Newsletter 24th August 2022

Upcoming Dates

26th August:  Book Week - Dress Up Day; Combined Schools' Day at St Brendan's Dunnstown

30th August:  Art Show at St Brendan's Dunnstown, 6:00pm-8:00pm

1st September:  SEED Visit to St Patrick's College & Loreto College (Year 5 students)

2nd September:  Combined Schools' Day & Father's Day Liturgy & Breakfast (at St Brendan's Dunnstown)

8th September:  St Mary's Art Show, 6:00pm-8:00pm

9th September:  Combined Schools' Day at St Brendan's Dunnstown

13th September:   Community Meeting with Tony Dalton @ St Brendan's; Years 3-6 Sports Day at St Michael's, Daylesford

16th September:  Last Day of Term 3

Principal's News

This period of calmness and consistency is very refreshing. It has provided for some great learning and teaching time across both schools.

Over the past week, both schools have had a Parents' and Friends' meetings, with many parents attending. It is so good to see the enthusiasm and passion that families are reigniting to raise funds and promote our schools. People are thinking of ideas ‘outside the box’ and also having a real focus on building our community spirit and level of community engagement at St. Mary’s and St. Brendan’s. So many families are willing to help out in a variety of ways whether it be helping distributing flyers, doing gardening, coming to meetings, helping out with transport and so on. With COVID seemingly having less impact on our daily lives, there comes a sense that we are slowly moving on to some normality.

Art Shows

One of the upcoming events that will involve all of our children, families and wider community is our Art Shows. St. Brendan’s will have their Art Show next Tuesday, from 6–8pm and St. Mary’s will follow on Thursday, the 8^th of September, also from 6-8pm. The invitation is for all families, extended family members and the wider community to come and spend some time appreciating the amazing art work and enormous effort that has gone into producing such an event. The children and staff have been working all term to produce a number of art pieces and they want to share their work with others.

There will be wine and cheese for the adults on the night and you can come any time between 6–8pm.

We realise that not everyone will be able to join us on the night due to other commitments, so both schools will leave the displayed art up for an extra day or so.

Father's Day Breakfast

In between the two art shows, we are inviting all of our Dads and special men in our lives to join us for breakfast at St. Brendan’s on Friday, the 2^nd of September from 7.45–8.45am. We will be catering for both the children and adults, so please make sure that we have your numbers in by Monday, the 29^th of August. You can contact either school to let us know who will be coming.

Book Week Celebrations

This Friday we are celebrating Book Week by dressing up, either as a favourite book character or in line with the 2022 theme- 'Dreaming with eyes wide open'.  The day will begin with a parade at 9am and families are welcome to join us at St. Brendan’s as it is our regular Friday combined schools day.

School Review

Last Wednesday, the teachers met with Jo–Anne Bond to begin to plan the process of our School Review which will take place next year. School review is held every five years and it is a time to celebrate our achievements, reflect, evaluate and plan a way forward for the next five years. We are starting the process this year with the bulk of the work being done early next year. It is a worthwhile process, however, it does involve a fair amount of work collating everything. There will be opportunities for students and families to also have input.

Insight SRC Surveys

An important part of the School Review is gathering data as it provides evidence of what we have achieved and where we need to focus on in the future. One set of data that is vital and, in my view, provides the most valuable information is the Insight SRC survey which parents, staff and students all do. These surveys will be open to do next week and I urge you to do them as it provides valuable feedback about the school, particularly in the past two years. I will send out the link later this week and a number of reminders so that we can get as many families as possible to complete it and give us the best data to plan for the future.

Community Meeting - 13th September

The response to our last community meeting with Tony Dalton was heart-warming, supportive and showed how much our schools mean to our families and communities. I have heard many different conversations over the past few weeks and we are now ready to look at the possibilities for our schools moving forward. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, the 13^th of September at 6.30pm. This meeting will be held at St. Brendan’s and while children can come if you need to bring them, it is not necessary for this particular conversation.

Tony will be presenting the data gathered from our last meeting and we will move onto exploring the possibilities for our schools as we move forward to 2023 and beyond. Please come along. A light supper will be provided.

Take care and go gently,

Inez

Junior Class Reflections on Mary MacKillop

Mary MacKillop is a saint.

She is Australia’s first Saint.

She was born in Fitzroy, Melbourne in 1842 and died in Sydney, 8^th of August 1909. She was the eldest of eight children.

Her parents were from Scotland.

She was educated by her father.

She went to work when she was only 14 to help her family when her father left.

Mary was helping poor kids by building schools and standing up for them.

She gave poor kids an education.

Even when she had problems she kept going.

She began the Sisters of St Joseph who still work with children all around Australia and the world.

 Mary said “Never see a need without doing something about it.” She had helping hands, eyes and voice.  She is an example of our school BRICKs, that is how she lived her life.

Senior Room News - Mary MacKillop

We have also been learning about Mary MacKillop as she is an inspiring woman. She believed that everyone is equal, no matter whether they were wealthy, poor or homeless.  She believed that everyone has a right to learn and she worked hard making schools, orphanages and homeless shelters to help people. She stood up for herself and other people, in fact, she even got thrown out of the church. But the Bishop got sick and as he was dying, he said sorry and let her back into the church. 

We are inspired by Mary to stand-up for ourselves and others. She never gave up even though people tried to push her down and stop her. We know that Mary MacKillop and her St Josephite nuns have helped ensure that we all have a right to an education.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to Adelaide!  Adelaide celebrated her 6th birthday on 20th August.  We hope you had a great day Adelaide!

Loreto College Open Morning & Year 7 2024 Parent Information Night

Loreto College would like to invite prospective families to come along to their upcoming Open Morning and see why a Loreto Education is so special. The Open Morning will be led by student representatives between 9am to 12pm. You can expect to see interactive displays and activities as well as meet with students and staff. There will also be the opportunity to chat with the College Leadership Team. Please note that availability is limited.

For further information, please visit our enrolments page at https://loreto.vic.edu.au/loreto-education/enrolment/ 

Brown Hill Cricket Club

Gardening & Tidying Roster 2022