Dear Parents 

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a safe and restful holiday ready for what will be a very busy Term 2. We especially welcome Jaxson (Year 4) and Meckenzie (Year 3) to our St Bede’s community and hope that their association with us is a happy one.

It is our Walkathon tomorrow! Despite the weather forecast being quite bleak, we are hoping to still hold this event from 11am. Students are encouraged to dress in ‘Superhero’ costumes. If they don’t own or have access to a costume, students should wear their sports uniform please. All family members are most welcome to join their children on the walk. Thanks again to Mrs Fox for organising this worthwhile fundraiser and community event for St Bede’s. As mentioned previously, all money raised will go to increasing technology equipment.

The enrolment period for 2020 has begun and this week is our Open Week for Term 2 where families who are thinking of enrolling their child in Kindergarten next year can visit and be taken on a tour by our school leaders. Many thanks to Luton Real Estate for again sponsoring our road signs this year. Thanks also to families who helped out with placing the signs on the roadsides and posters in shopping centres last weekend as well as distributing fliers around their neighbourhoods. If you know of anyone who has a Kindergarten aged child, please encourage them to come and see our beautiful school. We have had a bit of interest already in the first part of this week which is very encouraging.

This week is also ‘Catholic Schools Week’ and, to celebrate the wonderful things that happen in our Catholic schools and especially St Bede’s, we are having a community breakfast tomorrow morning from 8.30am where the staff will provide a bacon and egg roll, juice or tea and coffee. Thank you to all those who have sent a RSVP for this great community event.

It was unfortunate that our annual Cross Country Carnival had to be cancelled last Friday due to rain. We looked at the calendar and, unfortunately, there wasn’t another day to re-schedule. Consequently, teachers held the event in their sport time this week. Ribbons for placegetters will be distributed next Monday at morning assembly.

The National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) will be held throughout schools for students in Years 3 and 5 over the next two weeks. After the trial last year of the tests online, all assessments will now be online except for the Year 3 writing test. I would like to stress that this is a one-off test in four subject areas of the curriculum to give families a snapshot of their child’s progress. We endeavour to reduce any anxieties around this test and provide a positive and supportive environment. 

Yesterday, eight of our Year 5/6 students represented our school at the da Vinci Decathlon. This event is a tremendous opportunity for a group of students to work on challenging tasks against other ACT schools. Thank you to Mrs Fox for organising the students and accompanying them on the day.

We are participating in ‘Walk Safely To School Day’ next Friday (17th) beginning at Flinders Way Pavilion (Grammar Oval) at 8.15am. This is another opportunity we offer the children at St Bede’s to participate as a community. All family members are again most welcome to join us.

We have transitioned into winter uniform over the last couple of weeks as the temperature can often fluctuate at this time of year. I would like to thank you for your support of our uniform policy as we move to only winter uniform from next week. Can we please reinforce that nail polish is not appropriate for school days? We will continue to wear hats until the end of May. I will let the you know when beanies may be worn.

Next Monday at 2.45pm is our Mother’s Day Focus Assembly being presented by Year 4. Please feel free to join us as we celebrate all our lovely mothers, stepmothers, foster mothers and grandmothers.

Happy Mother’s Day to all our mums!

Have a lovely weekend

Regards

Julie