St Matthew's Catholic Primary School

Parish Priest: Fr Florentino (Boy) Galdo

School Principal: Mr Bob Brown

Deputy Principal: Mrs Rachael Spooner

School Email: principal@smfawknernth.catholic.edu.au

School Phone: 0393595423 

St Matthew's Primary School is committed to creating an environment where the safety, wellbeing

and participation of all children within our care is paramount. 

Hello to all our Students, Parents, Staff and Friends of St Matthew’s,

This is more like it, here is this Spring weather we were promised. Hopefully we receive more of this during our holidays? Please note that this term finishes this Friday 16th September at 3:15pm after Assembly in the hall. School resumes on Monday 3rd October at 8:40am sharp.

What a week we had last week culminating in our VISUAL ARTS Show. It was the first opportunity for our families in our school community to gather together as one since the six lockdowns of 2020 & 2021 and did they gather. The hall was packed and parents were able to see the 4 pieces of amazing Art that every student at St Matthew’s had produced throughout the three terms and mingle and catch up with one another. It was a very social evening and enjoyable evening.

Congratulations to Mrs Sarah Auld-Callinan (our Visual Arts Teacher) and Mrs Christine Pengelly (our Teacher Librarian) who guided the students through the processes of such intricate visual art. It truly was amazing and the presentation was just like a real art gallery. Well done Ladies!!!

Please read Mrs Auld-Callinan’s summary later in the newsletter and enjoy the photos.

Also thank you to Mr Travers (our Music Teacher) and the students and adult singers and musicians who provided the background music.

NEW PARENTS & FRIENDS ASSOCIATION COMMITTEE

The Parents and Friends Association were very active recently with both the Father’s Day Raffle and the Father’s day stall. Both were very successful with the raffle raising $522 and the Stall a mammoth $3216. Any money raised is set aside for resources for your children, our students. In the first newsletter next Term I will include some photos of surprises that have been purchased just recently, stay tuned.

Please remember our new committee is listed below and they would like as many general committee members to join them.

President - Corinna Makdesi

Vice President - Marcia Conci

Treasurers - Maria Mella & Mary Aude

Secretary - Chamindri Karunaratne

General Committee members - Jessica Saracino, Nadia Greco + anyone else who would like to join and help out on special occasions. Any parent is most welcome to join.

PEOPLE AND CAR MOVEMENT IN SELOLA COURT

The families that are using Selola Court for drop off and pick from school would all be well aware of the damaged fence at the house next to the school. Parents please be extremely careful when walking your children through this area (stay right next to the cones and tape) and if you are doing your U-Turn near the gates. Pedestrians take priority at all times.

Please Note: there is no dropping off or picking up in the U-Turn area.

FEES REMINDER

Payment of all Outstanding School Fees

This is a reminder that all outstanding School Fees and Levies are to be finalised by

Friday, 16th September 2022.  If you have any queries or need to set up a Direct Debit Payment to assist with paying the balance of your account, please contact Natalie (Bursar) via email: admin@smfawknernth.catholic.edu.au.

Payment methods available to settle your account with St Matthew's Primary School are:

Cash - Directly paid over the counter at the office

Credit Card - By phone or in person at the office

Direct Payment to School Account: BSB: 083 347  Account: 540 385 132  Reference: Account code (as per Statement) and Family Surname

Please note, that any credits (including the CSEF) to accounts will be put through by Mid-November 2022

Have a most restful and enjoyable holiday break with your family and friends. Take care everyone.                

Yours Sincerely,

Bob Brown - Principal  

 

 TERM 3, 2022

SEPTEMBER

Friday 16th September 

St Matthew's Feast Day

Final Assembly and Last Day of Term 3

Footy Colours Day (please bring gold coin donation) 

OCTOBER

Monday 3rd - First Day of Term 4, first bell at 8.40am, student's learning commences at 8.50am sharp

 

Wow! What a brilliant night Thursday was! It was wonderful to see so many families come to St Matthews to see and support the students in their Visual Arts journey!

It was amazing to speak to so many you, our families, and hear how proud you were feeling of the students. Most importantly, it was fantastic having students thrilled to see their work displayed for so many people.

Each week the students work through a process and skill to build upon their artwork. These process often test patience and resilience, yet it was evident from the final work on Thursday that every student has experienced success in the art room at St Matthew’s and like you, I am immensely proud of their efforts.

Thank you to all the families that contributed tiles to our ‘Wominjeka’ artwork. This will be homed in the School Garden when completed and truly captures what St Matthew’s is about- welcoming all.

Once again, thank you!

Sarah Auld-Callinan

In Year 6, the students have been learning about WWII and in particular, the events of the Holocaust and how this has affected migration.  On Tuesday 30th August, the Year 6 cohort travelled to the Jewish Holocaust Museum where they took part in various activities, along with a Q&A with a Jewish Holocaust survivor, Gilah Leder.  Gilah shared stories and memories of her time in hiding, along with what she has achieved here in Australia since she migrated.  This was an overwhelming experience for many and one the students and teachers will never forget.  

 

Student Reflections

Today’s excursion helped me learn a lot of new things. Gilah Leder’s story made me feel chills. I found it interesting that her parents survived and she got to go with them. I was even impressed by how she knew how to hide at only 2 years old. I find it really smart for a 2 year old. Her foster brother did tell a lot of his friends about Gilah but I'm surprised that his friends never told anyone or their parents because little kids get excited and tell a lot of people. This excursion made me realise that World War 2 started just because of some words and the choices and actions of people. Something I took from the Q&A is that you always need to be careful on what you're going to say towards people and your choices because you never know the consequences or the outcome of it. This affected me by making me realise that this was real because when we read Hana’s Suitcase it was hard to believe that Hana passed so it felt more real to me knowing a survivor talked to us not on a screen, but actually getting to see her and know her story. I also found it comforting that Gilah’s foster sister cut off a piece of her hair and moved it around every time, because that brought her foster sister comfort and that's how she thought it would keep Gilah safe. At first I never understood how hard it was for some Jews to fake their identity until I tried to do it myself, because at first I never knew they had to remember all that fake information. But overall I enjoyed this excursion a lot.

Malena 6A

Melbourne Holocoust Museum excursion Reflection

Today on the 30 of August 2022 the grade sixes of St. Matthews went on an excursion to the Melbourne Holocoust Museum. We were there for about 2 hours and we learned a lot of information. When we got there we put our bags in the trolley and we headed inside, inside there were seats where we sat down and listened to the lady who was talking and explaining what we were doing today and information about the holcoust. After she finished speaking we split up into our classes and each class was doing an activity with the instructor. 

The first activity my class did was an activity where we were sitting on the floor dead silent for 2 minutes straight. We did this so we could experience what Ann Frank and other Jewish people felt when they were hiding. When the Jewish peole where hiding during WW2 they had to be dead silent so no one could them and turn them in to the Nazis. My strategy to get through the 2 minutes was to focus my mind on something else, and it did work. I was impressed by how well my class actually did, there was barely any noise at all. 

After that activity we did our last activity with the same instructor till we rotated with the other class. This activity we were doing was an activity which alot of Jewish hiders had experienced. We had a few options of supplies and entertainment and we could only choose one thing to take. I took a book because I think with a book it's very quiet so no one can hear when you're hiding, it passes a lot of time and because  you can read it multiple times.

After that activity we rotated with our class to finish our last activity. The last activity was where we got a new identity with all our new details, then we had a minute to memorise it. After the minute was up the lady came around to everyone and asked them questions about their new identity. Though for me I didn't get the first question correct.

Lastly we were lucky enough to speak and interact with a Jewish holocoust survivor. The jewish holocoust survivors name was Gihla and she was very interactive with us which we all loved. Her story was amazing, we were all so intrigued with her story we were about to fall off our chairs. After the lovely chat we had a rap up and a reflection. Then we got our bags out of the trolley, we had our first snack and then we started walking back to the bus. We arrived back at school at 1:25 and that was our day!

LUCAS 6B

Last Friday we celebrated the St Matthew’s Commonwealth Games.

Our SRC leaders and Sports Leaders planned and ran the whole event. Each class had a different country assigned to them and they participated in a number of modified Commonwealth Games activities.

Due to the inclement weather we had to change a few things up and we ran in in the hall with further modified sports.

A huge thank you to our student school leaders who were so resilient in changing things, running the activities and keeping the scores, they really did show many leadership skills on the day as well as the lead up and the planning.  CONGRATULATIONS.

The final placings looked like this

Canada

Wales

Australia

England

New Zealand

India

Scotland

We would like to thank the following business’s Eat Italian, Pane E Pizza, Icon Candles for your generous donations for our Father’s Day Raffle. Without the support of our local business’s the day wouldn’t have been successful. It was a wonderful day seeing all the kids come in an purchase wonderful gifts from the Father’s Day. 

We would also like to say a big Thank You to the wonderful Mum’s who donated their time in helping making the day big success. Without all your help we wouldn’t be able to run the stall. Also a big thank you to Nelson Alexander.

 Congratulations to all the children who won in the raffle.