Term 1 - Week 9 - Newsletter

Prayer of the Week

Prayer retrieved from https://www.hathernprimary.org/school-prayer.html 

From the Principal’s Desk…

At the commencement of 2023, the St Thomas More’s Leadership Team engaged in collaborative discussions with school staff (teachers and school officers), School Advisory Council and Parents and Friends Committee to formulate the St Thomas More’s Annual Action Plan.  The foundations of the Annual Action Plan stem from the findings and recommendations from the School Review and Improvement Process conducted by the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Office in 2022.  From these findings, we can establish a strategic direction and agenda to ensure school improvement and development over twelve months.

With the Annual Action Plan being such a lengthy and comprehensive document, it can prove challenging to share the contents of strategic improvement with the school community.  Therefore, I am excited to share our 2023 Annual Action Plan in graphic form. 

Essentially, our 2023 priorities encapsulate four key areas:  Family of Faith, Inclusive Education, Excellence in Teaching and Parent Voice.

Family of Faith (Religious Education and Spiritual Life of St Thomas More’s):

• Acknowledge and align our school values: faith, hope, justice and joy, meaningfully and consistently across everyday practice.
• Make explicit and embed the school’s charism by promoting and challenging all staff to acknowledge and celebrate the 2023 Religious focus: “Never see a need without doing something about it.” (St Mary Mackillop)

Inclusive Education:

• Develop and implement an explicit and efficient ‘Inclusive Education’ model, providing clarity for teachers, parents and children.
• Enhance Personalised Learning Opportunities

Excellence in Learning:

• Continue to build staff familiarity and capacity with the STM Behaviour Support Plan, with specific reference to ‘Positive Behaviour 4 Learning’ and the ‘Tiered System of Support’.
• Continue to build staff familiarity and capacity around the STM and TCSO Non-negotiables, Gradual Release of Responsibilities and High Impact Teaching Strategies.
• Reinvigorate the classroom walkthroughs and observations with feedback, coaching cycles and opportunities for teachers to observe each other.
• Consolidate previously actioned projects/initiatives: Writing Improvement Strategy, Reading Improvement Strategy and Illuminate RE

Parent Voice:

• Collaborate and consult with relevant stakeholders pertaining to resourcing and building improvements, including the Master Plan.

I hope this information provides you with both relevant and specific information pertaining to the future direction and key improvement priorities for 2023.

All the best for a great week!

God Bless,

Duane Wann

Principal

Lucky Number Plate: St Thomas More’s Car Stickers

St Thomas’s More’s Car Stickers have been distributed to most classes (we are yet to share with all families).  Be sure to place your St Thomas’s More’s Car Sticker on your car to be in the running for a $50 Rebel Sport voucher to be announced at the conclusion of Term One!

Parent/Volunteer Sign In/Sign Out Reminder

Please be reminded, parents/guardians who volunteer their time and support within the school (classrooms, sport, tuckshop, library, parent meetings etc) are required to sign in at the School Administration Office prior to commencing duties.  At the conclusion of voluntary duties, it is essential to sign out at the School Administration Office.

When dropping children to school late, collecting children from school early or returning children to school after meetings or appointments, please be mindful to sign back in through the School Administration Office.

Medical Conditions Procedure

1.  Medical Management Plans/Emergency Action Plans

For students with a medical condition or diagnosis requiring a Medical Management Plan/ Action Plan, these are to be developed and signed by a medical practitioner and provided to the school, or when the condition or diagnosis becomes known to the student’s parents/carers.

Medical management plans for ongoing medical conditions must be updated each year, or when circumstances change.

2.  Medication Administration

In situations where administration of medication is required whilst at school, and parents/carers are unable to administer the medication, staff will only be permitted to administer medication to a student if

i. the medication is accompanied by a Medication authorisation form completed by the parent/carer or doctor, and

ii.  the medication is in its original package with a pharmacist’s label which clearly states:

1. the student’s name
2. dosage
3. frequency of administration
4. date of dispensing
5. expiry date (expired medication must not be administered)

3.  Students Diagnosed with Asthma and/or Anaphylaxis

A. Are to have a medical management plan and emergency action plan in accordance with this procedure.

B. Must provide medication and other equipment required for the school to provide asthma (including spacer) or anaphylaxis first aid.

Student Protection Contacts

A letter from Mr Wann

From our APRE

Thank you Ms Souter and 2 Blue for sharing your lovely Prayer Celebration about St Patrick last week. It is always hard to be the first Lower School class to lead prayer but you set a great example for all our Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 children. Thank you for teaching us some new facts about St Patrick! 

Over the weekend, we also celebrated another saint special to our school, St Joseph. Early this week, each class will learn a bit about the life of St Joseph and why he is so special to our STM family. As you may know, the Sisters of St Joseph started our school in 1961. While the sisters were inspired by the life of Mary MacKillop, St Joseph was also very important to them and someone they were inspired by as well. Both Mary MacKillop and St Joseph lived lives of service to others and great faith in God. Take some time this week in prayer or reflection to consider what you can learn from St Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus. 

This week we head into our 5th week of Lent. Have you given up something you love for Lent or have you instead taken up the challenge to do a good deed each day? Don't forget we have our handy Lenten calendar to help us out.

Image retrieved from https://www.shannonparish.ie/do-you-want-to-fast-this-lent-this-is-what-pope-francis-says/ 

Project Compassion 2023

Well done to both 1 Red and 5 Gold who have been collecting huge amounts of money in their Project Compassion boxes over the past few weeks. We will leave counting our Project Compassion money for another week after the busyness of camp and other school events recently. Anything you can donate goes a long way in helping people in need. 

Don't forget, our two main fundraising initiatives for Lent for the rest of this term are 50c Friday and our Easter Raffle. Easter Raffle tickets are 50c each and can be purchased at first break and before 8:15 am each day. An enormous thank you to all those staff and families who were able to donate eggs for our raffle. We have 8 amazing hampers already made up and more eggs ready to make even more hampers. We are still taking donations of eggs if any families had some they wanted to send in. They can be dropped off in my office. 

Worship Choir

Worship Choir is back this week. Children from Year 2 - Year 6 are welcome to attend on Tuesday at First Break. We will have an additional practice on Friday this week in preparation for our Family Mass on the weekend. 

Family Mass

This term we celebrate Family Mass with the St Thomas More's Parish on Saturday, March 25th from 6:00 pm at the STM Church. This is a special opportunity for our STM families to connect with our local parish and for the children to share their love of prayer. All families are most welcome to attend. Father Nathan is leading Mass on Saturday and is looking forward to welcoming our STM families. 

If your children are helping with reading or want to be part of the choir, feel free to arrive from 5:15 pm for a quick practice. 

Volunteering at STM in 2023

We love our parent helpers at STM! Any parents who would like to volunteer at STM this year will need to complete the TCS Volunteer Induction. This needs to be completed each year by parents who volunteer at our school. Please email me (Kristin.Byrne@twb.catholic.edu.au) if you would like an induction pack sent home. 

Out of Bounds Areas

Just a friendly reminder that we have aligned our before-school and after-school out-of-bounds areas. Please note that in the afternoons there is no play on any school ovals or equipment after school, just like there is no play in these areas before school until 8:15 am when the teacher on duty opens these areas. Teachers on the Stop Drop and Go duty near the Church Carpark may choose to open the Bottom Oval Playground for play after 3:15 pm. There is to be no play on this equipment until the teachers on duty indicate so. 

Harmony Week

Happy Harmony Week! The theme for Harmony Week in 2023 is everyone belongs. Our Cultural Committee has planned some really exciting things for Harmony Week. 

This week, all students from Prep - Year 6 will be taking part in our annual Harmony Week Whole School Art Project. This year our Hallway of Hearts will reflect some of the cultures that make up our STM community. Children will be learning about Indigenous, African and Polynesian culture and art and creating hearts in these styles. If there are any families who share a different cultural background to the three we are focusing on, you are most welcome to create a heart to feature in our hallway as well. Hearts can be collected from my office any day this week. 

Mrs Weier and 4 Blue will be leading the whole school in a special Harmony Day Prayer Celebration at 11:20 am on Friday this week in the Sportscentre. All families are most welcome to come along and celebrate Harmony Week with us. Everyone belongs at STM! 

God Bless.

Miss Kristin Byrne

Assistant Principal: Religious Education

Thinking STM for Prep in 2024 ...

Miss Byrne's Important Dates to Remember for Term 1

From Our Learning Support

NAPLAN 2023 Schedule 

God Bless,

Patricia Wardle

Middle Leader/Learning Support Teacher

From Our Sport Desk

2023 STM Cross Country Program 

• Tuesday 21stMarch  
• Andersen Park  
  Starting Time   11:00am  

 The program for the day is below.   

All students require water bottles, sunscreen, and hats. Asthma puffers ( if required ) to be carried at all times. If any students have reactions to insect bites or any other allergies, please ensure the required medication ( epi pens ) has been given to teachers so that the required action can be taken.  

If students are going to absent on the day, or parents wish to take them home at conclusion of the cross country, then teachers must be notified either by note, email or seen in person on the day, as official rolls need to be marked.  

Children can wear a shirt or accessories that match their sports house.  

God bless,

Stacey Hancock

HPE Teacher 

From our Service Club

So far, our Project Compassion Campaign has raised over $700. That is a great effort. This is a great amount given we have not finished collecting money yet! We want to say thank you to everyone who has bought a raffle ticket and donated to Project Compassion so far this term. You have two more weeks to donate what you can!  

This week our Project Compassion Focus person is Tereesa. Tereesa is from Darug Country in Western Sydney. When she was 16, she had her first child and struggled to find a home and provide for her family. She spent some time homeless. Eventually, she found support from the Baabayn Healing Centre, which helped her get back on her feet and connect to her Aboriginal culture.  

Now she works at the centre and helps other young mums that are struggling. One of her favourite things at the centre is the Mum’s Group. In this group, young mums share stories and advice and Tereesa has also found a real love of Aboriginal Art. She is an accomplished artist who recently had paintings displayed during the Vivid Art Festival in Sydney.  

Project Compassion helps make things like this possible by financially supporting places like the Baabayn Healing Centre.  

Next term, Service Club would like to invite all Year 6 children who are interested in joining to come along from Week 2. We would love your help!  

Have a great week. 

God bless. 

Oliver, Brooklyn and Emma from the Service Club

From our House Representatives

We are your House Representatives for this year and we are very excited to be working with our STM community. 

Izzy and Kuai are your Hall House Representatives. 

Fletcher and Tamsyn are your Leonard House Representatives.

Nathan and Scarlett are your Finbarr House Representatives.

And Emilia, Zara and Xavier are your MacKillop House Representatives. 

We all love sport! We would like to share a Sport Morning with our St Thomas More’s school community to celebrate sport!  This will be held on the last Wednesday of this term on both the Top and Bottom Ovals.  The fun games and activities that we will share with you include … 

• Parachute games 
• Pop up tag and stuck in mud
• Skipping  

Come to school as normal and we will have these activities set up for before school play. 

We hope to see you there.  

Have a great week.

God Bless.  

Your 2023 House Representatives. 

Week 8 Awards

Well done to our students who were recipients of awards last week. Keep up the great work!

From the LOTE desk

Hi and Konnichiwa!

My name is Maddie Bermingham and I am the LOTE Japanese teacher at St Thomas More’s. I am a past student of STM and was also a Year 3 Teacher in 2018. I then lived in Japan for 3.5 years where I taught English to Japanese people of all ages, babies to grandparents. I’m excited to be back and sharing the language, culture and my experiences in Japan with your children.

It’s great to see that many children already have some knowledge about Japan!

Over the year for students in years P-6, I endeavour to expose students to the Japanese culture including where Japan is located in the world, Japanese culture and traditions, some greetings and classroom language such as please raise your hand, please stand up, please be seated, etc. Students will also be exposed to some of the characters/script used as part of the Japanese writing systems – Romaji (English letters to represent Japanese), Kanji (picture characters to represent words), Hiragana (phonetic characters unique to Japanese) and Katakana (phonetic characters unique to Japanese for words from other languages). There will be some variations across the year levels. I will be utilising a variety of mediums to teach students including the use of music, video clips, and books.

Please feel free to contact me via email – maddie.bermingham@twb.catholic.edu.au – if you have any questions.

Sayonara

Maddie Bermingham 

Japanese Teacher

From the Library

Classroom Newsletters

Parent Engagement

Please find attached the minutes from the Parent Engagement meeting for March. 

If you would like to learn more about the purpose/drive of Parent engagement, I find the Catholic Parent Schools Queensland website a great resource - https://www.cspq.catholic.edu.au/parent-engagement

Our next meeting will be held in Term 2 on Thursday 4th May at 3.15 pm. Please note that we will now meet in the LOTE room (the same room we were in for March) as there is more room there. 

If you have any agenda items or questions please send them through. 

kyliehaywoodbusiness@gmail.com 

From our Tuckshop

Tuckshop Menu

Open every Friday.  Please place your childs order through FlexiSchools by 1pm Thursdays and please supply a Paper Bag for your childs order.

News Flash: 

Exciting things happening in the Tuckshop

Tuckshop will open Thursdays and Friday in Term 2.

New Winter Menu will come out next week.

From our Uniform Shop

The Uniform Shop Trading Hours.

Monday 8.00am – 8.30am

Wednesday afternoon – By Appointment

Friday 8.00am – 8.30am

If these times don’t work for you please email your order through to THOuniform@twb.catholic.edu.au and the orders will be at the office for collection at your convenience.

Need some uniform alternations?

A hem taken up?  A skirt taken down?  Some buttons adjust on a shirt?   Give Mrs Fix It a ring and see if she can help.   

From our P & F

We invite you to the St Thomas More’s…

🍷  COMMUNITY DINNER  🍔

Friday, 24th March 
6pm - 10pm
Blue Mountain Hotel 
$30 per person 

Ticket price includes: 
▪️Welcome drink on arrival 
▪️Platters served throughout the night, including…

{Skewers}
Marinated beef & onion, moroccan lamb & capsicum, Korean fried chicken w/ asian glaze.

{Sliders}
Cheeseburger, BBQ pulled pork, chicken & bacon

{Bluey Hot}
Sausage rolls, mini pies, quiches, spring rolls, samosas, sweet chilli & tomato sauces.

{Asian}
BBQ pork buns, prawn & curry spring rolls, prawn & ginger dumplings, wagyu beef gyoza, karaage chicken, bao buns and dipping sauces.

IF YOU HAVE DIETARY REQUIREMENTS, please let us know so we can offer alternatives. 

▪️Buy your tickets before Wednesday 22nd March to go into the draw for a lucky door prize of a $25 food/drink voucher to the Blue Mountain Hotel. There are 5 to be won. 

📍RSVP via this link…

📍All payments are to be made to:

St Thomas More’s P&F 
BSB: 064433 
Account number: 00920855
Reference: name of the guests attending
($30/person)

We look forward to spending the night with you all

From the St Thomas More's Parish

Please find attached the bulletin for this week. 

Thank you!

A huge thank you to Westridge Fruit and Vegetables for their continued support with the donation of fresh fruit every week for our students!

A huge thank you to Meat Cellar for their continued support for our school events.

Notice Board