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Dear Parents, Guardian and Carers,
This Friday we celebrate World Teachers’ Day across the Diocese, but it takes more than just teachers to shape the minds of a child. Schools are made up of many roles, many that you may not notice or have affiliation with and without these roles, schools can’t function. At St Michael’s, our school family is made up of teachers, leadership roles, education support staff and administration staff. All, who play a critical role in the schooling life of your child. There’s a saying that it takes a village to raise a child - and this is very true when it comes to school. The staff at St Michael’s are passionate and dedicated in providing your child with the best possible schooling outcomes. Our teachers go above and beyond to ensure that your child is supported and nurtured in a safe school environment. Teaching is not easy, we don’t “just do it for the holidays”, we do it because we care.
So this World Teacher’s Day - a special shout out to all staff at all schools - for your tireless dedication and nurturing of all children in our schools, we say thank you.
Right to Disconnect
Effective from 26 August 2024, the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) introduced a high-level workplace right for employees to disconnect from communication received outside of their working hours, unless the refusal is unreasonable. This has been a subject of discussion at many workplaces.
At St Michael’s we are grateful to the strong partnership we have with our parent community, and whilst we have the aim of responding to emails within 24 hours, we have reminded our staff that they are not expected to respond to emails outside of their work hours. This includes emails from parents, staff or other external parties sent after hours, on the weekends or on the school holidays. Teachers will now specify their work hours on their email signature and we ask that you take note and respect the teacher’s right to disconnect out of hours.
Important dates:
- 21st to 23rd October and 25th October - Year 3/4 Swimming Program
- 26th October - Sacrament of First Eucharist Commitment Mass
- 1st and 4th November - School Closure Day
- 5th November - Melbourne Cup Public Holiday
- 19th November - School Concert 1:30pm and 6pm
Kind regards
Lia DiCorleto
Acting Principal
Servant Leadership is the message in the gospel this week. What does it really mean to practise servant leadership? It means placing the needs of others before your own desires for prestige or authority. We’ve all known people who have been given a position of leadership and they really only wanted the job as recognition of their popularity; a thank you for previous work done; an opportunity to demonstrate their strength of will or cleverness with words. Servant leadership is about collaborating; it’s about empowering people to do their best; it’s about trusting others and about rolling up your sleeves and getting on with the job.
Leadership in the Jesus model is about being of service to others; it is not about prestige and acclamation. Many of the best leaders are those who do not have any title of leadership or authority. Their leadership and authority come from what they do and how they do it. They inspire others to follow their example. They don’t demand it; they don’t bully; they don’t play power games. People simply want to follow their example.
Thinking about our lives now ….. Who do you really admire? Who would you really like to be like? Aside from sports stars, models and actors whose particular skills you might admire or even envy; who is a person who lives their life in a way that you would like to emulate? Perhaps it’s not that you want to do exactly what they have done but rather it’s the way they’ve gone about living their life. I would bet that there is a close match between what they hold to be true and the way they live their life – integrity!
Preparation for the Sacrament of First Holy Communion begins tonight. There is a meeting in the church at 6pm this evening for parents of the children celebrating this sacrament. This is an important part of the preparation for the sacrament.
If your child is in Grade 4 or above and you are wanting them to receive the sacrament this year, enrolment forms need to be handed immediately.
Each week students from each class are awarded Student of the Week certificates. These children are nominated for the example they have been within the school based on the School Wide Expectation focus for that week. The weekly focus will be from Wednesday until Tuesday the following week. Awards will be presented to students at assembly on Friday.
In Week 3 the School Wide Expectation focus is Learning:
I set high expectations of what I can achieve.
I work hard and always try my best.
I reflect on my own learning and how I can improve.
I can receive and act on feedback.
| Harrison Ryan | Maria Rajesh | Ella Thornton |
| Hudson Adamo | Ari Paniyiotou | Milla Riess |
| Caleb Kaiser | Sanvika Suveesh | Jessie Ing |
| Mia Celima | Harrison Milliner | Miles Blackford |
| Janvi Promod | Oliver Sutherland | Harry McMahon |
| Sophie Taylor | Theo Moretti | |
| Mehluli Njanike | Violette Cummins |
As Term 4 progresses, we continue to embed our Resilience Project Principles in all elements of our learning. At home, you too can support your child (and yourself) by practising Gratitude, Empathy, Mindfulness and Emotional Literacy.
Working on our emotional literacy gives us opportunities to develop our ability to understand and express different emotions. When we improve our emotional literacy, we can work towards recognising our own feelings and our ability to manage them. This allows us to cope with different life situations, such as managing conflict, making friends, coping in difficult situations, and being resilient when dealing with change.
Whole Family Activity:
Feelings Charades
- Gather together as a family, this might be around the dinner table, lounge room, or around the fire outside.
- Take turns to act out a feeling or emotion. Use your face and body language to act this out, For example: Make an angry face and stamp your feet or
- Other family members need to guess the feeling/emotion.
- After someone has guessed the feeling/emotion, have family members discuss a time they have felt this way before and why. If it was a negative emotion, how did they overcome it?
Family Habit Builder:
Around the dinner table, ask everyone to share a feeling they felt during that day. Discuss how they dealt with that feeling and then discuss and share strategies you could use when faced with particular feelings.
We offer hot lunches weekly on a Monday with Munch Lunch. They are a local company that offer a variety of lunch items.
Ordering is simple, download the Spriggy Schools app via your App Store or Google Play store, select St Michael's School, add your children and their class to the app and place your order! Lunches will then be delivered to school. Orders need to be placed by 9:00am on the day. You can pre order lunches 2 weeks in advance.
Contact: Munch Lunch 0459 220 445 or hello.munch.lunch@gmail.com
Icy poles are available in Break 2 for 50 cents each with a limit of one per student.
