ST PETER’S CATHOLIC PARISH PRIMARY SCHOOL

Friday 22nd February 2019 – Week 4 

To the St Peter’s community,

This Sunday Jesus invites us to respond to the world as he did – loving, blessing,

praying and offering. We are called to do this not only where there is something of

which we like, but in all circumstances.

If you are looking for a nice, comfortable religion that doesn't call for too many demands on your life, makes you feel better when

you're down, and will reserve luxury suites for you in heaven when you die, then you probably shouldn't try to be one of Jesus'

disciples. He is demanding. He has the crazy notion that his followers should serve others rather than themselves. He expects

them to show integrity when no one is looking. And he expects them to love. Not just people who only occasionally have a bad day.

But enemies. Jesus expects you to love your enemies. Don't follow him unless you're ready to experience some discomfort.

We heard last week that the poor, not the rich, will be rewarded. Then Jesus told us to be happy

when we are persecuted. Now he goes a step further. We are to love our persecutors.

Our society rightly tells us to love our friends and family. But it's altogether another thing to love

an enemy, someone who has your disgrace or destruction as a goal. Jesus says that we are not

to just force a smile and mind our own business when we are hated and mistreated. We are to

actively try to do good towards our attackers.

Stop for a minute and think about who these people might be. How will you show them love?

Start with actions of love, start doing what Jesus taught.

You see, Jesus is out to create an army of disciples that look at enemies as He and His Father view them...as people to love and

care for. People to die for.

Jesus is out to change us all by His example; through listening to His words and following them and copying His example and with

the help of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

We Pray for patience to endure difficult circumstances and courage to be able to confront them as well as we can.

God of all times and places, give us the power of Your Spirit that we may see and love others as You do. We ask You to help and

inspire us to live as You would like us to live, using the gifts You have given to us. Inspire us to take the initiative in treating others

as we would like them to treat us. Amen

Have a wonderful weekend,

Kerry Miller Principal 

ADMINISTRATION 

Notices:

New Concession Card holders including new families to St Peter’s School please complete an application, 

available from the office, for the CSEF payment to the school from the State Government (this is not necessary if you 

submitted an application in 2018) 

 

DATES TO REMEMBER 

● Thursday 7th March 9.30-10.30 - 1st Prep 2020 tour 

● Monday March 11th - Labour Day Public Holiday 

● Tuesday 12th March 11.30-12.30 - 2nd Prep 2020 tour 

● Wednesday March 13th - School Photo Day 

 

● April 3rd, 4th & 5th - Senior Camp 

● Friday April 5th 1:00 pm - End of Term 1 

● Tuesday April 23rd - Start of Term 2 

Deborah Racina - Director of First Impressions office@stprepp.catholic.edu.au 

   

EDUCATION IN FAITH 

Faith and Life: Prep Learning 

Over the last week the preps have been actively learning how to do the ‘Sign of the Cross’. The preps have been

practicing during our morning and afternoon prayer times. The preps have grasped onto the understanding that when

we are making the sign of the cross we are commencing our conversation to God and when we sign at the end of

prayer we conclude our conversation to God. The preps have been successful in practicing christian meditation every morning and

they have progressed to meditating for two minutes. It is so wonderful to see our beautiful little people embarked on their faith

journey. Well done preps, keep it up!

Deb, Louise and Jo

 

LEARNING & TEACHING 

Senior News

Last week we had our first round of Interschool sports for the year! Students were very

excited to play their first game. The scores did not reflect the amazing effort put in by all and

they are very excited to play their second round on Friday against Lalor Garden for an away

match.

Thank you to the parents who attended our first Senior assembly last Friday afternoon. It was a great turn out! Our school

captains, Niko and Joshua, pledged the commitment prayer in front of their peers, to endeavour to try their best in their leadership

role. Our assemblies will take place every second Friday at 3pm - our next one will be Friday March 1st. We hope to see you

there.

On Monday we had our camp information sessions. Students would have received a ‘Camp Home Practice checklist’. This is to

ensure students are well prepared for the daily life at Camp Arrabri. If you were unable to attend or have any questions, please

feel free to contact your child’s contact teacher. More information, including what to bring and what not to bring, will be distributed

closer to the date. Just a reminder to return camp permission slips if you haven’t done so already.

 

Japanese Language Learning- みなさん みて Minasan Mite  

This year St Peter’s continues to partner with Catholic Education Melbourne and 30 other Catholic schools

in Victoria to develop stronger real life connections between our school’s additional language learning

(Japanese) by focusing on the whole school developing speaking skills for interacting.

Students and teachers are learning conversational Japanese together. Our goal to use Japanese everyday

starting with some basic greeting words and instructions is supported by the use of gesture. Our aim is for

everyone in our school to know and use Japanese words/phrases daily.

A new development for 2019 is the introduction of the ELLA (Early Languages Learning Australia) program in Prep and Junior.  

The Australian Government is funding trial schools (we have been accepted as a trial school this year) to implement the ELLA

program that has been specifically developed for the Prep-Year 2 primary school context. ELLA has proven to be a highly

successful program in pre-schools over the past few years. ELLA is a digital, play-based language learning program for early years

children. This Australian Government initiative inspires children by driving a genuine interest in a new language and culture. Stay

tuned to give a warm welcome to our Japanese speaking Polyglot puppets coming soon!

Our Middle and Senior school students will continue to track the acquisition of Japanese vocabulary using an online app- SpeakUp!

Here is the list of conversational Japanese words that we will be using throughout the year. Many of our students and teachers

already successfully ‘code switch’ their language to include Japanese words. You might like to practise some at home and share

your experience on Storypark with your child’s contact teachers! Arigatou!

   

St Peter’s Japanese Vocabulary 

STEAM News 

In STEAM, students have continued their explorations of natural disasters, design and engineering. Students were challenged to

consider the impact of earthquakes on structures around the world. They used this knowledge to brainstorm key features of

structures that would assist in the case of an earthquake, such as a solid base and keeping constructions low to the ground.

Students then went on to work collaboratively to create prototypes of their designs which were tested on our earthquake simulator.

 

   

Julie Percy - Director of Learning & Teaching juliep@stprepp.catholic.edu.au SCHOOL COMMUNITY 

Community Cafe 

A reminder that our Community Cafe is opened to our families every Thursday

morning from drop off time. Adults are invited to come to the canteen window

after dropping off their children to enjoy a barista made coffee, tea or hot

chocolate for a donation.

 

Meet and Greet Afternoon 

Thank you to all the families who attended the Meet and Greet earlier this week. What a great opportunity for our families to get to

know the St Peter’s staff. We look forward to partnering with you in your child’s education this year.

Meet the Family Questionnaire  

This year we will once again be using Google forms to gather information about our students and their families. This information will

be useful to staff to get to know your child and family and form meaningful connections. The form can be accessed by following this

link. Could all families please ensure they complete one form per student enrolled at St Peter’s by Friday 22nd February.

Emma Canning - Director of School Community ecanning@stprepp.catholic.edu.au

STUDENT WELLBEING 

Positive Behaviours for Learning. (PBfL) 

Learning spaces have been revisiting and unpacking our Positive Behaviours for Learning. Our expectations 

are our STAR acronym.  

S Show respect 

T Think positively 

A Act responsibly 

R Remember to persist 

In the learning spaces different things that will be explored will be what does this look like, how will we know are seeing it,

how will we feel if these expectations are being shown? Circle time will be happening in all spaces addressing our STAR acronym

and making links to our school dispositions.

PBfL is a framework that allows us to be preventative rather than reactive, it allows the children to be using the same

language across the school and supports us in explicitly teaching the children about positive behaviors to enhance their learning

and who they are as people.

The link below “What is PBfL” gives you some further information. 

What is PBfL? 

 

Junior News 

This week, the juniors have been focusing on unpacking the STAR acronym. STAR stands for Show respect, Think positively, Act

responsibly and Remember to bounce back.

Students are familiar with this acronym from their previous years at St Peter’s however we further discussed how we could apply

these principles to our daily lives. The juniors made some great contributions and connections about how we can treat each other

more kindly and also motivate ourselves and others in our class when we are in the learning pit. The Juniors also had some really

great ideas on how we can be safe in our learning space and develop the disposition of resilience.

Parents can support their learning by asking the students to define this acronym at home.

House Spirit Leaders 

We have 16 of our yr 6 students who will be our House Spirit Leaders for this year. Our leaders will be organising some events, as

well as building up some great spirit and positivity around the school.

We will share the profiles of our leaders over the next few weeks.

Hi I am Jasmine and I am a Red House Spirit Leader.

Here is a little about me: I am 11 and turning 12 years old.

In my family I have a brother a rabbit my mum and dad,

my favorite things to do is play video games.

My hobby is playing netball. I would like to organise special events for the school for 2019

 

Hello my name is Melissa, I am one of the blue house spirit leaders for 2019.

I am 11 years old turning 12. I am a family of four I am the youngest. then my older sister and my mum and

dad. Some of my hobbies are singing, dancing and drama. I love to make my friends laugh and have a bit of a

joke sometimes.

I would love to help organize school activities with the other house spirit leaders.

 

 

 

Middle School Assembly

This week at our Middle School Assembly we celebrated the birthdays of:

Peter - Jan 5th Georgia - Jan 9th Ashika - Jan 13th Nicholas - Jan 20th

Abraham - Jan 15th Xavier - Jan 28th Thimashi - Feb 6th Jaelene - Feb 9th

Mehrez - Feb 9th Baxter - Feb 12th Nakula - Feb 16th Jake - Feb 21st

Thomas N - Feb 24th Archie Feb 24th Manuela - Feb 25th Pip - Feb 26th

Happy birthday to you all! 

Congratulations to our Achievement Award recipients

Elvis Do, Marcus Ponzo and Gracie Registro. You have

made an brilliant start to your learning.

Our next assembly will be held on Friday March 8th

beginning at 8:45am. We hope to see you there.

Jackie Fleischmann - Director of Student Wellbeing jfleischmann@stprepp.catholic.edu.au