O God of unity

We thank you for the variety of cultures in this world.

Enrich our lives by ever widening circles of friendship and show us your presence in those who are most different from us.

Help us to love and care for each other just as you care and love each one of us.

You call us to live in peace and harmony within our beautiful multicultural country, and may we show true justice as we are called to recognize and respect the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Cultures and societies.

As we walk together, strong in faith on this Harmony Day, let us turn to God with our hopes and prayers.

Creator Spirit, you are God who brings peace. We ask you to bless all the sick, homeless and imprisoned; the weary, the lonely and the lost. We pray for compassion, kindness, healing and protection for all those who are suffering. We especially ask you to bless war-torn countries; that peace be restored and that you guide the hearts and minds of those with power to be instruments of your peace.

Creator Spirit, you are our God who accepts. Help us to open our arms, hearts and minds to all our brothers and sisters in Australia and appreciate the many cultures, languages and backgrounds of our people. Help us to always show compassion and kindness, and grant us the strength to help carry burdens of others.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow our community  celebrates and embraces our diversity with  Harmony Day.  As both a Catholic and International Baccalaureate school, we believe in the values of inclusion, respect and diversity.  We emphasise the importance of global awareness and we celebrate each person's uniqueness- reminding us all to be proud of who we are.  I look forward to seeing lots of orange clothes, or cultural dress throughout the school.  Year 2 will be leading the school in a Harmony Day Prayer celebration at 2:30pm in our Parish Church, and all are welcome. 

Swimming Carnival

On Friday, March 15th, Holy Trinity hosted its annual swimming carnival. It was a bustling day of activities with students engaged in various events, including 50-metre, 25-metre, and novelty races. We extend our sincere gratitude to all parent volunteers whose invaluable assistance contributed to the success of the event.

Numerous students demonstrated exceptional skill, earning qualification for the next stage of the School Sports swimming program, the South/Weston Swimming Carnival, scheduled for April 5th. Those students who have achieved qualification will receive notification within the upcoming week.

The highlight of the day was the number of parents we saw cheering on their children and creating a fantastic atmosphere poolside. The teachers were able to cling to victory in the annual teacher/parent/student race in what was a great way to finish the swimming events.

A HUGE thank you to all our parent volunteers and staff who supported our swimmer throughout the day.  These carnivals cannot happen as smoothly without this.  I would especially like to acknowledge and thank our Sports Coordinator, Ben Davis, who worked incredibly hard to ensure our students had a wonderful day of competition swimming and fun.  Thank you also to our Kinder and Year 1 students ,teachers and parent volunteers who had a great water fun day back at school, despite the change in weather. 

Looking ahead, our next school-wide sporting event will be the cross-country carnival, slated for the final day of Term One, April 12th. Students have already begun running in preparation for this day.

Ben Davis, Sports Coordinator

Toddle Information Session- strengthening the home school partnership

On March 26 at 5:30pm we hope you can join us for an Information Session in the library. We will be exploring how you can engage in your child's learning using the Toddle platform,  what it means for us to be an IB school, and how through our conversations at home we can nurture curiosity and foster connections. 

We look forward to seeing you at this session. If you have any questions please email prue.sheargold@cg.catholic.edu.au 

PERMAH Well Being Focus

As discussed at our parent information night earlier in the term, we are are continuing throughout the school to weave the five measurable elements of well-being throughout our teaching and learning-  Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Achievement and Health.  No one element defines well-being, but each contributes to it; thus, it is necessary to be able to teach strategies to help effectively develop these elements in our lives.  As part of this, we need to collect data on our students to ensure our focus has positive impact each year.  Thus our Year 3-6 students will be participating in a PERMAH survey over the coming weeks, which is confidential and easy to complete. Our staff have also recently participated in a PERMAH survey, as we are also committed to ensuring our teachers and staff  are given opportunity to flourish in all of these important facets of well-being.  

This  week our School Board and P and F met for the final time as these two separate entities.  From next term, we will be transforming into a Community Council.  More information will be shared as we transition, however our community can be assured that we will still continue with the new council to work effectively together for all in our community.  I would like to acknowledge and thank Jane Baseby for all she has given to our School Board and school community over many years.  Jane is unable to continue on the new Council, and I cannot thank her enough for her wisdom, support and advocacy of our school-  thank you Jane.

Please continue to keep our Reconciliation candidates in your prayers, especially as they participate in the Retreat Day tomorrow.  Please also keep Emily Capper in your prayers as she continues to recover from surgery.

I look forward to seeing many of our community at our P and F BBQ tomorrow beginning at 5;30pm on the back grounds of the school and oval.  Families are welcome to bring rugs, chairs etc to sit on, and BYO food and drinks.  The P and F will be providing a sausage sizzle.

Have a wonderful weekend and a peace-filled week ahead with your beautiful families.

Philippa

Reconciliation Retreat

Tomorrow all students making the Sacrament of Reconciliation and all students in Year 3 will partake in our Reconciliation Retreat Day with Saints Peter and Paul. Students are welcome to wear free dress and will need to pack their lunch. Please no lunch orders as we will be having lunch at different times.  If any students would like to dress in their cultural outfits for Harmony Day, they may change after the Retreat Day, or wear this all day if comfortable. 

Caritas Easter Raffle

During Week 8 and 9, students will be able to purchase a ticket into our Easter Raffle. Our year 6 leaders will be selling tickets before school and at lunch. Tickets are $1 for 1 or $5 for 6. All money raised will be donated to Caritas.

Guess the Baby!

Our students have been exploring the concepts of identity and change. We have been viewing baby photos of the children and trying to match it with the correct class mate. What do you notice is the same? What do you notice is different?

Following an excursion to the National Portrait Gallery, the children have also been invited to create self portraits, both using loose parts, as well as drawing mediums. A self portrait is a wonderful insight into seeing a child through their own eyes. It demonstrates the development of a child's fine motor, observation skills, and body awareness. 

Stay and Play

Playgroup for pre-preschoolers and their families. Wednesday mornings from 9am-10.00am in the ELC Playground (weather permitting). Parents, grandparents, carers and children are all very welcome.

While the rest of the school was at the swimming carnival Kindergarten and Year 1 had fun participating in our very own water fun day. We had a blast! We enjoyed a series of fun activities including a ninja warrior course, water relay, and of course a massive water fight! We would like to thank our fantastic parent volunteers for helping out and the VERY generous Kids Biz for donating all the activity stations. Without them this day could not happen. Thank you for your continued support of Holy Trinity. We dub you our official sponsors of fun!

Dear Holy Trinity Community,

The Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge (CMRC) is about to start at Holy Trinity for 2024. All children from the ELC to Year 6 have been registered for the challenge.

The challenge is all about student agency and is completely up to individual students if they wish to be involved. The CMRC is simply for fun and to encourage lifelong readers. Individual classes will also nominate to be involved in the challenge.

Holy Trinity has been involved in the CMRC for several years now. It is a popular reading challenge and as a school we usually win some great prizes.

Each child from the ELC to Year 6 is ‘challenged’ to read 30 age-appropriate books over a set time frame of approximately 15 weeks.

The 30 books can be… Fiction or non-fiction, poetry, EBooks, audio books, books on Sora, graphic books, home books and of course library books. As long as the books are age appropriate – not too easy for the older kids and not too hard for the younger kids.

Please note that in 2024 a short book review written after reading a book also counts as a book (attach any reviews to the form that you send in).

As a school we will officially start the challenge Week 10 of this term (but you can include any books read from 12^th February onwards).

There will be a display in the hallway near Kinder that keeps track of which child finishes the 30 books and how many books they read over the challenge.

There is also a raffle that runs throughout the challenge. As children finish a CMRC sheet, they return it to the library, get it signed off and then get a raffle ticket. At the conclusion of the challenge prizes are given to each grade level from Scholastic Book Club funds.

At the end of the challenge, I take four great readers to the awards ceremony, morning tea and a shop at Paperchain. Big fun!

Attached is a link to two CMRC challenge sheets – one is just for 30 books to be read of your choice; the other sheet is a challenge to read 30 books with a twist (this challenge looks like great fun).

Please click on the attached link for more information

https://www.education.act.gov.au/public-school-life/additional-programs/chief_ministers_reading_challenge

Happy Days,

Kate Mertz 

Important Dates - Linked to School Calendar

*Please note that dates can change through out the term

Staff and students celebrating their birthday this week are:Dylan T, Milla G, Jahla N, Sage W, Ava R, Violet C, Nicholas K, Hunter H and Mrs McCann. Wishing you all a wonderful birthday.