17 May 2018

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Dear Parents and Friends of our School,

Reflection

This Sunday we celebrate the feast of Pentecost which is often referred to as the Church’s birthday. You will recall the story that following the death and resurrection of Jesus all of his followers were living in hiding, most likely fearing that they may be put to death too. On the feast of Pentecost, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, giving them the courage and strength to preach Jesus’ message to the whole world.

In today’s world, in some ways, not much has changed. There are people who live in fear of persecution for preaching Jesus’ message, and are even killed for their beliefs; even here in Australia we too are often challenged for our beliefs. How often do we hear our Church ridiculed and criticised in the media, our beliefs being put on trial because they challenge people to live with a moral conscious? This week as we reflect on the Pentecost story, our challenge is to stand by our beliefs and to always treat others with love and goodness, and to remember that as the Holy Spirit gave strength to the Apostles, the Holy Spirit will give us the strength to stand strong in our faith, too.

A reminder that Family Mass is this Sunday at 9am at St Patrick's Chapel.

Last week all of our students from Prep to G6 partook in the Launceston Competitions. The events I saw made me feel very proud of our students’ efforts and the hard work our staff did in preparing them. Everyone put in a great effort. As I said to our students, the skills they learnt by doing these competitions cannot be taught in a classroom, and from all my research they are the skills our students will need to master if they wish to be leaders of the future.

As we are approaching winter we often become more susceptible to illnesses like a cold or the flu. If your child is displaying symptoms of a cold or flu, or is feeling unwell, it is better to keep them home to rest, rather than sending them to school. One day of rest could prevent several days off and also prevent spreading viruses to other students and staff. We also need to be mindful that we do have students at our school who have low immunities due to long term illnesses and we need to ensure we don't expose them unnecessarily to any viruses. Prevention is always the best cure. Ensure you and your child always eat healthily, (lots of vegetables and fruit), to get all the vitamins they require, especially vitamin C at this time of year. You could also consider you and your child having the flu injection.

It was lovely to see all of the mums and grandmothers who shared breakfast with us last Monday morning. Happy belated Mother’s Day and thank you for all the love and care you show your children.

All of our students put in a great effort with the Cross Country last Wednesday. From this we have selected a team to represent our school. Thank you to all our parent helpers who helped our staff run the event.

God Bless,
Mr Shayne Kidd

Captains Corner

We have had a fun and exciting start to term 2. We have started the SRC meetings and planned lots of new things that the school will benefit from. We had an eventful first couple of weeks with the Launceston Competitions and the Futsal Tournament.

Sunday the 6th of May, 2018 the Launceston competitions started with students across all age groups participated in solo poems, mimes, impromptu readings and plays. Many STM students were featured in the comps. The comps continued to Monday and Tuesday. There will also be class poems thats students across most age groups. The class poems will be held on Thursday at the princes theatre on Thursday. Monday the 7th of May was the day of the Northern Tasmanian Primary Schools Futsal Tournament. It was held at the Silverdome Sports Velodrome as it had the room for the three courts needed to hold it. The schools that attended this event were St Thomas More’s, St Anthony’s, Riverside and Larminier. Everyone had a lot of fun and some of the games were really tense and exciting. In the under 11’s boys roster, St Thomas More’s won that with a great effort. In the girls roster, the Riverside team won that and the St Thomas More’s team 2 came Runners Up. The under 12’s boys roster was exciting and the St Thomas More’s teams 1 & 2 battled it out. But team 1 came out on top in the end. And that was the end of a brilliant day.

Overall the start of term two has whizzed by with many exciting events and more to come! This week the cross country will be held where Chisholm, Tenison and More will battle it out for the honour of first place! Also the Launceston comps will continue. Various upper primary classes will be reciting poetry at the Princess Theatre this Thursday.

Until Next Time…

Abbey Smith, Ella Webber, Thomas Chambers and William Barns.

IMPORTANT: Unsupervised Students

Before School

A reminder that students who arrive at school before 8:30 are not directly supervised by a duty teacher. Therefore, these students must sit down in the Piazza and wait quietly until the 8:30 bell goes. We ask parents to remind their children as we have had a number of students that have not been following this instruction. If your child/ren must be dropped off well before 8:30 it is preferable to book them into before school care.

After School

Students should not be left at school unsupervised at the end of the school day. There are duties on Abbott St until 3:25pm and on Campbell St until 3:20pm where students that are being picked up should be. No students should be anywhere else in the school grounds unless supervised by a parent/carer (this includes any after school sport training). We thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter.

Family Mass

National Simultaneous Storytime

This year St Thomas More’s CPS will participate in the 18th National Simultaneous Storytime (NSS). This is an annual event held by the Australian Library and Information Association. Every year a picture book, written and illustrated by an Australian author and illustrator, is read simultaneously in libraries, schools, pre-schools, childcare centres, bookshops and homes all around the country. This is a wonderful event that aims to promote the value of reading and literacy, the joy of reading for pleasure and to promote Australian authors and illustrators.

Students are welcome to join us in the Josephite Hall at 11am on Wednesday, 23rd May 2018 to share the book “Hickory Dickory Dash” by Tony Wilson and Laura Wood.

Rebecca Thomas
Librarian

Launceston Competitions

Congratulation to all students that participated and got a place in the Launceston Competitions.

Results:

PG – High Commended
PF – 3rd place
1/2CR – 1st place
1/2 Tams - 2nd place
1/2SA – Highly Commended
3/4M – 3rd place
3/4W/E – 2nd place
5/6H - Highly Commended
5/6O - 2nd place
5/6P - 1st place

Japanese Update

Our unit topic in Japanese this term is family. Students in Years 3 to 6 are learning how to say and write family members’ names in Japanese. We recently made some cards for mother’s day by cutting shapes from Japanese kami (decorated paper) and writing the word “okaasan” which means “mother” in the Hiragana script. Here are some examples from students in Years 3 and 4.

Walk to School Day

Community Care Meal Roster

School Uniform Donations

Donations of outgrown school uniforms can be left at the office to be shared with families in our community. Any families needing uniform items please contact Jacquie Wood: jacquie.wood@catholic.tas.edu.au

STM Techspot

Fortnite Issues

The in vogue game of the moment amongst primary school children is Fortnite. We know that STM students from grade 6 right down to grade 2 are playing this game outside school hours. This is a major concern for us as the game has a rating of 12+ meaning that no primary school aged children should be playing it.

The game itself is a shooter game where the aim is to kill the other players. In the Battle Royal version of the game 100 players are dropped into an island and the aim is to kill all of the other players to be the last one standing. Fortnite may seem less violent than other shooter games like Call Of Duty because there are no blood animations and the game has a cartoon look about it, but the themes behind the game are violent. We have had a number of our younger students role playing content from Fortnite in the playground which has caused some issues.

The other concerning element of Fortnite is the unrestricted chat feature within the game. It has voice chat (which can be turned off) and text chat (which can't be turned off). There have been a number of reported cases around the world of grooming in the chat environment of Fortnite. Below is an article from the BBC outlining this concern and a link from Common Sense Media with a parent's guide to Fortnite. Both of these articles are valuable reading if your child is playing this game.

Addiction to this game is another concern and peer pressure amongst students who are playing this game and those that are not can also be an issue.

Once again, we strongly recommend that no student at STM be allowed to play this or any other violent game with a 12+ or higher rating.

UPCOMING EVENTS

For upcoming events please see left side bar.

2018 Term Dates

Gallery

Mother’s Day

Cross Country

Futsal

Launceston Competitions

Award Winners

Outside School Notices

Legonauts