St Luke the Evangelist School Newsletter

Hello families and Welcome back to Term 4.

We began the week with beautiful weather and have ended it with the clouds and a lot of rain over the past few days. BUT, this won’t dampen our spirits or energy. It’s great to be back, to be working with the children again and to be planning the weeks ahead.

I’m feeling very excited about the term ahead. Our team has been working throughout the year in preparation for our upcoming School Review. We begin on Friday 13th October with the Victorian Registration & Qualifications Authority (VRQA) Compliance Day. This covers School governance, Enrolment, Curriculum and student learning, Care, safety and welfare of students , and Staff employment, and School infrastructure. On Tuesday 17th and Wednesday 18th October, we will then have the reviewer spend two days speaking with different groups within our school community. This includes children, staff, school leadership, parents and carers and the School Advisory Council (SAC) and will serve the purpose of getting a sense of the many strengths that make St Luke’s so great and areas that we can work on, together. It is a wonderful opportunity to look to the future to design and create a renewed vision and mission with strategic intent, process and practice. Thank you to those of you who are able to meet with the reviewer; l think you will enjoy the process.

We have been very fortunate to have Margaret Gearon (a parishioner) and her perfect pooch, Cammie from the Story Dogs organisation, come in each Thursday morning. They meet with individual children each week and Cammie listens to a story read by the child and Margaret gets to chat about the story with them. This approach helps the child to build great confidence as a reader and develops stronger literacy skills. Amazing! You may recall Choices Flooring in Doncaster sponsor St Luke’s so we can have Margaret and Cammie each week. On Wednesday this coming week, we would like to sell small orange ribbons for a gold coin donation to support this incredible volunteer organisation. Look out for the Year 6 Library Leaders who will be selling the ribbons before and after school. Your child is welcome to wear the ribbon to school with their uniform.

All families would have received the message on Audiri yesterday about the P&F 2024 Planning meeting on Tuesday, 10th October at 7 pm. Our P&F Committee are second to none, scheme up all manner of ideas to raise money for such things as:

• Nudel Cart- a fabulous STEM resource our Middle School children are modelling to other classes

• 2022 Memory Book for our Year 6 Graduation class

• Proposed painting of the totems in the sensory garden and have a great time doing it.

Most importantly, this helps to build community. PLEASE come along for a fun night where you will meet/catch up with people, share your ideas for our 2024 P&F calendar of events and help our school. See the attached flyer for details.

Another important element of our school is the School Advisory Council (SAC). This group meets once or twice a term to discuss topics that parents should and do have input to. It could be about school uniform, child safety or school fee structures to name a few. The feedback and opinions help enormously when decisions l need to make directly impact who, how and why we do things. We are recruiting new members for 2024 and would LOVE you to express your interest as soon as possible. Please contact me asap if you are curious or interested at: principal@slblackburnsth.catholic.edu.au. I would love to hear from you.

A number of our Year Six children achieved great results at the Division Athletics on Thursday. See the item later in this newsletter with the details. Thanks again to Micaela Debney for organising and overseeing the children on the day and to the parents who so kindly got children to and from the event. You are all wonderful!

2024 Classes: Occasionally, parents may like to inform me of concerns they have regarding the placement of their child in a class for the upcoming year. Personal requests regarding classes in 2024 need to be sent to me in the next fortnight and NO LATER THAN Friday 20th October please. Beyond this date, it may become difficult to consider requests as we get the process going. You need to put your request/concern in writing to Clare at principal@slblackburnsth.catholic.edu.au.

Finally- SAVE THE DATE: Friday 27th October

A day of JOY is being planned to celebrate the Feast  Day of St Luke the Evangelist. Mark it on your calendars now as we are hoping families will join us for a prayer liturgy in the morning and a lapathon in the afternoon. It will be a great way to come together to Be the Good News…Promoting God’s hospitality.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone. L look forward to seeing you all next week.

Clare Ryan

principal@slblackburnsth.catholic.edu.au

Yesterday on Thursday 5th October, St Luke’s had 10 students compete at the Monash Waverley Division Athletics carnival at Bill Stewart Athletics track. Invitation to this event was based on winning performances way back in March at the District Athletics carnival. The rain miraculously held off and all 10 students should be very proud of the way they performed on the day. Well done to Olivia (placing 3rd in U10 Girls Shot Put), Harriet (placing 4th in U11 Girls Discus), Maddie (placing 3rd in U12 Girls 200m and placing 7th in U12 Girls 100m) and Sebastian (placing 4th in U12 Boys Discus).  And congratulations to our two Year 6 powerhouse circular relay teams; Maddie, Eva, Emily N, Harmony placed 3rd in their U12 Girls heat and Lachie, Jakob, Sebastian, Xavier placed 4th in their U12 Boys heat.

Thank you to our incredibly supportive parents for transporting children to and from the track to make this all happen!

Next week we wish our Year 6 boys basketball team the very best of luck as they compete at the Monash Waverley Division Finals day at Nunawading Basketball Stadium. The boys progressed through to this round after finishing Runners Up at the District Round Robin last term. We can’t wait to hear how you go!

We have a Referendum on Saturday 14th October.  As the Parish Hall is a voting centre, this is a perfect opportunity for our school and parish community to raise some funds with a BBQ and Cake Stall.

We would love many volunteers to help the day go smoothly, so if you can spare some time on this Referendum Day to help out, we'd love to have you!  Please sign up via SignUp Genius (https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C094DAFAE2DA5F8C70-44808283-stlukes#/)

Also, your baked goods will also be very much appreciated so don't forget to fill the plate/bag that has been sent home from school.  Information about labels and delivery of goods can be found in the letter sent home. Extra bags can be collected from the school office, if needed.  

Statements have been issued today (6th October 2023), please check your spam email if it has not been received.  If the statement has not been received please contact Debbie in the office to resolve.

We take enrolments for all years and at all times so... spread the word to friends and neighbours and direct them to our website and/or our school office.  Deb's only to happy to help with initial inquiries and Clare is always happy to take visitors on a school tour.  

LOST PROPERTY:

Please check the lost property cupboard if you are missing jumpers, jackets or food containers.  

SUMMER UNIFORMS:

As we move to warmer months, we should now be wearing the summer uniform.  Please apply sun cream in the morning before school.

Term 4 = SUNHATS!     

Please make sure your child has a school hat to wear EVERY DAY or else, No hat, No play.

CHILDREN ARRIVING AFTER THE BELL OR LEAVING EARLY:

As part of our wellbeing care of children at St Luke's, every class engages in a morning routine at 8.50 am.  This quiet, calm time allows children to gather together in a circle, to greet each other by name, to pray and/or enter into some Christian meditation and get ready for the day.  Please make sure you allow enough time to get your child to school BEFORE the student entry doors close at 8.50 am.

If children arrive after the gate and student entry doors are locked, parents/carers are required to walk their child/ren to the school office and sign them in on the VPass iPad.

If leaving early (before the end of the day), parents/carers are required to sign their child/ren out on the VPASS iPad.