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- Vision and Mission Statement
- Important Dates to Remember
- Principal's Report
- Birthdays
- Parent Zoom Meeting
- At Home Wellbeing Check in
- Counselor's Corner
- Healthy Lunchbox Cooking & Activities Ideas
- University of Wollongong Learning Labs Holiday Workshops
- Sport Cancellations
- Busabout Changes
- Interline Bus changes
| DAY | DATE | EVENT |
| Thursday | 9th September | Junior Basketball Gala Day |
| Friday | 10th September | Senior Basketball Gala Day |
| Thursday | 16th September | Last day of term |
Dear Parents/Carers,
In the midst of a lockdown, we are all having to think differently about how we look after the health and well-being of our family members. Shopping for food may require alternate arrangements, exercise may look very different, and ensuring that the mental health of each family member is being attended to may require more careful consideration.
Our own spiritual well-being may need some extra attention as well in times such as these, especially if we are used to relying on a worshipping community. The following may be helpful for you:
- St John's Parish offers Mass online: link
- Mass for you at Home: link (produced by the Diocese of Wollongong)
- Podcasts: Ripples (produced by the Catholic Education Office), Pray as You Go, Sacred Space
Remote Learning
Our teachers continue to comment on the positive way that the children have been engaging with their tasks. Please know that we greatly appreciate everything that you are doing to support the children with their learning, especially for those of you working from home. I remind you that while we expect the children to take responsibility for completing tasks, learning from home will have its challenges, so allow them to take their time.
Each teacher is pushing out a range of activities each day. For one of these activities, the teacher will provide your child with specific feedback about the work they submitted. For all other activities, the teacher may acknowledge the completion of the task without necessarily giving detailed feedback. This is reflective of what happens at school: a teacher would not give detailed feedback on every piece of work that every child does. Also, it is impractical for a teacher to give detailed feedback on potentially 150-200 pieces of work each day while also having to attend to the planning and preparation of tasks.
Please contact the office if you have any questions about remote learning.
Support for parents
Our school counsellor, Rita Maher, and myself are providing a Zoom meeting for parents and carers this Friday, 30 July, 9.30-10.00am. The purpose of the meeting will be to offer some suggestions about coping with remote learning and with supporting the mental health and well-being of you and your children. A link to the meeting will be pushed out on Compass on Friday morning, and a recording of the meeting will also be provided if you are unable to attend.
Class Zoom Meetings
The implementation of these meetings have been very successful so far. I hope that if your child has participated, they found it worthwhile. I would like to acknowledge our staff who ensured all the necessary protocols were put in place, and for being willing to give the meetings a go. In a recent report from the Victorian Student Representative Council in relation to the extensive period of remote learning they experienced in 2020, high on their list of things they missed was feeling connected to their classmates and teachers. We also received feedback from some parents about this very thing. Our Zoom meetings go some way toward helping this. If you need any support with the meetings, please contact the office.
I continue to pray for all our families during this challenging time.
Paul Moroney
Principal
Happy Birthday to the following students and staff who are celebrating
their birthday this week , 25th July - 31st July
| Melina A | Bryson D | Jocelyne C |
| Izach T | Marlena G | Isla H |
| Ronan D | Ye Jun K | Mikaela L |
Our school counsellor, Rita Maher, and school staff are providing a Zoom meeting for parents and carers this Friday, 30 July, 9.30-10.00am. The purpose of the meeting will be to offer some suggestions about coping with remote learning, and with supporting the mental health and well-being of you and your children. A link to the meeting will be pushed out on Compass on Friday morning, and a recording of the meeting will also be provided if you are unable to attend.
Welcome to the Healthy Lunch Box Term 3 update. As we head into the new school term, a lot of us are experiencing some form of restrictions due to COVID. Eating well and staying healthy has never been so important for the school community. The Healthy Lunch Box is here with some ideas to keep the family busy during this difficult time. Why not share these ideas with your school community.
Lockdown cooking
Having more time at home is a perfect reason to get cooking in the kitchen. Our top 5 recipes to cook in lockdown use simple ingredients, are easy to make and are packed full of nutrition.
1. Banana bread – get on that lockdown trend and try our banana bread recipe
2. Vegetable fritters – a great way to get vegies into the day
3. Mediterranean scrolls – delicious as a lunchtime meal or an afternoon snack
4. Pasta bake – use up those leftover vegies in this dish, perfect on a wintery night
5. Shepherd’s pie – tasty and protein-packed meal with 4 serves of vegies per portion!
Fun activities for kids
Healthy Lunch Box developed a 'Healthy Holidays Guide' for the last school holidays. However, the guide isn't just for the holidays, but is a fantastic resource with lots of activities to keep kids learning through the lockdown. The interactive Lunch Box Builder is a fun way for kids to find out how to pack a healthy lunch box.
For older kids, a great activity is to get them to search for recipes and plan out a menu for a whole day making sure to include the recommended 5 serves of vegies and 2 serves of fruit. Bonus points if they make the proposed meals for the family!
Website improvements
At Healthy Lunch Box we are always looking to improve our website. We have made a few changes that will make it easier to find the information you want:
- Filtering of recipes has been improved. Want a gluten free snack that is made in under 30 minutes? Just tick the boxes for the type of recipe you are looking for and only those recipes that meet all your choices will appear.
- Search function has been improved. Now you don’t need to remember a recipe name but just search using part of a word. For example if you were looking for banana pikelets - you can just type ‘pike’ and the search function will select appropriate recipes.
- Print function updated. When you print a recipe or a blog, the adjacent picture will be included in the printout.
If you have any feedback or comments about the website, please get in contact!
Check out these seasonal recipes:
Read our new blogs:
We are excited to announce that Learning Labs will be at our Moss Vale campus in the Southern Highlands for the first time! The small pilot program will be running in week two during the September school holidays. This will be a face to face program under COVID guidelines. Our Wollongong Learning Labs program will be back in the January 2022 school holidays.
The University of Wollongong would like to invite your students to LEARNING LABS, an academic and creative arts enrichment holiday program.
We are targeting students from Years 3 to 6, who are excelling in their area of interest within their year group, and are motivated and curious learners.
Learning Labs is a program designed for students to participate in challenging, innovative and fun workshops during the school holidays. The workshops are presented by teachers or professionals with specialist training or a specific interest in gifted education.
Dates: Early Learning Labs (Years 3 & 4) – Tuesday 28th Sept. 2021
Early Learning Labs (Year 5 & 6) – Wednesday 29th Sept. 2021
Venue: Southern Highlands University of Wollongong Campus, (Kirkham St, Moss Vale)
Applications close: 18th August 2021
Help us spread the word by passing this information on to your teachers, students and their parents via your school newsletters, website, apps such as Skoolbag or individual selection process. You can use the below links to download for your own communications:
APPLICATION PROCESS
- Students can be encouraged to apply by their school, classroom teacher, subject specialist teachers from school or out-of-school or by their parents. If a school-based professional is identifying a potential student please supply them with a Teacher Nomination Letter
- Parents/Guardians visit our website and read the full list of workshops available by scrolling to the “Workshop Descriptions” section.
- Parents/Guardians (or school if parent/guardian is unable to) fill out the online application form.
- This is an academic and creative arts enrichment program designed for students who are motivated and passionate learners and performing excellently in their area of interest. First-time applicants are required to demonstrate their suitability for the program. One piece of supporting documentation is required (see 'Supporting Documentation' section on website). Please note that the Teacher Nomination Letter can be used as a supporting document.
- Learning Labs is registered as COVID-Safe and follows the guidelines set out by the NSW Government here.
Please know that workshops fill very quickly.
We will also have several sponsorship places available for students who identify as Australian Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander or students experiencing financial difficulty.
For further information about workshops and the application process please visit our website, or contact the Learning Labs team via email at learning-labs@uow.edu.au or phone on (02) 4221 5557.
We thank you for your continued support of Learning Labs and we hope to share our passion for providing further opportunities to your students!
Learning Labs Team
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Students) | Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic)
University of Wollongong
Southern Highlands Campus
NSW 2577 Australia
T +61 2 4221 5557
uow.edu.au/In2Uni | Facebook | Support In2Uni Scholarships | Newsletter
I acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the Land I work on as the first people of this country.
To date we have been informed by the Catholic Education Office that the Western Region Athletics Carnival, which was due to be held this Friday 30 July has been cancelled.
We will keep you updated of any other cancellations or postponements as they come to hand.
Per advice from the NSW Government, Busabout will be operating a SUNDAY timetable for all route services from Monday 19th July 2021 until further notice.
There will be NO school services operating during this time.
I have pasted a link to our website below for Sunday services.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused and appreciate your patience during this time.
