Lynda's News
It is alway a good idea to keep revisiting conversations about online safety with children. ESafety Commissioner has a wealth of resources for parents to support conversations about safety issues and strategies children can use. The videos are a quick and easy way to access information. See the link below:
https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/resources
School Uniform
Parents are reminded that we do have some second hand uniform items available onsite at school, located in the P & F room. Items are very reasonably priced.
Students need to be wearing winter uniforms. Classroom teachers have been regularly reminding students about appropriate uniform items, including jewellery and hair accessories. Please see the uniform policy attached.
Students are reminded to wear the school jumper or zip jacket outside and may wear any coloured coat especially in the wet and cold weather.
Sex Ed 4 Schools
Information about the years 3-6 Sex Ed 4 schools program will be held via zoom, Tuesday 18 June from 6:30-7:30pm. The program that students participate in covers the Victorian Curriculum requirements.
Please click on this link
Sex Ed 4 Schools Parent Information Session
P & F Mural Consultation Group
A big thank you to Susan from our P & F for her work with driving the P&F mural project. Tonight Monday 17 June a number of students and family members will meet to further explore ideas and themes that will form a mural at St Catherine's focused on the theme of belonging. A group of students have met previously with Susan to share their ideas. Families, as important members of the school community, have now been invited to a second workshop to further explore these ideas and add in the things that are important to them.
HOLT Netball
Congratulations to our HOLT netball team who won division B HOLT netball last Thursday 13 June. They persevered in the drizzling rain to win all their matches. Thanks to Sue, Antonella and parents who supported the students to get to and from the venue.
St Catherine’s Got Talent
Family and friends are invited to St Catherine’s Got Talent final on Thursday 20 June at 2:15pm in our school hall. We had 19 entrants audition and we are down to 8 finalists. We are excited to see our finalists' performances.
Year 5’s Community Outreach Program
Many of our year 5 students have been visiting local kinders and childcare centres supporting younger students with learning and playing. They have been fantastic student ambassadors, showing respect, kindness and understanding through their interactions with younger children. The staff at the visiting centres have commented on how wonderful our students are.
Our Kindergarten friends from Bruthen Street Kindergarten also came for a visit and spent time with Mrs Hills in the Foundation classroom. Our fantastic choir popped in to sing a song or two, which the children loved.
Phonics
There has been a lot of coverage in the media regarding the teaching of phonics in primary schools. I want to reassure parents that St Catherine’s has always taught phonics as part of our reading and writing programs. In recent years we have taken a more explicit approach to the teaching of phonics, which includes evidence-based best practice.
Melbourne Archdiocese Schools (MACS) has already begun working closely with schools in this area, launching the Vision for Instruction: Flourishing Learners position statement. The statement is drawn from evidence-based research on the Science of Learning and gives clear teaching direction to schools on best practice.
It is worth noting that a high quality, evidence-based reading approach that we implement in our school comprises of:
Phonemic awareness- Understanding that speech is made up of words and words are made up of distinct sounds
Phonics- Phonics is knowledge of the relationships between letters and sounds and the ability to use this knowledge to decode and write words
Fluency- Reading accurately, quickly and expressively
Vocabulary-Knowledge of the meaning of words
Comprehension- The ability to understand and construct meaning from text.
Parent/Teacher/Student Meetings
Term 3 Parent/Teacher/Student Meetings will be held face to face in your child's classroom. Students are required to attend these meetings with their parents as they will be sharing their semester 1 achievements and learning goals for semester 2.
Meetings are scheduled for:
Wednesday 17th July
Thursday 18th July
Meetings will be 15 minutes duration.
Please do not book back-to-back meetings if you have more than one child to allow time to move between the meetings.
Click here to book Parent/Teacher/Student meetings
Or
Go to the Parent Teacher Student Meeting tile on the SZapp school app
Student semester one reports will be sent home with students on Friday 28 June (last day of term 2).
Term 3 Dates
Term 3 begins on Monday 15 July
Term 3 ends on Friday 20 September
Teachers will send home important dates for term 3 in the Curriculum Term 3 Outline at the beginning of the term.
