School Vision
St Matthew’s School empowers children to embrace life-long learning, and grow and develop as God intends.
Project Compassion Prayer
God of all peoples and nations,
As you accompany us on our Lenten journey,
May our fasting strengthen our
Commitment to live in solidarity.
Our almsgiving be an act of justice, and
Our prayers anchor us in love and compassion.
Through living simply and loving generously.
May we care for our global family
And our common home, as we
“Aspire not to have more, but to be more”*
We ask this in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
*Saint Oscar Romero
Dear Parents & Caregivers,
As we begin this season of Lent, I was very touched by the generosity of many of our families this week. St Matthew’s School is using our school motto to inspire our students to show concern for ourselves, others, our environment and our relationship with God. Every Wednesday afternoon we are splitting our Yr 2 to Yr 6 classes into 4 groups to explore how we can apply this motto to our daily lives.
The ‘Relationship with God’ group is specifically exploring how we can be the image of Jesus to all those people around us. With this in mind, this group wanted to help the children and families who were affected by the Perth bushfires. The children thought about all the valued items that the families may have lost due to this natural disaster and brought in many items to donate to these families.
Thank you to all of the families who supported this initiative – the generosity is greatly appreciated. A special thank you to the Nankivell family who supplied many beautiful, homemade teddy bears. I am sure all of these donations will go a long way in brightening up many children’s lives.
BusyBee 13 March 8:30am
Mrs Dyke, Mrs Collins and Mrs D’Alton have been eagerly putting their heads together this week to complete the plans for our new Harmony Garden and Nature Playground. On Saturday 13 March, we are asking our families to support this initiative by helping prepare the site – removing a section of lawn (Dingo required), transporting and spreading pinebark, helping with the construction of cubby/play equipment, construction of planter boxes and removing, planting and repotting plants.
If you are able to donate your time and hard-working hands for any period of time from 8:30am to 12:30pm on Saturday 13 March, please email susan.milton@cewa.edu.au, or just turn up on the day. Children are naturally welcome to come and help, or just to play! A sausage sizzle will be available for all our hard-working heroes.
Garage Sale 13 March 8:30am
To help raise funds for our new Harmony Garden and Nature Playground, St Matthew’s will be holding a Garage Sale on 13 March. Along with parent donations, the school will be selling a variety of computer hardware and class furniture. A list of items will be popped on the school Facebook page prior to the sale.
We would love our families to support this undertaking by:
Donating good quality items to be sold. Items can be dropped off to the Undercover Area on Friday 12 March from 8:30am until 6pm. In the meantime, photos of items can be emailed to susan.milton@cewa.edu.au.
Attending the garage sale and taking home a bargain!
Lunchtime Flip
This term, we are trialling a new system for Year 1 to 6 lunchtimes. Instead of eating at 12:45pm, the children will head straight out to play until 1:05pm. At this time, children will then be able to sit with their friends and eat their lunch until 1:20pm. There are several reasons we have decided to try this new format:
It provides children with some active play before they need to sit and eat
It allows children to have a calm down time before re-entering class
It encourages children to fully focus on their eating, as they are not distracted by wanting to go and play.
It provides duty teachers with an opportunity to chat with individual children to resolve any concerns or conflicts
Class teachers of the junior grades will monitor their students, and, if need be, allow them additional time to finish their lunches.
Uniform Survey
In order to continue to ensure that our Uniform Policy responds to the needs of our school community, we invite our parents to complete a short survey about our current policy.
We would appreciate the Uniform Survey being completed by Friday 5 March.
Basketball Court Update
On March 3, our lovely new basketball court will be adorned with new line markings. Thanks to the generosity of the P&F, we will be adding some new exciting games to our court. The colourful additions will help our students further develop their ball skills and general fitness. This area will also provide the children with more play options at break times.
Congratulations to Everyone!
It is fantastic to see that all of our factions have earnt 10 minutes of free play next week as a reward for earning enough Ping Pong Points. Children receive points for making good choices that follow our school rules and encourage everyone to play and learn together in a positive, productive way. Well done, everyone!!
Cybersafety
It has come to our attention that there are several junior primary students who have their own Youtube and/or Tic Toc accounts. This is quite alarming to us as these sites are not designed for children under 13 and can potentially put your children at risk of unwanted adult attention. The following link contains more information on how to keep children safe online.
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/parents-ultimate-guide-to-youtube
Containers for Change Reducing Our Waste Footprint
St Matthew’s is committed to reducing our waste footprint. In 2020 we established compost bins for food scraps, utilised our school app to reduce the need for paper notes and established separate bins for paper recycling in our office spaces. We would like to extend this initiative by encouraging our families to recycle their bottles and cans through the Containers for Change program. By taking eligible containers to the depots located:
21 Graham Rd, Narrogin
20 Tavistock St, Wagin
1 Pasture St, Pingelly
families are able to reduce waste, as well as receive a cash bonus for their good deed. Many families are encouraging their children to be involved by allowing them to earn the 10c per container and thus teaching financial and environmental messages. An alternative to this, is donating this money directly to our P&F to support school improvements. All you need to do is quote our Scheme Id number when depositing your containers.
Containers for Change Scheme Id: C10418925
Lenten Pastoral Letter
Bishop Gerard Holohan wishes to share some important understandings and reflections as we enter this season of Lent. I have shared his Lenten Pastoral Letter on the school app and encourage all parents to take the time to read and reflect on its contents. As Bishop Gerard explains:
“In Lent, we seek to renew our response to the Christ whose divine life we share. As we do so, the power of his life grows within us, moving us to think, speak and behave more like him.”
Principal Focus – Have a Chat!
One of the greatest joys of my job is being able to spend time in conversation with little people. It never ceases to amaze me how excited they are to share with you their adventures and to offer you solutions to the world’s problems. Although this personally gives me great joy, I am also very aware as an educator and mother, how valuable a chat can be. As Maggie Dent (BA, DipEd, DipCounselling) explains:
“Conversational language is now seen as equally important as being read to in the first three years of life, for building the pathways to learning about life and literacy. It allows children to explore conversation and the hidden patterns within the spoken language. It also gives children a sense of being noticed and having value. This strongly supports the life skill of ‘having a voice’ and of being heard—attributes of assertive and resilient people. Anyone who feels unheard often struggles with their self-esteem and can feel isolated, unaccepted or undervalued. Don’t just rely on the how-to channels on YouTube. Learning from someone we love and respect makes the learning far more likely to become part of our life and yes we need to be reminded often as kids to ensure it is a life skill that has been mastered.”
https://www.maggiedent.com/blog/giving-kids-greatest-gift-life-skills/
At school, we welcome the opportunity to share these informal chats with our students. We know how important they are in establishing positive, genuine relationships. Informal conversations with trusted adults enable children to share concerns and ask questions, as well as provide an opportunity to practise conversation skills:
“Conversation skills are important for children’s development and wellbeing. That’s because being able to have conversations helps children make friends, be listened to, ask for what they need and develop strong relationships with others.
Conversation skills are about being able to talk and listen well. This involves:
starting conversations – for example, with a greeting like ‘Hello’ or a question
knowing how to get attention in the right way – for example, by saying ‘Excuse me’
using eye contact
taking turns talking and listening
speaking politely”
https://raisingchildren.net.au/preschoolers/connecting-communicating/communicating/conversation-skillsknowing when to stop talking.”
Keep talking,
Susan Milton
