Newsletter

Creator God you have loved me into life.

Continually draw me to yourself daily in close relationship with you

During this Lenten Season of reflection and prayer, walk with me and hold my hand in my daily joys and struggles.

I know I can be the best version of myself with your continued guidance and love.

Give me the confidence to reach for your guiding hand.

Cultivate with love the seeds of goodness, beauty and truth that God sows in every generation.”  Pope Francis

Child Safe Standards

“The Child Safe Standards are compulsory minimum standards for all organisations that provide services to children including Victorian schools. The aim of the Standards is to ensure organisations are well prepared to protect children from abuse and neglect.” 

(Department of Education and Training Victoria, July 2017). 

At Our Lady’s school, our primary consideration is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all students in our care. To ensure that this is the case, we take seriously our obligations, as outlined in the seven Child Safety Standards. All members of our school community are expected to abide by each of the standards. 

Each week we will focus on one of the seven standards and what it means for our school. 

Standard 1. Maintain an organisational culture of child safety.

Here at Our Lady’s school, Leadership is proactive in aiming to ensure that all members of the school community and visitors maintain a culture of child safety. We also aim to ensure that our students feel valued and respected and have every opportunity to achieve their full potential. 

Ways we can promote this standard at Our Lady’s school:

*School staff, volunteers, contractors and the parent community have a current Working with Children Check (or equivalent), with copies retained at school. They also read and sign the Code of Conduct form.

*School staff, volunteers and the parent community interact in positive ways with each student. Should a parent or other adult observe any concerning behaviours they are to notify a school staff member immediately.

*School staff and classroom volunteers are encouraging and supportive of the efforts made by the students.

*Classroom volunteers will be guided by the teachers in regard to the support they give within the classroom setting. 

The safety of the students at Our Lady’s school continues to be of the highest priority and your support in upholding the Child Safety Standards is very much appreciated.

School Closure Day

Next Friday, 8th March the staff of Our Lady's and Our Holy Redeemer will be participating in a Professional Learning Day. The focus of this learning will be Education in Faith.

There will be no school for students on this day. 

Thank you for your continued support of our wonderful school. 

Annie Engellenner

Principal

Hot Shot Tennis

On Friday the 15th of February our 5/6  team vs Our Holy Redeemer at their school. Congratulations to the following students that made it  to the team Nickie G, Fiona T, Lucas JR, Tom W, Tom M, Aidan T, Ezra K, Connor K, and Max F. Really well played from all of you and good sportsmanship.

Well done to everyone for trying their best and a special mention to the doubles teams for winning all their matches. Our team won the overall game so great job again to all of you.

A huge thank you goes to all the following teachers Miss Ludescher, Mr Hawke, Tania and a massive thank you goes to Mrs James our sports teacher for organizing everything.  

We are looking forward to seeing you all again next week at St Bridget's.

Volleyball? 

I was part of the volleyball team. I saw the people showing lots of encouragement. For our first volleyball game I think we did really well. We had great spirit had played like pros. We fought hard to win two our of two games against people much taller. People played hard for their first ever game. I was the only grade five and before the game I didn't even know how to play. I think the team we played fought till the very end. OHR put up a great fight. 

By Rohan 

Tee Ball

 On the 15/2/19, the Our Lady’s Tee-ball team played against The Our Holy Redeemer Tee-ball team. They played at the Surrey Hills Baseball Club. The two teams demonstrated excellent sportsmanship and sporting abilities. They played for four innings, with the score going back and forth the entire game. The game ran very smoothly because of the two teams honesty and courage. It was amazing how both teams were exceedingly good at T-ball. There was outstanding fielding and batting from every single child, but in the end it all came down to one run, and OLPS won!

By Gus C Yr 6

Cricket

On Friday 15th of February the year 5/6s went to the first interschool sports of 2019, playing OHR. It was the year 5s first year of interschool sports, we went down to surrey park with the tee ballers. We Bowled and bated at the same time and there were two different games playing. The scores were 200 to OLWP and 243 to OHR, everyone had a bat and bowl and had a great time playing.

OHR were the home team and the people playing tennis and volleyball stayed at OHR and played there. Isla and I were part of the team, the whole team did very well and had a good score in the end. Mrs James umpired our game and did a great job. Thank you Alec for being a great team captain. Emily and I had lots of fun playing with the team, and are looking forward to playing for the next 6 weeks.

By Emily and Isla from 5/6H  

It was wonderful to gather as a school community to celebrate the new school year as well as acknowledging and blessing our school leaders, Parent Education board and new preps. Our leaders received their badges and the preps received a beautiful Guardian Angel badge. Many thanks to the PFA for providing a lovely morning tea.

PARENT MEDITATION GROUP - Friday 15th March- 9.00am

I would love to begin our Parent meditation group on Friday 15th March at 9.00am in the Library. At this meeting we can discuss as a group how often we would like to meet.

I will be facilitating the group and see it as a very relaxed gathering where we learn about meditation and have a brief time of meditation together, followed by a cuppa for those who can stay.

I have been studying and lecturing in Christian Meditation and mindfulness over the last 20 years and particularly enjoy leading children and adults in times of meditation.

It may be of interest to you if;

• You would like to gain a deeper understanding of our school meditation program

• You lead a busy life and occasionally feel overwhelmed by your busyness!

• If you tend to be a worrier or anxious

• If you would like to help your child, who can tend to be a worrier.

• If you would like to find the time for you- to be calm, still and silent.

• If you would like to take this calm out into your everyday interactions and relationships

I would love to hear from you if this sounds interesting to you or just show up on the 15th!

If you cannot attend on this date but are interested, please let me know!

chicks@olsurreyhills.catholic.edu.au

“Be still and know that I am God. These are the words that we take into our busy lives…. It is important to keep a still place in the marketplace. This still place is where God can dwell and speak to us. It also is a place where we can speak in a healing way to all the people we meet in our busy days.” Henri Nouwen

Andrew Chinn

Last Wednesday night was a wonderful whole school time of singing, sharing and celebrating together. We felt blessed to have Andrew with us during the day as he delighted our students through his humour, gentleness and musical gifts.

The evening concert was well attended and it was an exciting time of sharing the talents of both the students and staff alike! It was fabulous to see the delighted smiles of all our students, from Prep to year 6. A great night was had by all.

Lent- Ash Wednesday

We will be celebrating mass together on Wednesday 6th March at 10:15, in Our Lady's church, to mark the beginning of Lent and we warmly invite you to join us at this mass. We will be marking our foreheads with the sign of the cross from the palms that Father Mark will burn with us on Tuesday in the quadrangle.

During Lent we will focus on our calling to become people of great love. We will be reflecting upon how we can live our lives on a daily basis in a way that resembles the values of Jesus.

During Lent we will be making connections to our Inquiry question, ‘How can we create a great learning environment where everyone can grow?’ We will be looking at our responsibility to ensure that not only do we learn and grow, but also how can we ensure our classmates learn and grow.

We will also look for ways to support children throughout our global community, as we believe that all children in our world have the right to learn and grow. It will also be a time of reflecting on our times of prayer and how meaningful prayer can help us to learn, grow and be  people of great love.

SACRAMENTS

CONFIRMATION

On Tuesday the 5th March, there will be an information evening for the Sacrament of Confirmation. This will be held in the church at 7.30pm and for parents only.

Confirmation commitment masses

The confirmation candidates can choose to go to one of the following masses.

• Our Holy Redeemer- 30th March  6.00pm

• Our Lady’s Church- 31st March- 9.00am

• Our Holy Redeemer- 31st March 10.30am

Reconciliation

14th March- Reconciliation Reflection Day. Year 3 Students can wear casual clothes

21st March- Sacrament of Reconciliation in Our Lady’s Church at 7.00pm.

Students are to wear casual clothes.

n Term 1 2019, Our Lady's school will have a Cyber Safety information evening for parents. The evening will cover many of the technical and psychological issues which parents face today and also allow for any questions which they may have as well as provide parent take home resources. 

Please save the date for this very valuable evening on the March 28th, 2019 @ 7:00pm.