• Reduce the congregation of adults around the school
• Display signage for public areas to indicate maximum number of adults in the area
• Maintain visitors attendance onsite records in case contact tracing is required 

Schools can now allow:

• Students to use the outside drink taps
• Mixing of students in different year levels
• Hold Liturgies- subject to public gathering limits
• Conduct transition events for Foundation students
• Conduct school tours
• Resume face to face professional learning

As we near the end of a very challenging year for everyone, it is important to model to our students ways to focus on the positives. Developing resilience skills to face difficult situations however small the problem can appear to us, can be difficult when we are younger. Teaching and modelling how to slow down our thinking and to take in all of the information before jumping to conclusions is a wonderful way to put things into perspective.

The following article by Michael Grose offers suggestions of ways to model and dialogue with the students to assist with sorting through their thoughts when situations arise.

Have a great week,

Maree

Jumping to conclusions

  On the 24th of November, 2020, the older grades, years 4, 5 and 6 got to go on a Google Meet with Chris Grabenstein who is the author of Escape from Mr Lemoncello’s Library.          

Each class joined into one google meet. It was very exciting being on a call with someone famous. Five people were chosen from each grade to ask questions to Mr Grabenstein. I learnt a lot about Chris Grabenstein and his books are very exciting, when you start reading you want to read more!

 written by Alex Danaher 

 As the 2020 school year draws to a close, I would like to acknowledge the incredible resilience of the entire school community. I hope that while this year has meant we have remained apart for so long that it helps us look forward to coming together much more as a community next year.
 Based on the results of the survey we did earlier in the year we have begun planning some special events as a whole community, some for the children and some for the adults.

These events will be guided by the ‘new normal’ Covid guidelines, but we hope to have:
- Coffee mornings, dinners, and drinks
- An adult only quiz night in first term
- An Easter Raffle
- Family celebrations
- A golf day
- A dance
- The Christmas Market and Carols
We will need helpers for all these events, and I hope to form a committee of willing event coordinators as well as hands on help for each event. We are also seeking class social coordinators for each class – if this is something you would like to do, please let me know. More information will be shared at the beginning of 2021.

Karen Glancy
stcathsparentsandfriends@gmail.com

St Catherine's Christmas Raffle
We are excited to announce that we have received amazing donations for our Christmas Raffle this year by our generous local community. There will be 5 prizes to be won.

https://tomem.com.au/ A local tech company have donated a range of smart watches, Bluetooth speakers and headphones.

We also have hampers of toys donated by Moose, an Evaporative Cooler from Harvey Norman and a Lenovo tablet and a Google Nest min donated by Officeworks.

Tickets will go home with children tomorrow and will be $1 each – families
will receive a book of 10 tickets. Additional tickets can be collected from the office. All tickets (sold and unsold) should be returned to school by Monday the 14 th December.
Prizes will be drawn on the last day of school, Wednesday the 16 th December.