May your Good Friday be blessed with the presents of Jesus on your lips, and His never ending grace in your heart. May His grace surround your family, and fill your lives with peace, health and happiness. Amen

Welcome everyone to Holy Week-  the most important week in our Christian faith.  The Easter story teaches us humility and love. It probes our desire to think of ourselves as compassionate and generous people. The life and teaching, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ put together, are a lesson on the efficacy of humility, service, self-sacrifice, and true love. As Catholics, we live in hope, not fear and with God’s mercy and love, can overcome anything life throws at us.

We began celebrating Holy Week on Monday with our Palm Sunday celebration on Monday in our Church, hosted by Year 1. This afternoon with Year 5, we will focus on the significant events of Holy Thursday and Good Friday. Next Tuesday afternoon we will draw our incredible Easter raffle, raising generous funds for project Compassion and conclude the day with our Easter Prayer celebration, hosted by 3 Green at 2:30pm in our Church. 

Last week we celebrated many fabulous events with our community, most of them being on Friday!!  This began with Year 3 from Sts Peter and Paul, our Parish candidates and our Year 3 students participating in the Reconciliation Retreat Day.  Please continue to pray for these children as they prepare for this Sacrament to be celebrated early next term. 

Harmony Day

There is good reason that Outcome 1 of the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) is "Children have a stong sense of identity". Experiencing a healthy sense of individual identity is the foundation of children's learning, development and wellbeing. Our experience of identity is often a natural occurance and as adults, our influence on our children's development of identity cannot be understated. We must give opportunities for children to ponder their own identity - 'Who am I?', 'What are my values?' and 'How do I belong?' As the EYLF states, when children feel safe, secure and supported they grow in confidence to explore and learn.

In addition to our everyday moments of exploring individual identities in the ELC, Harmony Day provides an opportunity to dive deeper into our children and staff's cultural identities.

We invited children in the Ground Parrot class to consider what Harmony Day means... Clancy thought, “be nice and take care of each other”; Henry and Zara agreed, “we wear orange clothes”; “we relax together,” said Raphael; and Fluer commented, "we sing in harmony."

Children in the Rock Wallaby class listened to an Aboriginal story, Tom Tom by Rosemary Sullivan and Dee Huxley. Tom Tom goes to preschool and likes to paint pictures and make damper. The children compared Tom Tom’s preschool experience to their own and then made damper!

Stay and Play

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

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 

ACT Futsal School Titles Champions!

We congratulate the following Year 6 girls on their tournament victory yesterday at the Futsal U12 girls’ competition!

Aaliyah Aitken, Emily Gaykema, Emily McCann, Audrey Carberry, Gabriella Ciano and Justin Tran.

With a record number of teams this year (approx. 35 girls’ teams) the girls went through undefeated and didn’t have a goal scored against them. 

Out of the team, Aaliyah Aitken, Emily Gaykema and Emily McCann were all chosen to represent the ACT at the National Futsal Schools Championships being held in September in Brisbane.

We are super proud of all the girls who played, a tremendous effort.

A special mention to Clarissa Aitken and Mark Gaykema for their training and guidance on the day of the event.

In other sports news, our cross country is scheduled for the last day of this term the 12th of April. Students will begin running from 9:30am, with all races to be finished by 11:00am. This will be at Holy Trinity. This event will see all age groups compete by running around the Curtin paths near our school. 

                                              Go Team Holy Trinity.

Students celebrating their birthday this week are:Willem N, Rocco M, Lilibell M and Gemma F. Wishing you all a wonderful birthday.