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Dear Families
This is the final newsletter for the 2020 school year. We thank our Gr 6 students for their leadership in our school. May God continue to bless and guide you on life’s journey. Amen
Advent is a time of preparing for Jesus’ birth, we prepare our homes, our classrooms, our towns and most importantly, we prepare our hearts.
It is important that we teach our children that Christmas is so much more than the decorations and gift giving. The first Christmas story is the real meaning of Christmas, that baby Jesus was born to unsuspecting, average parents and he grew up to teach and share God’s message of love with everyone. Jesus’ message in that time was new and refreshing. He spoke of love and forgiveness and living your life to the full.
A great way of helping your family recognise the real meaning of Christmas is to participate in our Christmas Eve Liturgy, here in our school yard at 5pm. The F/1 students will act out the nativity story and students in Gr 2,3,4,5 & 6 will perform two special songs. All children are welcome to come dressed as someone from the nativity. (Mary, Joseph, angel, king, shepherd etc) You don’t have to come dressed up, but you are very welcome to if you want. This is a great way of helping children to think of others at Christmas and to pray for other people in our world.
Community Carols in Trafalgar Wed Dec 16th 7pm Traf High School. Families are invited to join in the Christmas Spirit. There will be traditional Christmas music and readings and the nativity story dramatized. Mrs Balfour and Mrs Maxwell-Garratt are getting a group of students together to perform a Christmas Reading.
A note will go home to indicate your attendance at these two significant events, so that we can practise and then perform at them.
The School Advisory Committee has sent out a voting slip to see if the community would like a change of school T-shirt. There are 3 options: keep the yellow Tshirt the same, go for either a yellow Tshirt with green side panels or a green Tshirt with yellow side panels. Each family will have one vote. If you don’t return your vote, we will ring you and ask you for your vote. The voting closes this Friday. The option with the greatest vote will win. We will let you know next week what the outcome of the vote is.
Word of caution: as the school Tshirt might change you might like to hold off buying new school Tshirts for awhile. There will of course be a very generous transition time if a new Tshirt is voted in.
Rebates on Camps and Excursions
2020 has been a different year. Most classes have not been able to have any excursions so we are in the process of rebating each family the cost of the excursion levy. Some classes have not been able to have their camp program, so all or some of this has been rebated as well. Our swimming program did not go ahead this year, so this too is being rebated. From an administration point of view, this is all quite complicated and individual. Vicki has worked hard to get your accurate statement out to you and we thank you for your patience with this. If you need any more information about the fee rebates please ring Vicki 56331151.
As you are aware we received a grant from the Bendigo Bank to build the Gaga pit, cubbies and teepees. Roman Cathomen and some of our students have worked together to build them. We are so excited with them and we are putting them to very good use. I’d like to thank especially Ben Plozza, Jason Blackshaw and Kai Paul for their dedication and work on this project. Our yard looks terrific and we are very grateful for your work.
We will celebrate our End of Year/Graduation Liturgy virtually on Thurs Dec 10th at 2.30. This is where the school community gives thanks for the school year and sends off our Gr 6 students. Then on Mon Dec 14th at 11.45am we will celebrate the Gr 6 Graduation Ceremony virtually. This is generally for the Gr 6 families. Both these events will be presented on Google Meeting as they happen and will also be recorded so you can view it again later. On both these occasions it is really important that you join the meeting early as once we start the presentation and hit record, we cannot stop to allow other people to join. If you are late wanting to join, then you will have to wait and watch the recording at a later time. We will make the recordings available as soon as we can.
Written School Reports will be available on PAM on Monday Dec 11 at 4pm. Hard copy reports are available on request. If you have any questions about the reports you are welcome to make an appointment with your child’s class teacher in the last week of term.
Foundation Orientation is Tues Dec 8th in two small groups. This year it is recommended that orientation for Foundation students be separate to orientation for the other classes, so orientation for the rest of the classes is on Monday afternoon 7th. When the students come home from school on Monday they will be able to tell you which class they are in and who their teacher is.
We have a wonderful (Subarashii) day planned for our Japanese Day on Friday December 11th. Activities include origami, manga drawing, sumo socks, Japanese reading and music. Japanese has been a continual focus of ours this year and we have noticed the impact this learning has had on the student’s learning. Thank you (arigatou) Taylor Sensei for all your work and direction in this area. We so appreciate your help.
We are excited to announce that our school camp is booked for week 4 in 2021 at Allambee Mon 15th, Tues 16th & Wed 17th Feb 2021. The cost will be around $280 and more information will come out early in the 2021 school year.
It’s great to have camps back on the agenda.
2021 Booklists are available on-line from Trafalgar Newsagency. We request that you get your child’s booklist requirements at the Trafalgar Newsagency as it makes life in the classroom easier if each student has what the teacher has asked for. Sometimes the cheaper books are cheaper quality and we find that they don’t last very long.
May God’s peace and love gather up your family this Christmas time. We pray that we all enjoy safe and restful holidays. God bless,
Trish Mulqueen
Principal
DECEMBER
8th State-wide Orientation Day
Prep Orientation Group 1(9 to 10.55) and then Group 2(11.30 to 1.25)
10th End of Year/Graduation Virtual Liturgy 2.30pm
11th Japanese Day (rescheduled)
14th Gr 6 Last Day (activities day for Gr 5 & 6s)
15th Gr 4 Special Outdoors Activity Day
16th Last day for all students (1pm dismissal)
17th First Aid Training for staff
18th Planning day for staff
JANUARY 2021
27th School starts back for staff
29th School starts back for students
FEBRUARY
3rd Foundation Rest Day
9th P & F Virtual Meeting 9.30am
10th Foundation Rest Day