St Peter's Bentleigh East eNewsletter

MOTHER’s DAY PRAYER

I hope all our mums had a wonderful day yesterday. For all whose mums are no longer with them or for whom Mother’s day is a challenging time I pray that beautiful memories brought you some joy.

Lord Jesus Christ, You chose to put yourself—tiny, needy and helpless—into the nurturing and watchful hands of a human mother. Since then, every act of mothering, both physical and spiritual, in every time and every corner of the world recollects Mary’s. Inspired by this example, we, too, honour our mothers and mother figures. Bless these women, that they may be strengthened as mothers and nurturers. Let the example of their faith and love shine forth. Grant that we, their sons and daughters, honour them always with a spirit of profound respect.

We ask this in your holy name. Amen.

MOTHER’S DAY THANK YOU

Mother’s Day Breakfast

Dads

Thank you to the dads who volunteered their time to make last Wednesday’s Mother’s Day Breakfast so successful. It was a wonderful community celebration of our Mums.

Adam McDowall, Brett Howe, Chris Barry, David Vandenberg, Brett Divall, James Billett, Mario Nasello, Mervyn Murray, Mick Ferwerda, Mitesh Achari, Sebastian Parisotto, Te Cooper, Angelo Abbondanza, Nik Lal, David McCracken, Nathan Toey, Travis Bateman, Jarrod Moloney, Joe Recupero, Luke Patzel, Mark Janssens, Michael Lance, Mick Dunbar, Vishal Patel.

Staff

As well as a great team of dads I also want to thank the staff who worked with the dads prior to the day and then volunteered their time before school to ensure that everything ran well. A special thank you to Loretta Ballas for her work prior to the day and Michelle Gibson and Steph Hunt in the organisation and set up and for being at school at 6:00am to let the dads in ready to start cooking. A huge commitment that we are all very grateful for.

Mother’s Day Stall

Thank you to Angie Leontaritis and her team for organising and running the Mother’s Day Stall last Friday. The children loved shopping for their mums and took great pride in getting the purchase just right!

PARKING AND ROAD RULES IN FLORENCE STREET

Traffic management around all schools at the beginning and end of the day is challenging. It is made even more challenging when parking restrictions and road rules are not followed. To ensure safety of your children the parking and road rules must be obeyed. To encourage all drivers to keep your children safe, I will be contacting Glen Eira Council tomorrow to ask them to send parking inspectors to monitor the parking before and after school in Florence Street and where necessary issuing infringement notices. I will also be contacting Caulfield Police and asking them to send officers to book cars in Florence Street that are exceeding the speed limit or completing u-turns despite the no u-turn signs. Child safety is the priority.

ENTERING STAFF CAR PARK

If for some reason you need to enter the staff car park you should be aware that the entry point is off Florence Street. The two driveways in Bignell Road are exit points and have signs on the gates that indicate this. If you were involved in an accident by entering from Bignell Road you would be at fault. Parking in this car park is for staff of St Peter’s between 8:30am and 3:45pm.

INCREASE IN COVID-19 ACTIVITY - HEALTH WARNING

Date issued: 10 May 2024

Issued by: Dr Clare Looker, Chief Health Officer

Issued to: Health services, health professionals and the Victorian community

Key messages

Victoria is currently experiencing increased COVID-19 activity in the community, resulting in an increase in people being hospitalised with COVID-19.

At the same time, we are seeing increasing cases of influenza and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) as we head into winter.

During this time, it is especially important those at greatest risk of becoming seriously ill from COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses are protected – this includes people aged 65 and above, people with a disability or chronic medical condition and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Younger children aged 6 months to 5 years and pregnant women are also at greater risk of influenza and RSV.

These six steps can help you stay ahead of COVID-19:

Wear a mask: a high-quality and well-fitted mask can protect you and others from the virus.

Get vaccinated: stay up to date with your COVID-19 vaccine. There are new monovalent vaccines available that are highly effective at preventing severe disease. You should get a booster if you are over 75 and haven't had one for 6 months. Other groups are also recommended to get a booster. Vaccines are available at your GP or local pharmacy.

Let fresh air in: open windows and doors when you can – it reduces the spread of the virus. Meet outside when possible.

Get tested: if you have symptoms, take a rapid antigen test. If you test positive and are eligible for antivirals, take them as soon as possible.

Stay at home if you are unwell: if you have COVID-19, you should stay at home for at least five days and until you have no symptoms. Speak to your GP if symptoms worsen.

Take antivirals if eligible: if you are at risk of falling very sick, you may be eligible for COVID-19 antiviral medicines. You must take these within 5 days of developing symptoms - the sooner the better. See your GP for more information.

At school we will be utilising all air filters and where appropriate keeping doors open for fresh air. If your child is experiencing any COVID like symptoms you are asked to give them a COVID test and if positive to stay home for five consecutive days.

FAREWELL LITSA SMITH

Litsa leaves St Peter’s at the end of this week to begin a position in another setting. We thank her for what she has brought to St Peter’s in her role as a Learning Support Officer and wish her all the best for the future.

PUPIL FREE DAY THIS TERM

Our Pupil Free day this term will be on Friday, 7th June. There will be no school for students on this day as staff undertake professional learning. OSHClub will be operating for the full day.

FOUNDATION ENROLMENTS 2025

Enrolments for foundation 2025 are now open. If you are a current family at St Peter’s with younger children starting school in 2025 then you can pick up an enrolment form from our school office or contact Trish tticca@spbentleigheast.catholic.edu.au and she will send one home for you.

A reminder also if you have taken an Enrolment Form to please complete it and return it to the office as soon as possible.

WEEK 5

Tuesday, 14th May - Year 4 Wildlife Exposure In School Activity / School Tour - 10.00am - 11.00am / Kelly Sports - 3.30pm - 4.45pm (For Students Enrolled in the Program)

Thursday, 16th May - 4MK Visiting Warrawee - 1.50pm - 3.15pm / FEDPAS - 4.00pm - 6.00pm (For Students Enrolled in the Program)

Friday, 17th May - 2RN & 2PG Attending Mass - 10.00am / P & F Foundation to Year 2 Disco - 5.00pm - 6.00pm / P & F Year 3 & Year 4 Disco - 6.30pm - 7.20pm

WEEK 6

Monday, 20th May - FMM & FHK Attending Mass - 10.00am

Tuesday, 21st May - Kelly Sports - 3.30pm - 4.45pm (For Students Enrolled in the Program)

Wednesday, 22nd May - NATIONAL SIMULTANEOUS STORY TIME - 12.00pm

Thursday, 23rd May - 4MK Visiting Warrawee - 1.50pm - 3.15pm / FEDPAS - 4.00pm - 6.00pm (For Students Enrolled in the Program)

Friday, 24th May - YEAR 6 CONFIRMATON REFLECTION DAY - Bishop Tony Ireland Visiting / 6BG, 6LD, 6LM & 6SH Attending Mass - 10.00am

Sunday, 26th May - CONFIRMATION MASSES - 1.00pm & 3.00pm

WEEK 7

Monday, 27th May - NEWSLETTER / FEL & FMB Attending Mass - 10.00am

Tuesday, 28th May - BEACHSIDE CROSS COUNTRY - Selected Students / Kelly Sports - 3.30pm - 4.45pm (For Students Enrolled in the Program)

Thursday, 30th May - 4MK Visiting Warrawee - 1.50pm - 3.15pm / FEDPAS - 4.00pm - 6.00pm (For Students Enrolled in the Program)

Friday, 31st May - Year 4 Students Excursion to Salesian College / 2SS & 2AM Attending Mass - 10.00am

Mother's Day Breakfast

On Wednesday our school community celebrated Mother's Day with a special breakfast for our students and their mums. Delicious fluffy pancakes topped with maple syrup, perfectly cooked toast, cereal and fruit were all served efficiently by our wonderful dads in the community.

Thank you to everyone involved, and hopefully you all had a beautiful day yesterday. Please enjoy this video.

Mother's Day 2024.mp4

A Prayer for Mother's

God our Creator, we pray:

for new mothers, coming to terms with new responsibility;

for expectant mothers, wondering and waiting;

for those who are tired, stressed or depressed;

for those who struggle to balance the tasks of work and family;

for those who are unable to feed their children due to poverty;

for those whose children have physical, mental or emotional challenges;

for those who raise children on their own;

for those who have lost a child;

for those who care for the children of others;

for those whose children have left home;

and for those whose desire to be a mother has not been fulfilled.

Bless all mothers, including those who are no longer with us,

that their love may be deep and unconditional,

their guidance strong, but gentle

and their compassion and care, unwavering and tender.

May they follow the example of Mother Mary, her humility, and her self-giving love.

Amen

Confirmation Family Night

Last Tuesday night, our Year 6 Confirmation candidates were joined by their families for a night of exploration of the sacrament.

Discussing their faith journey, from Baptism to Confirmation, the confirmands giggled, oohed and aahed as they watched this video of when they were baptised.

Together with their parents, they explored the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and discussed which gift they felt best related to them.

Please keep all our confirmands in your prayers as they prepare to make this sacrament on Sunday, 26th May.

Baptism 2024.mp4

On Wednesday, 8th of May, forty-eight of our Year Six students went on a excursion to the State Library. We got to school at 8:20am so we wouldn’t miss any creative authors! We arrived at the State Library at 9:30am and our first session was at 10:00am with Kate and Jol Temple introducing us to their action, adventure, comedies; 'The Dangerous Business of being Trilby Moffat' and their new book series 'Frog Squad'. They also taught us the difference between villains and rogues.

Our next session started at 10:45am with the dark, mystery, horror author, Anna Zobel. She talked about some mysteries in the past that she has turned into books, like the 'Mystery of the Three Lighthouse Keepers' and the 'Mystery of the State Library'. She also wrote the sentence starters that we could finish and turn into a story. 'This Camp is Doomed' and Little Gem are also some of her horror, mystery books that she showed us.

After an hour break sitting outside the State Library in the sunshine, we got back into our next session at 12:30pm with Idan Ben-Barak teaching us about science. He also gave us some brain warm-ups which tricked our minds. He told us about some of his books; 'Do not Lick this Book!', 'Your Brain is a Lump of Goo' and 'The Very Hard Book'.

The next session was at 1:15pm, with our last two authors; Jordan Gould and Richard Pritchard. Jordan is Aboriginal and Richard is a New Zealander and they came together to create the new hit series, 'Wylah'. Wylah is a young Aboriginal teacher from the Koorie Tribe. She battles, defeats and makes friends with monsters. Next we all voted on different ligaments for Richard to draw and make into a new card for the Wylah card game.

After our last session we returned back to school at 2:30pm for a play in the Old Adventure Playground.

Thank you to the teachers that took us on this lovely excursion to the Melbourne Writers Festival.

By Isabelle Suttie and Ellie Moloney

On Tuesday, May 7th, our Foundation students enjoyed a visit from the Victorian Police. Mark Smith, father of FEL student Louie, joined the police crew alongside Constable Sara and Constable Brett.

The session covered emergency procedures including how to read traffic signs and how to speak to emergency services when calling 000. We thank our guests for their informative session about community safety.

Foundation_Police_Visit.pdf

Foundation_Police_Visit _pdf 1.50 MB

BENTLEIGH DISTRICT CROSS COUNTRY

On the 30th of April, the Year Three to Year Six students in the Cross Country Team went to Bald Hill Park and represented St Peter's in the Bentleigh District Cross Country. All of the St Peter's students that participated did an amazing job and were up against six other schools.

The track had heaps of hills which made it extra tough. We had four students that made it to the next level, these students included Ambrose from Year Six, Beckett, Robbie and Mila from Year Five. Well done to everyone that participated!!

By Sadie and Ambrose 6SH

lunch_time_club_posters.pdf

lunch_time_club_posters _pdf 691.77 KB

Our Lunchtime clubs have started this term with great success! It has been fantastic to see students attending these fun lunchtime clubs and working together, making amazing creative creations and most importantly having fun!

The students are invited to our Wellbeing lunchtime clubs where they will get the opportunity to explore different art, lego or outdoor games each week. Last week the students decorated and designed their own stickers, mindfulness colouring, stencil work along with creative stampers. In our Lego Club the students made their own creations using Lego and Technics. They were also able to read Lego books and magazines quietly in the library.

For our outdoor games activities we played fun games like musical statues along with group parachute games. Afterwards the students explored dancing ribbons and tennis ball games.

LUNCHTIMNE CLUB OUTDOOR GAMES

BUCKET FILLER - TERM 2 WEEK 4

SPECIAL MENTION: Lilah Suttie 3MS

Lilah comes up with games, includes others and cheers others up when they are sad.

STAR AWARDS - TERM 2 WEEK 4

FOUNDATION - YEAR 2 - For Amazing FRIENDSHIP Skills! By Demonstrating That A Friend Knows How To Help, Share And Cooperate With Others!!

Lucy Crea, Ayla Filice - FHK / Joey Cachart, Lyla Arena - FMM / Mikayla Werakoon, Frankie Rizzo - FEL / Neil Patnaik, Declan Prendergast - FMB

Jonathan Casa, EJ Perera - 1BG / William Meinhardt, Millah Pavlou-Eyckens - 1MS / James Bonnici, Sophia Nomikos - 1MH / Jackson Lyell, Samantha Diaz - 1RE

Patrick Barry, Sienna Castaneda - 2PG / Elena Raios, Herbie Winterton - 2RN / Christian Taranto, Melina Weerakoon - 2AM / Frankie Voukelatos, Harrison Haralambous - 2SS

YEAR 3 & YEAR 4 - For Demonstrating Positive FRIENDSHIPS By Being Kind To Others And Accepting That Everyone Is Different And That’s Okay!!

Aiden Acero, Kiasha Perera, Henry Adams - 3ES / Anthony Karras, Ayla Barazi - 3GJ / Georgia Valis, Michael Ivancic, Isabella Robinson, Georgie Moloney - 3AM / Lucas Cocking, Theo Morrison, Sienna Nguyen - 3MS

Chloe Mavriopoulos, Chloe McNaughton - 4MK / Joshua Gesterkamp, Hugo Palmer - 4MM / Eugenie Zhou, Billy Kavaliotis - 4OG / Meagan Wan, William Jaber, Chloe Taranto - 4MH

YEAR 5 & YEAR 6 - For Demonstrating Positive FRIENDSHIPS By Being Kind To Others And Accepting That Everyone Is Different And That’s Okay!!

Lucia Taranto, Ellena Catania - 5MH / Dominic Drummond, Patrick Bloomfield - 5HG / Henry Oates, Annabelle Purcell - 5AC / Nataliya Abdelahad, Marc Boug - 5PC

Katelynn Chung Yan Kow, Zoe Neeson - 6SH / Alexandra Dean, Dylan Johnson - 6BG / Scarlett Bloomfield, Tom Kearney - 6LM / Olivia Bonnici, Tylan Pointer - 6LD

Congratulations to our Class Winners of the Walk/Ride To Schol Day on Friday, 3rd May.

Foundation - Year 2 - 2AM

Year 3 - Year 6 - 5AC & 6LD

Our next Walk / Ride to School Day is on Friday, 14th June.

In the meantime keep Active by Walking, Riding or Scootering to school whenever you can!!

Don't forget to have your cards clipped whenever you walk, ride or scooter to school and return your completed cards to the office to receive a new one.

Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge 2024

The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge (VPRC) is now open, and St Peter’s is excited to be participating. The VPRC application offers a range of exciting features including:

Access to a library catalogue (including book images and blurbs).
A modern user-friendly interface.
Rewarding students with badges as challenge milestones are achieved.
The option for students to mark books as a favourite, give them a star rating or complete a book review.

The Challenge is open to all Victorian children from birth to Year 10 in recognition of the importance of reading for literacy development. It is not a competition; but a personal challenge for children to read a set number of books by 6^th September 2024.

Children can include any books they have read this year.

A username and password has been allocated to each child and the classroom teacher will have a list of these.

If you have any questions, please speak to your child’s teacher.

Children from Foundation to Year 2 are encouraged to read or ‘experience’ 30 books with their parents and teachers. Children from Year 3 to Year 6 are challenged to read 15 books.

All children who meet the Challenge will receive a certificate of achievement signed by the Victorian Premier and former Premiers.

To read the Premier’s letter to parents, view the booklist and for more information about the Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge, visit:

https://www.vic.gov.au/premiers-reading-challenge

Happy reading!

NEXT P&F MEETING - MONDAY, 3rd JUNE 7PM (ONSITE & ONLINE)

We look forward to seeing all our existing and new P&F members at our next meeting on Monday, 3rd June at 7pm onsite & online. All parents welcome !

Rebecca and Natasha

P&F Leadership Team

TERM TWO EVENTS

MOTHER’S DAY BREAKFAST - Wednesday, 8th May

Thank you to all the Dads that treated our mums to a scrumptious breakfast last Wednesday. Around 700 mums and their children attended. It was a very busy morning and we were extremely lucky to have so many wonderful volunteers helping out to ensure the breakfast ran smoothly.

Special thanks go to Adam McDowall, Mick Ferweda and Darren Eyckens for coordinating the cooking, Martha Pavlou for decorating the hall and all our Dad volunteers for setting up on Tuesday night and packing up after the Breakfast.

A BIG thank you goes to the Michelle Gibson, Steph Hunt & teachers for all their hard work behind the scenes including creating the Mother's Day slideshow and coordinating traffic on the morning !

MOTHER’S DAY STALL - Friday, 10th May

Thank you to all our Mum volunteers who helped out at the Mother's Day Stall. A huge thank you to Rebecca Clarke and Angie Leontaritis for organising and running such a special event for our students. Hope all our mums enjoyed their surprises on Mother's Day!

Next year it would be nice to see some Dad volunteers helping the children out at the stall