Filter Content
- Our Vision
- Reflection
- Principal's Message
- From the eSafety Commissioner
- School Photos
- Mother's Day
- Author Visit - Lian Tanner
- The Resilience Project!
- Grade 5/6 More Guest Speaker
- Request for Student Abscence
- Story Box Library
- RE News @ STM!
- Setup for Success Program
- Community News
- Parish Bulletin
- Upcoming Events
The vision for St Thomas More's Catholic School is to be a vibrant, positive, and energetic learning community, where every child is valued, and where relationships, the Gospel, and our Josephite charism are at the heart of every aspect of our educational program.
We have high expectations for student learning and student behaviour, and aim to support our students to grow into independent and confident learners, but community-minded contributors to society.
Students are invited into an intimate relationship with Christ. We know we have achieved this goal when our students smile when they arrive at school, and are still smiling when they leave.
Kintsugi
“Light enters through the wound.” – Rumi
As the story goes, a 15th-century military ruler, Ashikoga Yoshimasa sent one of his tea bowls back to China to be repaired. When it was returned, he was disappointed with the finished result and asked a local craftsman to find a more aesthetically pleasing method of repair. The craftsman’s solution was to utilise urushi, a natural lacquer made from the sap of the Toxicodendron vernicifluum, mixed with powdered gold. The result emphasised the cracks in the bowl, rather than trying to conceal them. It accentuates the careful and precise nature of the repair, but also the beauty of broken things.
The artform is linked to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which is a worldview centred on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It holds sacred and appreciates beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. Life is full of challenges, hurdles, and setbacks; these pressures, weight and trauma of these experiences leave us physically, mentally, and spiritually cracked and broken. But Kintsugi exemplifies the way that healing our places allows us to emerge from darkness stronger and more beautiful.
Rumi is a renowned Islamic poet and philosopher from Persia in the 13th Century CE. His quote above reminds us that it is when we are hurt, broken, suffering, and struggling that God’s Grace enters our lives and heals, nurtures, protects and reconciles. The ultimate, emphatic and defining revelation of this truth is the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus who shared in our very human hurt, brokenness, suffering, and struggle, in order to reconcile us to God. Christ told us repeatedly: “I am the Light of the World” (John 8:12, John 9:5, John 12:46).
The unique and mesmerising aesthetic of golden veins enveloping and holding the cracked pieces together, reminds us that God joins our broken places with our strong places, and that our tangled past is united with our present - restored, resolved, and resolute for the future.
Mr Casimir Douglas
Sunday 14th April, 2024
SALUTATION
Grace to you and peace.
STM TV: LEARNING WITH NO LIMITS
This episode for Term 2 - Week 1, 2024, features the students from our Saint classes and Kinder classes. This week in our episode, Learning With No Limits, we are exploring goal setting and daily dreams, blasting off with maths, and exciting excursions!
STM TV is our school's episodic YouTube show designed to share the key learning experiences of nominated students and classes each week to engage our parents and the broader community in the learning journey of our school.
KINDER 2025 ENROLMENTS
With Term 2 now underway, so too has commenced the busy season of conducting interviews with families who are seeking enrolment for their child in Kinder in 2025 at St Thomas More's Catholic School. It has been a pleasure to meet these families, build these relationships, and get to know the young children who may begin their educational journey in our school community.
This year, all Grade 6 students have the opportunity to lead a tour of the school with the families attending the interview. I still accompany the family and the students on the tour, but I leave the guiding, talking, and leading to our students, and they have been exceptional!
As always, as I listen to the families talk about their reasons for wanting their child to attend our school, and not for the first or the last time, I wish there was a way that the 100+ families that express an interest in enrolment at our school could be supported and facilitated, but we only take 45 Kinder enrolments each year. I don’t have a growth agenda, but I do have an inclusion agenda. That is, I do not wish for the school to grow for simply growth’s sake, but I do dream that one day all those seeking enrolment at St Thomas More’s Catholic School will be able to benefit, grow and thrive from the educational experience we provide.
AUTHOR VISIT - LIAN TANNER
This Tuesday (30th April), Grade 5/6 students were treated to a workshop by the wonderful Tasmanian author Lian Tanner whose books Spellhound, Fledgewitch, A Clue for Clara, Rita's Revenge and Ella and the Ocean are firm favourites in the STM Library collection. Lian talked about her novels and about how to write a winning story. It was an inspirational and very entertaining session!
HEALTH UPDATE
I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all members of the school community for their support, well-wishes, positive messages, gifts and prayers during this process of surgery and recovery. It is no coincidence that my reflection this week is on the Japanese artform of Kintsugi. I have needed to be patient with the imposed physical limitations following surgery, and whilst I’m not yet able to return to clocking up 50 km of running a week, or my monthly half marathon, I have been able to take gradually longer walks through my quiet neighbourhood each day. I have continued to meditate every day, and my insatiable appetite for professional reading has been well and truly sated during this down time, including the following books:
- Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday
- The Diary of a CEO by Steven Bartlett
- The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day
- Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Frederich Nietzsche
- Spacemaker by Daniel Sih
- Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty
- The Act of Leadership by Dan Haesler
- Good Authority by Jonathan Raymond
- Immortal Diamond by Fr Richard Rohr
- To Know as we are Known by Parker Palmer
- The School Leadership Juggle by Andrew Oberthur
- The Bhagavad Gita
In keeping with the reflection on Kintsugi, my time in recovery from surgery has been far from an indolent repose, and has been an active and sincere exploration of the self, in which the healing was not just physical, but also mental and spiritual. And I look forward to returning to my role as Principal in Week 2 of this term to share all that I have learned - restored, resolved, and resolute for the future!
May the grace of Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
God bless,
Mr Casimir Douglas
Principal
In light of recent distressing events, the eSafety Commissioner reminds us of tips to deal with violent and distressing online content and of the importance of checking in with your child and talking about the content they may have been exposed to.
Follow the link for more - Distressing content
The eSafety Commissioner also has a number of parent webinars for Term 2. Please see the attached flyer for more details.
Rebecca Thomas
Key Teacher - Learning Technologies
Reminder that school photos will take place on Monday 13th May 2024, family photos will be taken at 8:30am on the day. Please ensure your child/ren are in the correct winter uniforms.
MSP Photography have sent a notification to all families advising that photos are available to order via Compass App.
Working on gratitude helps us to be thankful and appreciate what we have in our lives, rather than focusing on what we don’t have or what we want. When we practise being grateful, we start to scan the world to look for positives – this only takes 21 days! Practising gratitude every day increases our levels of energy, and helps us to feel happier and more focused, determined and optimistic. It even helps us have better sleep, lowers levels of anxiety and depression and we are less likely to get sick. So many benefits – let’s all try to be grateful for the things and people in our lives every day!
Whole Family Activity:
Gratitude Scavenger Hunt
- As a family create a scavenger hunt list of things that make you happy or you are grateful for, you can make your own list or use the examples below:
- Something that makes you happy
- Something you love to smell
- Something you enjoy looking at
- Something that is your favourite colour
- Something you like in nature
- Something that is useful for you
- Each member of the family uses the list and has to find as many things as they can.
- You can hunt for things inside or outside, or both. You can hunt for real things, or you can also do this using magazines or pictures from the internet.
- After a set amount of time hunting, come back together, have a look at what each person collected and let them explain why they are grateful for each item.
Family Habit Builder:
Every night at dinner, have each person talk about their favourite thing about that day.
Visit from Senator Helen Polley
Late last term Grade 5/6 More were very lucky to have a visit from Senator Helen Polley. Despite her busy schedule, Senator Polley made time to come along and share her inspiration for becoming involved in politics, her journey to working in the Australian Senate and her passions, such as improving homelessness and aged care in Tasmania. Thank you again for your visit Senator Polley and we look forward to welcoming you back later in the year to talk with all our Grade 5/6 students.
A reminder that if your child will not be attending school for more than 10 consecutive days (other than due to sickness). You are required to complete the "Request for Student Absence" form, found on our website under "Forms" or via the link. This is in addition to entering your child as absence via the Compass App.
STM has a school subscription to Story Box Library - an educational platform created for children to view stories by local authors and illustrators read aloud. Our subscription allows staff, students and families access to high quality stories anywhere and anytime in a safe online space free from advertising. There are almost 400 stories in this digital collection with accompanying activities that children can use at home.
Please see the attached for download instructions and login details.
If you have any questions, please let me know. Enjoy!
Kind regards,
Rebecca Thomas
Librarian
