We warmly welcome your children back to school for the final term of the year. Term 4 will be a chance to reflect on how far we have come this year and to celebrate being part of this faith and learning community. The staff have been busily preparing for the term ahead and I would like to thank them for the efforts they have put in over the holidays to ensure they are fully prepared to develop your child’s learning this term. As we move into the liturgical season of Advent, we eagerly await the birth of Christ and rejoice in his glory.

Mitchell Bristow

The biggest impact it will have on current families is that Administration have had their workloads increase in preparation for this migration. Their response times to queries may take longer as they are working under a set time schedule and within new areas.

We thank you for your understanding.

Staff PD – Christian Meditation

On Monday the 14th October the staff were led by Diana Alteri, Leader of the CEWA Religious Education team through a comprehensive professional development opportunity focussing on Christian Meditation for children. The benefits of Christian meditation are well documented and greatly support the wellbeing of our students. We look forward to introducing this mindfulness process this term.

Behaviour Management Policy

The revised St Thomas’ Primary School Behaviour Management Policy was sent to all families last week. Thank you for taking the time to read through this document that helps to provide a safe learning environment for our children.

An important change to the policy is the introduction of the Student Behaviour Framework. The objective of this framework is to:

• Ensure that every student has the right to learn and staff have the right to teach.
• Uphold the wellbeing of every student.
• Promote respect for the School’s values of excellence, inclusivity, truth, compassion and community.
• Provide a clear set of expectations for our students, staff and families.
• Provide a consistent approach to managing student behaviour in a dignified, restorative manner.

Your support of this change is fundamental as it is in partnership with our families that we will continue to provide a safe, supportive learning environment for all children as they strive for excellence.

Crazy Sock Day Fundraiser - free dress day - Friday 25 October

Come dressed in blue with your craziest socks for a gold coin donation. All money collected will be donated to the Leukemia Foundation who were a fantastic support to Mimi Anderson (now in Y3) when she was undergoing treatment in junior primary.

NAPLAN results

The results of NAPLAN 2019 of the students in Years 3 and 5 are extremely pleasing and reflect the excellent teaching programs and dedicated staff at the school. It must be highlighted that children in Year 3 and 5 achieved above the benchmark across all areas (Numeracy, Reading, Writing, Language Conventions- Grammar and Punctuation and Spelling) and that St Thomas’ students were on average 50 points above the National Average in all areas.

The staff will work through the data with staff from CEWA in great detail to determine areas of focus for the future.

Royal Show Parking

Thank you to our dedicated Yr 6 students who took time out of their holidays to serve our community. This is another example of faith in action as they raised money to support our parish and the school. Thank you to Mrs Gibbs and her family for your time as well.

Catholic Performing Arts – Christian and Fred

Awards have been extended to those students who demonstrated excellence at the recent Catholic Performing Arts Festival. Congratulations to Fred Chaney and Christian Lorbeer for receive Certificates of Excellence for their performances.

St Thomas’ Green Team

The St Thomas’ Green Team are a group of dedicated students looking to support the environment and help improve the sustainability efforts of the school. The Team are looking for donations of the following,

• Woolworths Promotion Seedlings
• Large Styrofoam Boxes

If you are able to provide any of these please leave them in the hall outside of the library

Dear St Thomas families,

My name is Chloe and I’m in Yr 3.

I would like to ask you all to save all your milk and water bottle plastic lids. A special company will make Prosthetic hands for little kids out of them.

Please read the article below to find out more.

I will put a box outside the library for you to place all the lids in.

I am aiming to collect 500 lids.

Thank you very much everyone.

Love Chloe

Envision Hands is a project to collect plastic recyclable waste destined for landfills and turn it into filament for 3D printers, then making hands for kids. Their mission is to create 100 bespoke aids out of bottle caps, with 3D printers, which we will then donate to children in in need. The project uses recycled plastic from bottle tops, thus also benefiting the environment.

Approximately 250 lids are used to make a small hand, however the wastage ends up being approximately 500 lids by the time it has been made. For an arm, approximately 500 lids are used with a wastage of approximately 1000 caps.

The mobility aids are distributed to those in need in third world countries but we also support any present need for the need of a short term hand/arm locally in Australia.

What to Collect:

1. What sort of bottle caps do you accept?

We currently use all flat soft drink, water and milk bottle tops, including those from long life containers. The tops should be numbered either No 2 or No 4 in the recycled triangle but not all are marked. Ideally all bottle caps should be sorted into 2, 4 and unknown. We can use the unknown bottle caps for our R&D projects. We cannot process tops which have other plastic or metal attached – this includes water bottle tops which have pull up tops. Any tops with other numbers like 5 or 7 are not required. We also ask that the caps are cleaned before they are donated and that no extra plastic, metal or other material is attached.

Please Remember....

Drop all your lids off in the box outside our library at school.

Thank you thank you thank you.

Love Chloe (yr3)

On Thursday 26th September, 53 students represented our school at the Interschool Athletics Carnival at the WA State Athletics centre.

St Thomas’ came 4th over all and all of the students performed exceptional well and all of the relay teams setting a goal and meeting those goals on the day. A big congratulations to Christian Lorbeer (Year 4) who broke the Year 4 Interschool Long Jump record with a huge jump of 4.14 m (previous record was 3.82 m). Well done Christian.

The results are below:

Overall winning school

1st OLGC

2nd Sacred Heart

3rd St Johns

4th St Thomas’

5th Holy Spirit

6th St Paul’s

7th St Dominic’s

Girls trophy

1st Sacred Heart

2nd OLGC

3rd St John’s

4th St Pauls

5th Holy Spirit

6th St Thomas’

7th St Dominic’s

Boys Trophy

1st OLGC

2nd St Johns

3rd St Thomas’

4th Holy Spirit

5th Sacred Heart

6th St Dominic’s

7th St Paul’s

Most Improved

1st OLGC

2nd St Pauls

3rd St Dominic’s

4th Sacred Heart

5th St Thomas’

6th St Johns

7th Holy Spirit

UPCOMING EVENTS
Friday 15 November – Year 4 Cricket Carnival – Yokine Reserve. If there are any parents who can assist looking after a team on the day, can you please email: Sharon.seaman@cewa.edu.au

Enrol today for term 4 basketball. St Thomas Registration Link

https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=13252414&appointmentType=11278784

If you are not returning for the 2020 school year then tomorrow FRIDAY 17 OCTOBER, 2019 is the final date of written confirmation. Failure to give a terms notice will incur a penalty of one full terms fees.

Any families experiencing any difficulties whether they be financial or otherwise are always welcome to discuss these with Mitchell Bristow. All discussions are strictly confidential. Please ring the office on 9286 9500 to book an appointment.

What’s on Next week?

Monday- AM: Q-Tip Painting Activity PM: DIY Chef Hats, Kangaroo and Crocodile Tag Game

Tuesday- AM: Balloon Game PM: MasterChef- Chocolate cupcake, Pretend Play At the Sandpit

Wednesday- AM: Magic Milk Science PM: Apron Making- Sewing Activity and Soccer Match

Thursday- AM: Colouring in, Drawing PM: Musical Statue/ Halloween Crafts, Gardening

Friday- AM: Bracelet and Necklace making PM: Paper Towel Mummy, Running Race

The Extend Superstars are…

Leo Barker for using his initiative to help reset the room! He helped others and did an awesome job to make the room look fantastic!

Amelie Goodall for being such a great helper in the kitchen. She enjoyed helping and cooking a delicious Lamington! Thank you Amelie!

Welcome Back to School!

Welcome back to school everyone! Two weeks of term break have flown by and we are excited to get back into the fun of before and after school care. To kick off the new term, we have been doing fun games and activities such as bracelet making and other arts and craft activity,, painting activity, colouring in activity, playdough, tag games, soccer, footy and other sports activities and free play outside. The highlight of this week was the cooking activity of a delicious Lamington. The children did a great job in the kitchen. Every mat time, children share their activity suggestions to incorporate into our weekly program plan. We also started planning for an exciting “Open Day” in the 8th week of this term. Stay tuned for more updates about our upcoming fun activities this Term.