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Dear St Anne's Community,
We have been blessed with the recent rain, but it is also nice to see some sunshine at the end of this week. I hope you are all well and staying warm and dry.
COVID
The COVID-19 situation continues to be problematic as you know. The various strains of the virus are keeping medical experts busy in advising us on how to manage this as a community. Whilst we have been quite lucky with the situation in Temora, we must remain vigilant in terms of hygiene and be aware that things can change very quickly. The main reminder is for staff and students not to attend school if they have cold or flu symptoms. We also ask for your cooperation in collecting your child from school if they develop symptoms whilst at school. Face masks continue to be a requirement on school grounds for parents, secondary students and staff. We are also limited to our Local Government Area for excursions.
Community Council Meeting
Our next Community Council Meeting is on Tuesday 10th August at 7pm. We are always looking for new members and I encourage you to come along. The input of parents in the school is a vital link to its success.
Canteen Help
It is great to have our school canteen back up and running and we appreciate the fantastic job that Belinda is doing in there. We are in need of helpers to assist Belinda with the canteen, particularly on a Friday. Even if it is for a short amount of time, it is still helpful. Thank you
Student Absences
Since the beginning of this term, we have been using a new student management system called Compass. Compass has been great for monitoring student attendance and it provides some great data for us. If your child has been absent without explanation, a generic letter is printed out from Compass and sent home for you to sign. We thank you for your support with this. This process will become a lot easier when the Parent Portal opens up in the near future.
New Students
A warm welcome to Paige Strudwick. Paige joined our Year 7 class today. We also extend that welcome to Abigail and Isabella Darrington. Abigail will join Year 7 and Isabella will join Year 8 on Monday next week. It is great to have these new students join our school and we look forward to getting to know them and their families.
Take care,
Grant Haigh
Happy Feast Day
On Monday we celebrated the Feast of our school patron saint with the St Anne and Joachim Mass. Unfortunately we were unable to invite families to join us, but please know that you were included in our prayers. We recognise that in Saints Anne and Joachim the example of complete devotion is exemplified. They were people of strong faith, openly expressing their love and devotion to God. They serve as role models of fidelity, love and dedication. As the parents of our mother Mary and grandparents of Jesus, they have a special place in the Church and in our hearts. We recognised during Mass the special role that our own grandparents play in our lives and gave thanks for this gift to each of us. It was a fitting Mass to induct our new SRC representatives, acknowledging the faithfulness and dedication which these special saints can provide as an example.
Guided by the example of St Anne and St Joachim, and inspired by the work of the sisters of St Joseph in this community, may we be forever faithful, willing to offer our service for the will of God.
Special thanks to Nola Drum (sacristan), Julian Drumore (acolyte) and Bella Nguyen (altar server) for their generosity of service for our Feast day Mass. Special thanks also to Sharn Ferguson and Bella Bush for operating the overhead, Mrs Holland for leading the Induction, Miss Ryan for the music and Mrs Wallace for the photos.
Congratulations are extended to our newly Inducted Semester 2 Representatives.
The new representatives for Semester 2 are:
Year 3: Grace McCrone & Billy Cassidy
Year 4: Ava Derrick & Oscar Block
Year 5: Eliana Orbita & Charlie Cooper
Year 7: Lilli Block & Jett Nguyen
Year 8: Guinevere Drumore & Mitchell Dunstan
Year 9: Poppy Minchin & Bea Balon
Unfortunately Grace was absent for the Mass but she received her badges this week upon her return. Thank you to the parents who were able to join us via zoom for the Induction of their children at the Mass.
We of course continue to be represented by our primary and secondary school captains, who are an integral part of the Student Representative Council. Bethany Wiencke & Adelaide Gaynor (Year 6) and Lachlan Crawford & Jordan Meyer (Year 10).
SHINE Conference next week for Stage 5
Next Friday the Stage 5 students will be involved in the SHINE gathering of Youth Ministry students from Years 9 & 10 across the Archdiocese. We are sure that the students will still embrace this opportunity. This year the format has been changed to a 2 hour streamed presentation with the theme for this year “Living Water”, related to the scripture from John 4:13 -
Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.
Students and staff have had a busy 2 weeks celebrating and learning more about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture. NAIDOC Week began with a whole school Liturgy where students took time to reflect on how we can all help to ‘Heal country’.
Throughout the week infants and primary learned about the totems of the local Wiradjuri people: the goanna and the long neck turtle and the way Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have cared for our country for over 60 000 years. They also had a chance to paint with some ochre and come up with some ways that they can continue to care for our land and the people and animals within it. In Secondary students learned about the destruction of sacred sites taking place across Australia and thought about what it would be like if a place sacred to them such as a family farm or holiday spot was destroyed. Students then came up with some insightful things they could do to help protect and heal the country such as; put people before profits and get to know more about our own local sacred sites so that we don’t do the same here.
As part of our celebrations we also planted a native ‘Summer Glory” Corymibia Hybrid at Father Hannan as our contribution to to help heal the landscape and provide food and shelter for local animals. It is hoped that this will be the first plant in what will become a native Aboriginal garden for our students to enjoy.
At Primary Assembly students learned an Acknowledgement of Country which included some actions to help them to remember and deepen their understanding. An Acknowledgment to Country is given as a sign of respect to the Wiradjuri people for sharing and caring for the land we now get to learn and play on.
On Monday Wiradjuri Elder Aunty Kath Withers came to visit our school. Aunty Kath is an acclaimed Wiradjuri Artist with works on display in both the National Museum and the National Gallery of Australia. She gave a Welcome to Country at our Secondary assembly and then paid a visit to our year 1 & 2 students to let them explore some possum pelts, emu eggs, an emu caller and clapping sticks. She then spent 3 hours teaching our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students how to weave traditional baskets. All students got so much out of the opportunity to deepen their understanding of culture and spend time learning from Aunty Kath.
If your child identifies as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and you haven’t let us know, please feel free to reach out and speak to either Mrs Wallace or Mrs Gaynor. The more students we have identified in our school the more resources we are able to access to ensure we can strengthen Aboriginal Education at St Anne’s.
This year ‘Fête Nationale du 14 juillet’ or French National Day, fell in the school term and not the holidays, so we have spent the last 2 weeks celebrating French culture! Students have learned about the French Revolution and the storming of the Bastille which occured on the 14th July and is now their national holiday. We also made the most of the opportunity to try some French food! Students tasted some cheese: Brie, camembert, blue and chevre (goats cheese) as well as chicken liver pâté! Hands down favourite was petit pain au chocolat (choc croissants) and a Belgian biscuit paste! New food is always a good way to step out of our comfort zone and try something in the name of culture, so well done to all who gave it a go!
This term students will learn the names of parts of the body and take a look at the various sports played by students in France. They will also learn about the French education system, which is quite different to our own, and ultimately be able to create their own timetable in French and express which subject is their favourite… Clearly the answer is French!
Congratulations to the Year 7 students whose achievements earned them a place in the 200 and 300 club this learning cycle. Keep up the great work!
The beginning of the term has been very busy in Year 5. In writing we have begun our speeches, which we do every year. This year, Year 5’s topic is It’s Complicated. With lots of discussion around the things that are complicated some Year 5’s are realising speech writing is one of those things!!!
We have started History for the Semester, looking at Australia as a Nation. We travelled right back to the Indigenous living on the land, which tied in nicely with NAIDOC week. In the coming weeks Year 5 will learn about the events leading up to Federation and significant Australians who contributed to Federation.
In Religion this term Year 5 will be learning about how a community of believers can encourage and strengthen each other. This links to our school community, parish community and the wider community of believers. We will investigate how people from the past, like Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop, still influence people today.
In Science our topic is Magnets. This week we investigated whether a magnet always attracts an object if there is something put in between the magnet and the object.
Week 1
Kindergarten - Winfred Puertos, Tristan Swanston, Wade Whitton
Yr 1 - Samuel Moroney, Jackson Parry, Archie Block
Yr 2 - Ava Crawford, Champa Chau, Noah Swanston
Yr 3 - Kayde Brace, Leo Drenovski, Elsie Keith
Yr 4 - Imogen Baldock, Harvey Drumore, Billy Krause
Yr 5 - Kimberley Roberts, Marley Block, Lani McCrone
Yr 6 - Jack King, Lily Gibbs, Layla Paki
Gotcha Award - Alice Reid, Ayden George
Scholastic Book Fair Update
Thank you for supporting the Scholastic Book Fair. Lots of orders have been received and now sent home. Our school benefits from your support as we are able to purchase new books for our Library with the commission we receive for hosting the Book Fair.
Please note that the Book Fair is now CLOSED and that no more orders will be accepted.
Book Club
Please complete ALL Book Club payments online beginning with the next issue #6.
Stage 3 Library
During their Library lessons, Stage 3 took on the role of becoming an author and illustrator to create a picture book for our Kinder and Year 1 students. The results have been outstanding!!!
Stage 3 students learnt about what goes into making a picture book and explored some of the different types of language features used. They also studied different techniques that illustrators used to support the text of picture books. Armed with this knowledge, each stage 3 students was buddied up with a student from either a Kinder or Year 1 and interviewed them to help with the planning of their book.
After many weeks of writing, editing, publishing, drawing and craft, Stage 3 were ready to delight our Infants students with their ‘published picture book’. Kinder and Year 1 were invited to the Library yesterday to join the Stage 3 students during their Library lessons so that they could bring their books to life with a special reading.
Primary Western Region Athletics update - At this stage the Western Region Athletics carnival is going ahead but a date is not known. If for some reason the Western Region Carnival cannot be held then times recorded at school carnivals will be used to determine a Western Region team. Fingers crossed things improve with Covid!!
At present Catholic schools within the Canberra-Goulburn diocese cannot compete in inter school sporting carnivals, so the Trent Barrett Shield could still be played in Temora but St Anne's cannot compete. Other dates will be considered, possibly later in term 3 or 4 to complete the Trent Barrett Shield competition.
We are always looking for new volunteers to help on our canteen on a Monday, the occasional Tuesday or for an hour (10.30am to 11.30am) on a Friday. Please contact our canteen manager, Belinda on 0412 142166 if you can help out.
Monday 16th August - Team 3 - Lisa van Egmond, Danielle Haigh
Monday 23rd August - Team 4 - Angela Gilchrist, Amber Crawford, Kerissa Reardon, Rochelle Caldwell
Monday 30th August - Team 5 - Meg Morton, Ali McCrone, Carissa Bett
Monday 6th September - Team 6 - Sally Cassidy, Marna Crawford, El Warren
Monday 13th September - Team 1 - Atalie Perry, Carly Bickham, Andrea Cartwright
Return dates for Platform Y are:
Culture and Performing Arts- Wednesday 21st of July
Hospitality- Thursday 22nd, Friday 23rd of July
Gaming- Friday 23rd July
Environmental Group- Monday 2nd of August
