1 November 2018

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Reflection

Jesus does not command us to love ‘God’ in the abstract. Teaching Jew to Jew he says: ‘You shall love the Lord your God’ – the Lord who had rescued the Jewish people from slavery. So, commanding a love which responds to an initiative of Divine Love.

Why wouldn’t one respond ‘heart, mind, strength, soul’ in gratitude for the gift of life itself, for some particular person or incident, for the beauty and grandeur of nature, for rescue from some situation which seemed to engulf us? And if the Lord God loved you in such a way, why wouldn’t you love yourself?

Then you can properly ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. There is nothing sentimental in his teaching from Leviticus 19:18 and the preceding verses. Jesus was pointing to the system of social justice which looked after the poor and which did not exploit workers. It is up to us as global citizens of the 21st century to recognise as ‘neighbours’ those beyond our borders and to love them in the practical ‘Levitical’ way.

Fulfilling the Dual Command, we guard against the extremes of religious piety or social activism and become Christian humanists loving God and neighbour.

We might pause a moment to pray in responsive gratitude to the Lord God, and to commit ourselves to loving our neighbour, hoping to hear the words of Jesus Christ: ‘You are not far from the Kingdom of God.’

© Fr Michael Tate

Dear Parents and Friends of our School,

What a busy fortnight we have just had, with our School Fair last Friday, Primary School Basketball Championships for the past two weekends and our Kinder and ECE Athletics Carnivals. Reflecting on the past fortnight, I truly see that St Thomas More’s is a living Catholic community, pulling together to support all our students. This is clearly evident by the willingness of the whole community to pitch in and help with the Fair, our parents who gave up several weekends to coach and manage basketball and our students who led events for the Athletics Carnivals. These are but a few examples of many opportunities that are provided to our students because of the generosity of our community and staff to put our students first. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to our community.

Talking with our students who are currently preparing for the First Lego League Championships on the weekend reminded me of the work we did in my previous school to ensure our students were able to access one of the top 500 universities in the world. It might surprise you to know it was more than just excellent academic results, that top university are looking for, I even heard a story last year that a student who created an app to assist his village with medical care was given a scholarship although his academic scores weren’t as high as other applicants. What came across strongly from the universities and businesses was that they were looking for young people who were collaborative problem solvers, people who could lead us to continue to be successful throughout the 21stCentury. STEM and its inquiry approach is certainly the way we grow our young people to be successful, and I am proud to share that our school is doing an excellent job in this area. I would like to acknowledge Ella, Will and Fletcher for their efforts in the TSTS Research Investigation Awards, Ella was awarded 2nd and her entry is now entered in the BHP Billiton Foundation Science and Engineering Awards. I would also like to acknowledge that Ella was invited to present at UTAS’s Women in Science Online Exhibition Launch and I look forward to hearing how our teams perform at the First Lego League Championships.

Bullying seems to be a popular media topic and again this morning I was reading an article on bullying, this time it was about bullying in the workplace, including the bullying behaviours displayed by our politicians, however it did also mention a little about bullying in the school yard, encouraging schools to be proactive. We know that bullying, the repeated and intentional behaviour of causing fear, distress or harm towards another person that involves an imbalance of power, can be very demoralising and harmful to the victim, and it is a behaviour we are continually working on eliminating. One area we do have a challenge with is our students being able to verbalise the difference between friendship conflicts and bullying, therefore to help our students better understand and feel confident to seek assistance when they have a concern, we have introduced the UR Strong Program. It is our vision that all students have the language and skills to resolve conflicts and to build up their resilience. We are fortunate that the founder of the program Dana Kerford will be in Tasmania in February and will be holding a parent workshop on Wednesday 13th February 2019 at St Thomas More’s. The workshop will be combined with our Parent Information evening and Welcome BBQ and we’ll be providing babysitting to ensure everyone has the opportunity to attend. More information will be provided over the next few weeks.

Kind Regards,
Shayne Kidd
Principal

Family Mass

Family Godly Play

Godly Play has been an integral part of our RE program at STM for some time now. We would like to extend our Godly Play to any families who might be interested in attending a session. We envisage that this would happen after school from 3:30pm - 4:15pm in the Oak Tree Room. Godly Play involves listening to a story from our Faith tradition, reflecting on the story and responding through art materials. It is an opportunity for personal faith formation that we think some families may like to experience together. There is no expectation on participants to do anything more than come along and enjoy the time together. If you are interested please contact Jacquie Wood by email (jacquie.wood@catholic.tas.edu.au) or in person and we will make a time that suits the respondents. Grandparents and other family members also welcome.

Thank you to all of you who came and supported the St Thomas More’s School Fair last Friday!

A Hugh Thank You to the P&F Team who did an amazing job organising the event.

And thank you to all students, staff, parents and volunteers who helped out along the way.

Important notices:

Grandparents Day

Grandparents Day – Monday 12th November!

Please RSVP by Thursday 8th November- See attached.

Traffic & student’s safety

The school urges all parents to support road safety by obeying signage displayed, and also asks you remind your child(ren) to be very aware of potential traffic related dangers around the school.

Sometimes for example, motorists do not abide by road laws, and if students are crossing inappropriately (with or without you), or just not aware of their surrounds by always looking either way, we could have an accident.

The education and care of our students is a partnership between the staff and parents and we all need to do our bit by acting appropriately and not showing a disregard for road laws, even if only to demonstrate your support to any children watching.

2019 Enrolments

If your child/children are not returning to St Thomas Mores in 2019, can you please notify the school office as soon as possible.

2019 Booklist/Stationary

Due to concerns raised by parents about last years stationary order process the school will be placing a bulk order to cover all student requirements and in turn providing a cost saving.

Therefore parents will not be required to purchase separate books or stationary for 2019 and an additional amount will be included in your 2019 school fees account.

Hay Fever Season

The spring and summer months should be great fun for kids, with lots of opportunities for outdoor learning and play. But children with hay fever can find this time of year difficult; their symptoms can make them uncomfortable and even affect their academic achievement.

If your child/ren suffer from hay fever, please ensure that you are medicating children before arriving to school.

Student Medical Detail Changes

Please ensure to keep the office team up to date if any medical information for you child/ren changes.

Or if you have previously supplied an epi-pen or any other medications that may need replenishing or is soon expire.

Bus from Hadspen/Carrick to St Thomas More’s

Thank you to all who responded and showed their interest in having a bus route from Hadspen/Carrick to St Thomas More’s. The information has been collected and passed onto Redline who are looking at starting a route in 2019. Further information will be announced if our application is successful.

Reminders:

Public Holiday

Monday 5th November is a public holiday! Students are to return to school on Tuesday the 6th

Working with Vulnerable People Cards

Reminder, that if you currently volunteer or wish to volunteer in future within the school (excursions, sports days etc.) you a required by law to have a current WWVP check.

Our current records display a large amount of expired WWVP for parents – Please contact the school office to update your details if you wish to help in the future.

To apply for a new or expired card please follow the below link:

Dates to Remember for Term 4

School Uniform for 2019

Please find Targetts back to school 2019 order form below. To enable placed orders to be collected from late January 2019 or early February 2019, all order forms need to be returned to Targetts by the end of November 2018.

Students Need School Libraries

Students Need School Libraries

• Did you know… that your school library supports your child to engage with a diverse range of books to extend their imagination and develop a lifelong love of reading?

• Did you know… that school libraries are responsive and collaborative learning spaces that provide students with access to a wide range of resources that are relevant and appropriate to their learning needs?

• Did you know… that school libraries support your child to reach their potential by teaching them how to become capable researchers and to navigate the world of online information and fake news?

• Did you know... that teacher librarians hold specialised qualifications as both a teacher and a librarian? Quality library staff are trained to support keen and reluctant, successful and struggling learners.

Students need school libraries. If you are keen to ensure that EVERY child in Australia has access to a quality school library, check out the information available at

Parent Library

STM now has a Parent Library with a range of books providing advice on various aspects of parenting. The collection is held in the school office and items are available for short-term loan to parents. Please see the office staff if you are interested.

Rebecca Thomas
Librarian

STM School Fair Winners

Fair Art Prizes

Kinder-Prep

Years 1-2

Year 3-4

Year5-6

Thanks to all who entered their lovely creative work.

Well done to all our prize winners!!

Raffle winners

Book Sellers Prize

Treasure Chest

Wine Stall Raffle

Thank you to all that entered.

Captain’s Corner

Abbey, Ella, Thomas and William.

STM Techspot

iPads FOR SALE

We still have a number of iPad 2s for sale at $50 each. These iPad 2s are 16GB and run a maximum operating system of iOS 9.3.5 (some newer apps may not work on this operating system). They come with a charger and rubber case and are sold as is. If you would like to buy one please see the school office.

iPads in Grade 5/6 for 2019

Next year the school will be supplying iPads for our Grade 5 students. Therefore, there is no need for parents of this year's Grade 4 students to buy iPads ready for next year. The main reason for this is because St Pat's are moving towards using BYO Chromebooks and we do not want parents to buy iPads when they will be expected to purchase Chromebooks in Grade 7 at St Pat's. More information about this will be coming to Grade 4 parents soon. Next year Grade 6 students will still be required to bring the BYO iPads that they have used in Grade 5 this year.

Messages from P & F

P&F Mettings

Wednesday 5th December 2018-09-27

All are welcome!

Awards

Congratulations to the following children who have received an award this fortnight:

Prep Foot

Lillian
Jamison

Prep Greig

Nate
Maggie
Kai

1/2 Carr/Rooney

Floyd
Maeve

1/2 Tams

Sunday
Vinton
Cooper

1/2 Scharapow/Atkins

Sara
Felix
Emily.S
Sofia

3/4 Love/Chugg

Lillian
Josie
Izzy
Molly

3/4 Morgan

Jessica
Gabby
Hugh
Alex

3/4 Wilson/Edwards

Finn
Elliott

5/6 Healey

Liliana
Sienna

5 / 6 O’Neill

Samuel Hill
Isabel
Brigid

5 / 6 Pearce

Rhys
Sam
Phebie

Japanese years 3/4

Japanese years 5/6

Library

Lucy - 3/4LC
Charlotte 3/4M

ICAS-Outstanding results by STM students.

Northern Primary Schools Basketball Tournament

Over the last two weekends, 81 students from Grade 3/4 and 5/6 competed in the Northern Primary Schools Basketball Tournament. It is held in Launceston every year, and this year we played games at the Elphin Sports Centre and St Patrick’s College. Each team played at least four games over the two days, with a few of our teams playing into the finals on the Sunday afternoon.

Congratulations to all teams who came together for the first time and over a few short weeks trained and played together as a team, representing our school with great sportsmanship and fabulous teamwork. We really appreciate all the time and effort put in by our volunteer coaches and team managers throughout the weekends as well as in the lead up to the tournament.

Our 5/6 boys had a particularly wonderful weekend with two teams 5/6 Matthews and 5/6 Faulkner making their semi-finals in their particular division. Our Division 2 Faulkner team took it one step further, making it to the Grand Final, which they won in spectacular style!

Everyone had an absolute "ball" and developed so much in their ball skills, confidence on the court and team work and we highly recommend anyone from Grade 3-6 to give it a go next year! GO STM!!!!!

Check out our photo gallery for more photos!!

Div 2 champions!!

2018 Deloraine Youth Drama Festival

We would like to congratulate the following St Thomas More’s students who are award recipients in the 2018 Deloraine Youth Drama Festival.

And a huge round of applauses to all students that participated.

Honourable Mentions:

Alannah Rae for Tamara in “Little Lunch; The Top of the Fireman’s Pole”
Lucas Jarman for Rory in “Little Lunch; The Nightmare Before Graduation”
Elyssa Langham for Debra Jo in “Little Lunch; Lost and Found Box”

Runner-Up Ensemble

“Little Lunch; Lost and Found Box” - STM

Runner-Up No Such Thing as a Small Role:

Jack Manshanden for Rory in “Little Lunch; Lost and Found Box”

Outside of school achievements

Ava Walker

Ava Walker was extremely excited to have qualified and be selected to represent Tasmania at the 2018 National Equestrian Schools Championships in Victoria 1-5 October.

Tasmania has a team of approximately 35 combinations from both primary and secondary age students.

Ava and her pony Shanameer Top Note travelled to Victoria via the Spirit of Tasmania for a week during the October school holidays.

Ava had an incredible competition at the National Interschools. She placed 4th over all in her Championship Showing competition and 7 th in Dressage 7th in Combined Training.

Well done Ava.

STM student invited to speak at ‘Women in Science we admire’ launch at UTAS.

Ella Webber was invited to speak at the ‘Women in science we admire’ online exhibition launch at UTAS recently. The online exhibition is to honour and to raise awareness about the critical role women and girls play in science and engineering.

Ella was invited to speak about her love of science, her science investigation she undertook this year at school and women who have inspired her love of science and learning.

Well done Ella.

Grade 6 students have been selected to represent Tasmania in the 2019 Australian Country Junior Basketball Cup

Fletcher Targett, Subi Daly and Imogen Richards will be representing Tasmania in the 2019 Australian Country Junior Basketball Cup which will be held in Albury and Wodonga between 12th January and 20th January 2019.

Team of the Year

Thomas Chambers, Brodie Matthews and Sam Hill are part of the soccer team that won a duel award with the Scotch Oakburn Rowing Team for Team of the Year. A great representation of the sporting values we support in our students.

2018 Term Dates

Gallery

ECE Athletics Carnival

Kinder Athletics

Gala Day

Basketball