Jump Fest

A huge thank you to everyone for your support on Sunday with our Jump Fest. As you would recall, we were raising money for our Global Partner School, Jariah Education Centre in Kenya, to purchase and install a water tank at their school. I am pleased to inform the community that we reached our target of $2500. The students at Jariah will now have access to fresh, clean water. 

Also thank you to our sponsors Premier Capital Properties, OwnIt Finance and McDonalds for supporting us to make this day a huge success!

Boorowa

Congratulations to all our teams who competed in the Boorowa Touch Football and Netball Carnival last Friday. It was a wild and windy day! All our students were exceptionally well-behaved and demonstrated great team work! Thank you to Erin Hardwicke for behind the scene organisation and to Damien Webb, Jessica Lewis, Bridgette McCann, Rachel Gannis, Esther Coghlan, Darren Houlihan, Kai Ryan and Gabriel Walsh who managed, coached or umpired a team.  

Kindergarten Orientation

Next week, we welcome 26 new students who will attend Kindergarten with us in 2020. Many of these students are from new families to the school. This will be a short orientation session in the morning. Please make our new students and families welcome to St Michael's. Let the fun begin!

2020 Dates - Carnivals

K-2 Water Fun Day & Years 3-6 Swimming Carnival - Tuesday 25 February

Cross Country -Thursday 2 April

Athletics Carnival - Tuesday 2 June

ACT Children's Week - Commissioner Award

Mischa received her awards for her passion, dedication and care for animals and sustainability. Mischa demonstrates that one person can make a difference to inspire and influence those around her. For several years now, she has volunteered tirelessly and raised awareness about animal rights and environmental issues through her advocacy. We congratulate Mischa on her achievements!

Mission Rosary Day - Catholic Mission

On Friday we will raise awareness with our students of Catholic Mission. This is a uniform free day and students are encouraged to wear the colours of green, red, white, blue and yellow to represent the Mission Rosary. All students will receive a set of Mission Rosary Beads.

All Saints and All Souls

Tomorrow we will reflect and remember and celebrate those in our lives who have passed away and pray to the Saints for guidance, protection and love. 

School Office Hours (8.20-3.30pm)

Just a reminder that our formal supervision is between the hours of 8.20-3.30pm. These are also our formal office hours. If you need to contact the office (by phone or in person), please do so between these hours. Outside of these hours the office will not always be staffed. Early before school care occurs from 8am, but our office is not open until 8.20am. Any further clarification you may need, please let me know. 

School Fees 2020

At last night's Community Council meeting, our proposed 2020 Budget and School Fee Allocation was unanimously approved. We continue to be in a healthy position regarding our finances, which allows us to continue to make improvements across the school whether that be professional development and training for staff, resourcing for classrooms, maintenance, grounds, technology and furnishing to name a few bigger ticket items. We thank the school community for continuing to keep on top of fee payments. We have an extremely good collection rate, so thank you!

We do our best to ensure our fees are as low as possible. In order to continue with our operating costs (electricity, water), providing staff and students with resources needs, meeting parent expectations and our own aspirations for a high quality education, it is important that school income keeps pace with increasing education costs and the changing funding environment. 

Our Fee Schedule for 2020 will come home on Friday. You will note that there has been a 5% increase in CE Tuition Fees and a 3% increase in local school levies. This results in approximately a $3.00 increase per week for a single child over a 52 week period.

Please contact the Front Office regarding increasing direct debit arrangements for 2020 to ensure fees are covered by the end of 2020.  

Bees

You may have heard a little story from Tuesday regarding a 'swarm of bees'. Do not be alarmed, all is fine. It is actually quite an interesting story. We discovered at the entrance of our staff carpark, a huge amount of bees on Monday afternoon. Upon further inspection we noticed a significant amount, so we called the 'Bee Man' to come. On Tuesday morning as I drove into school, I took a quick snap of the bees (as they were quiet). The Bee Man was to arrive later that day. At lunchtime, as the children were on the oval, these bees decided to fly across the oval. We closed the oval and I investigated further only to discover, what I thought was a hive in the tree was now gone. Once the Bee Man arrived (15 minutes later), retelling the story, he explained that it wasn't a hive, but a temporary post. Apparently there would've been thousands of bees huddled together. Apparently, those bees remain together until a drone bee comes back to communicate they have found a permanent home. So, off they went into the distance to this new permanent home (thankfully, not on school grounds). 

Interesting fact about bees - Over the last 15 years, colonies of bees have been disappearing. Referred to as ‘colony collapse disorder’, billions of Honey bees across the world are leaving their hives, never to return. In some regions, up to 90% of bees have disappeared! So whilst we would like to encourage the odd bee or two to visit our beautiful flowers around the school to help the environment, I am thankful the thousands of bees have found a better home somewhere. Never a dull moment!

Thursday and Friday this week, I will be off site (not because of the bees). Thursday I have Principal meetings to attend and Friday we have our annual Director's Day where CE staff present future directions etc for the year ahead. Please see Damien Webb or Meaghan Younger in my absence. 

Enjoy the week ahead. 

Kind regards, 

Pat Ellis

Principal