St Thomas More’s School Update

Dear Parents 

“To be one and to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is even greater” Unknown 

“Respect for people is the cornerstone of communication.” Unknown 

Our school prides itself on being a community of joy, hope, faith and justice. A Community that celebrates and finds joy in learning, lives with hope in our hearts, has faith in Jesus that He will guide our way, and strives to create a world where everyone has life and can experience it in all its fullness.  

We must continue to challenge one another to live up to these core values regardless of the circumstances. There are now less than nine school days in the school term remaining. As we near the end of the school term, everyone grows tired. Occasionally tiredness can lead to irritability or saying or doing something that we regret. 

God created all people and created them differently for reasons and purposes we may not understand. Regardless of how we perceive other people to be, they are God’s creations, and it is God’s will for us to show respect to everyone. 

In the last week of Term one we should challenge our children and ourselves to reflect on and heighten our core qualities. Each and every day, there are excellent examples of this alive and well in our school. None of these cost anything financially to complete! 

Easter 

Next week, we end the period of Lent and enter into the Season of Easter. The Passion of Christ, the lead up to his death and then Resurrection, is the essential cornerstone of our faith as Catholics and Christians. 

The events of Holy Week have the whole spectrum of life’s realities: betrayal, cruelty, ego, politics, injustice and doubt, kindness, disappointment and then most important of all, HOPE! The key message is of hope! Hope amongst cruelty, injustice and betrayal. Sadly for many, if not most of us, we have experienced disappointment, loss, cruelty and sadness. Yet it is hope that moves us onwards and upwards, hope that motivates us to try again, hope that makes us believe things can turn around or improve. 

Faith is tested and questioned when we see the death of innocent people in wars waged across the world. When we see disease, drought, starvation and poverty. God is present in the hope and kindness of people that fight for cures, for aid, that are the voice of those that are voiceless, for peace amongst the violence and bravery amongst the actions of cowards. 

For Christians, Easter is the matchless remedy for all forms of hopelessness. The resurrection of Jesus is the basis for the deep trust that cultivates our faith and love. Easter is never over, Jesus lives on in all Christians; it is in us that His presence is in the world. 

I wish you all a loving and restful Easter break, and I will see you all safe and well on Tuesday 20th of April. 

God Bless 

Aaron Wells 

Assistant Principal: Administration 

Well done to 1 Gold for leading our final class Prayer Celebration for the term last week. It was great to learn about St Joseph and to be able to take some time to reflect on how important he is to the Church. It was very fitting St Joseph was the theme of the 1 Gold celebration as it was St Joseph’s Day on Friday as well! St Joseph is a very special saint not just to the Church, with 2021 being the year of St Joseph, but to St Thomas More’s as well as our school was started by the Sisters of St Joseph in 1961.  

This week our Prep students will be off to Parish Mass on Friday at 9:00am. Prep families are most welcome to come along and join in the Friday Parish Mass at St Thomas More’s Church. Please remember you will need to sign in before entering the church in accordance with COVID regulations.  

This year, our Year 5 children will be leading our Holy Week Prayer celebration. Prep to Year 6 will be attending on the last day of term at 11:30am in the Sport Centre. We warmly invite all members of our school community along to commemorate this special time in our Church calendar. 

Service Club will update you a little bit further down in the Update this week about how our Project Compassion Campaign is going but I wanted to take the opportunity to say how proud I am of our whole school community for the generosity and compassion that has been shown this year. I had worried Service Club had set the bar too high with a goal of $800 for Project Compassion this year, but I am pleased to say I may just be proven wrong! We have collected over $600 between classroom Project Compassion boxes and our Project Compassion Easter Raffle. What an amazing effort!  

Harmony Week was a big hit last week. If you are out and about in our school, please do come and check out our rainbow of faces that each student created last week as part of our Harmony Week celebrations … individually we are one colour but together we really do make one magnificent rainbow!  

Don’t forget this Friday is Purple Day! Service Club have chosen to support Epilepsy Australia this term in addition to CARITAS and encourage the whole school community to come wearing the best purple clothes on Friday with a gold coin donation which will be donated to Epilepsy Australia. Don’t worry if you don’t have purple clothes … just wear something colourful and bring along your gold coin.  

Important Dates this Term …. 

Have a lovely week, 

God Bless

Kristin

As a school, we have now raised over $500 for Project Compassion. That is amazing! Our Project Compassion champions in Weeks 6 and 7 were 1 Gold, who donated nearly $90 in two weeks, and 5 Red, who donated just over $55 in two weeks. We only have one more 50c Friday left this term after today, so please bring along 50c this Friday one last time for 2021 if you can! Let's see if we can reach our goal of $800 before the end of this term.  

Our lunchtime groups will start again now we are back from camp. Don't forget any students from Prep to Year 6 can come to Creative Group on a Monday at second break playtime or Mediation Group on a Thursday at second break playtime. Prep and Year 1, we will still come and visit you in your playground on a Friday at second break playtime for Sport Group as well!  

The 'Be Like Jesus Challenge’ is still going well. This week being Harmony Week, we have seen so many great examples of kindness, patience and love. We also saw lots of persistence and perseverance from our Year 6 classmates when we were on camp last week! 

Last time Service Club spoke at assembly, Harry and Awuoi told you all about Oliva from Tanzania and how CARITAS has helped her. Today we moved a little closer to home with a story about Arsad, who is from Indonesia. There are no toilets in Arsad's house and they use the forest instead. Sometimes they need to go out into the forest in the dark of night or in terrible storms. 45 million people in Indonesia go to the toilets outdoors and most don't realise the sickness and other health problems this can cause. CARITAS helped Arsad learn about hygiene. He learnt how to save money and built a toilet inside his house. He now teaches other people in his community how to save money.He has helped lots of families save and build their own toilets in their homes. 

Now there are over 280 toilets in Arsad's neighbourhood. Arsad says … “Most people at first did not understand about health. Now, they’re willing to listen and they have an easy way to build toilets. We help each other, the ‘togetherness’ is growing.” CARITAS is only able to do wonderful things like this with the support of people in places like Australia. This year, we urge you to dig deep and give what you can during our Project Compassion Campaign, either by participating in 50c Friday or buying tickets in our Easter Raffle.  

Tickets for our Easter Raffle went on sale this week. So far the teachers have bought most of the tickets! We will be selling tickets all the way up until the last day of school. You can buy tickets each day at second break playtime outside the Quiet Room. Tickets are 50c each and you can buy as many as you like. All the money from our raffle will be sent to CARITAS as part of our Project Compassion Campaign.  

Last but not least … don't forget it's Purple Day this Friday! Come along in your best purple gear with a gold coin donation to support Epilepsy Australia. Don't worry if you have no purple clothes, just come in colourful free dress with your coin instead.  

God Bless  

Lucy, Aweer and Akuy from the Service Club  

St Thomas More’s is full of enthusiastic and hard-working students!

This week, we would like to share a wonderful piece of writing from one of our Year 5 children.

Well done Rita!

Uh. Not today. Please. I flopped back onto my bed. It immediately felt better. My pillows were as soft as the clouds. “Get your togs on soon!”, yelled my mother. I felt bad again.  

That morning I had been woken by my mother, sharing the ‘exciting news’ that we were going to the beach. It wasn’t. I moaned. I groaned. I was annoyed. Ugh. I hated the beach. I hated water. Taking baths were the most annoying part of the day. So, I got back in bed only to again be interrupted.  

I searched my wardrobe. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Nothing. I never wore togs. I explained to mum that they were hiding from me, so I sadly had to stay home. “But I’ll get over it!”, I added at the end.  

Skip half an hour and we were already in the car, driving. I secretly hoped that a car crash would create a traffic jam and we wouldn’t have time to go. Mum had found swimmers, surprisingly behind the books on my bookshelf. Then she gave me the evil eye. So did my togs.   

We got there, no car crash ☹. Mum and Dad applied sunscreen, but I didn’t. The ocean was glaring at me. Mmm. It didn’t look so happy to see me. I stayed there on the grass doing cartwheels and buying slurpees. They distracted me, but as soon as I thought about it their magic stopped. I looked at my parents having so much fun. Then I looked at the ocean and kept slurping.   

I looked at the ocean more carefully this time and saw a big ball. At first, I thought it was just one of those massive inflatable beach balls that 6-year-olds kick around, but then I looked again. It was a disgusting dirty white colour, like a white shirt that’s been worn in a mud pit. It smiled as it rolled onto the shore, towards me. I put my drinks down and stopped to look. My closest and most reasonable guess was an egg. And it had a crack in it, like an eye winking at me. I liked it.  

More time passed and the crack grew bigger and bigger. I made story in my head and it was an egg, and it cracked. I started to pray it would come alive. Not that it was ever going to. But I was wrong. The crack certainly became larger, and the rest of the egg was splitting apart too, like a cookie crumbling. It got to the point where I was getting bored with it so I continued my slurping and watching mum and dad have fun.  

Crack! The noise was as loud as a firework. Everyone on the beach stopped to stare. Including mum, dad and me. I was right. It was an egg! The splitting became forceful enough to open it and out came a…. nothing. There was nothing except cracked shells everywhere. All that excitement for nothing. I was in trouble.  

The last thing I saw before we left the beach was a raging volcano, A.K.A my mother’s face. There was a lot ruined, and apparently it was all my fault. 

Have you joined our private Facebook page for St Thomas More’s families? 

Here we share up to date information on things happening around the school, let parents know what is happening from the P&F and also allow parents to post regarding selling uniforms, lost property and other school related questions. 

It’s a great way to be involved in our school community. 

You can join the group here 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/612293628865467/

There is a fruit bowl full of delicious fruit located at the office for any child who needs/wants a little extra to help them get through their day - perhaps they haven’t had any fruit at home to eat, have dropped their lunch/had food go off, didn’t feel like eating early but need something now they are at school. 

The children are welcome to head to the fruit bowl to grab a piece. 

Thank you once again to the Boulus family and Westridge Fruit and Vegetables for the weekly donation of this beautiful fruit. 

Just a friendly reminder that tuckshop orders are due by 12pm Thursdays.

If you missed the cut off time, the order will automatically change over to the following week.  Please check the dates after you have placed your orders to avoid possible disappointment.