Last Thursday the 31st of March will be remembered as the day that St Peter’s lost one of its shining stars, Ange D’Amelio. Ange is a mum, a wife, a sister, a daughter, an aunty, a friend, a colleague and a gifted teacher. It makes no sense and many are struggling with the pain it has brought.

It has been a very difficult time for Ange’s family and everyone at St Peter’s. Ange’s husband Michael has been so grateful for the support and the messages I have passed on. Knowing how much Ange is loved makes the impossible to bear possible.

The pain is real and it is deep and would be completely unbearable without the support of each other and this amazing community.

The reflective space has been a gathering space and it has been beautiful to watch students so peacefully come to show their respect to an amazing lady.

Our Mother’s Day Breakfast will be held on Friday, 13th May. If you are a Dad willing to step up and work with a team to co-ordinate this event for all our mums please email me mhanney@spbentleigheast.catholic.edu.au by the end of the week. There is a plan to follow but we need support to put it all together.  

Term letters from your child’s teacher will be sent home on Wednesday, 20th April at 3:00pm. These letters will have an update on what is planned for the term in your child’s class. The school Calendar will also be sent home on this day.

There will be no school for students on Monday, 16th May. OSHC club will be operating a full day program for students on this day.

Raffle tickets for our Easter Raffle are required to be returned to school by 9.00am Wednesday, 6th April and the raffle will be drawn on Wednesday afternoon.

A very big THANK YOU To Martha Pavlou (Mum of Hugo Pavlou-Eyckens 1GP) for putting together many beautiful hampers, a task that took over 2 days to complete and to all families for the donations of eggs.

Good luck everyone!!

A Reminder that Parent Teacher Interviews will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, 5th April between 2:00pm and 8:00pm. School will finish for all students at 1:30pm tomorrow. Students who are booked into After School Care with OSHClub will be supervised until 3:25pm. All other students are required to be picked up at 1:30pm.

Please return your Project Compassion boxes by the end of this week. They can be returned via your child. Year Six students will go around to classes to collect them.

The first two weeks of Term Two are a period of transition for Winter Uniform. During this period students can wear Summer or Winter uniforms. From Monday, 9th May all students are to be wearing Winter Uniform.

SUNSMART HATS

In years gone by the wearing of hats ended at the end of Term One. The advice is now that hats are worn until the end of April. Your child will need their sunsmart school hat for the first week of Term Two, the end of April.

During different events that occur at school families will capture the moment on their phones. With restrictions around photos of children other than your own please make sure that any photos you have are of your child and if they include any other children, they are children of friends of yours who would not mind you having the photo. If you have any photos on your phone that include children you do not know I advise deleting them from your phone.

Last Thursday I had the privilege of attending the OLSH and De LaSalle performance of High School Musical. It is wonderful to be able to be entertained by students who are passionate about the Arts and with the support of their teachers and schools have been able to deliver such an entertaining performance. It was also a wonderful reminder of how resilient these young people are in being able to stay engaged throughout last year to still be able to finally perform in front of a live audience.

We have begun our school tours and some of them take place outside of school hours. I am always keen for prospective families to hear from our senior students. This has required the need for some students to be available after hours or on Saturday. I want to thank the students from 6MH who as Community Leaders this term have been taking on this role. I particularly want to thank Imogen Bracken for coming in on a Saturday morning and Ethan Brady and Georgia Xenos for being available on a Thursday at 5:30pm.

A few years ago, our Performing Arts teacher Drew Lane entered a world-wide musical theatre competition called 16 Stories; a search for 16 new musical theatre writers and their songs, to be recorded by the Australian Discovery Orchestra and released through Broadway Records, with vocalists from around the world.  I am delighted to tell you his song "You Were There" from his musical Electric Dreams was chosen to be recorded.

A few weeks ago, the album was released with his song on it. It is sung by Claire DeJean from the US who featured in "The Voice".  It is a wonderful achievement and we are all very proud of Drew.

Here's the video/song link: https://youtu.be/15qH_7zTaOo

The last day of Term One will be Friday, 8th April with students being dismissed at 2:30pm.

The first day of Term Two will be Tuesday, 26th April. Monday, 25th April is ANZAC day and a Public Holiday.

The next newsletter will be sent home on Monday, 2nd May.

Our School Tours so far have been well attended. If you know of neighbours or friends who have a child starting school in 2023 please let them know that there are other School Tours available on Wednesday, 4th May - 9.00am - 10.00am / Saturday, 7th May - 9.00am - 10.00am

Current families with children already at St Peter’s that have a child starting Foundation in 2023 can access an Enrolment Information Pack  from the School Office.

On Thursday, 24th March the whole of Year 6 attended a leadership conference at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. We had to be at school by 7:20am to make the bus. The bus was the most luxurious bus you could ever imagine. The LED lights were shining and the music was pumping. Once we arrived, we ate our fruit snack and headed into the enormous room. We learnt about leadership and all the amazing qualities you need to become a great and inspirational leader. There were three exceptional sessions led by entertaining and intelligent leaders. We learnt about an awesome acronym ‘S.T.E.P’ which stands for 1. Serve Others 2. Take Initiative 3. Exemplify Values 4. Purpose. The activities encouraged us to interact with other schools which turned out to be quite engaging and enjoyable. A popular part of the conference was the hysterical Loud Noise Boys. At least every person in the crowd had a good chuckle. They performed many activities which included karaoke, following the leader and a screaming competition. It was an amazing experience and we are so grateful that we had the opportunity to go.

By Laurence, Stephanie and Millie (6KM)

Last week, The Year 6 students went on an excursion to the city to visit the Melbourne Exhibition Centre where we went to the GRIP Conference.

At the GRIP conference, we learnt all about Leadership along doing some fun activities. The main goal for the GRIP Leadership Conferences is to teach students all about leadership and how to do things like take Initiative (meaning to do great things without being asked) Always telling the truth, and exemplifying school values.

We also did some other fun activities like karaoke and playing games.

All the Year 6’s learnt a lot from this excursion, we definitely all enjoyed it a lot!!

Viv 6SH

Summer Interschool Sport Finals

Last Thursday, 8 teams from St Peter’s represented the school in the Bentleigh District Interschool Sport Finals.

The Girls, Mixed A and Mixed B Basketball teams  played at Coatesville Primary.  The Mixed Cricket team played at Duncan MacKinnon Reserve.

The Boys Rugby Tag team played at Mackie Reserve. The Girls and Mixed Volleyball teams played at Oakleigh Grammar School and the Girls Softball team went to Duncan MacKinnon Reserve.

Everyone tried their hardest and proudly represented our school. There were varied results from all teams, with the Boys Rugby Tag and Girls Basketball Teams coming second, and the Girls Volleyball Team winning the overall competition. 

Congratulations to all the students who were involved and thank you to all those students for being such wonderful ambassadors for St Peter’s.

Thank you also to all the staff members who have coached the Summer Sports, especially Ben Cavarra for co-ordinating all the sports overall. Now, the focus turns to our Winter Interschool Sport competition.

Final Results

From the Girls Volleyball team:

Last Thursday the girls and the Mixed Volleyball Teams competed in the Interschool Volleyball Finals. The games were pretty tough as we were versing the top 4 teams. The Girl's team firstly played against Murrumbeena Primary.  The first set was tough going one point to them one point to us but we were not going to let that stop us. So Sophie kicked off the second set with 5 serves in a row all going in. We finished that match winning both the sets and then we went into the finals against Oakleigh South Primary. This was tough competition but everyone played their best and we came out victorious. As our Coach Mrs Gibson says, “serves win the points” and that is what we did on the day. 

From Chelsea and Steph

Congratulations to  Victoria and Sophie - 3IK, Paige - 3EM

Chloe and Anu - 3GL from the Saints under 10s team who won their basketball final yesterday.

Former student Daisy Nousis won the Australian Under 15 400m Athletics Title. On behalf of our whole community we congratulate Daisy on this great achievement.

MacKillop Family Services needs to raise $330,000 to continue and grow the Paw Pals Program, which uses therapy dogs to support kids who have experienced abuse, neglect or other childhood trauma. For kids who have been given every reason not to trust adults, a therapy dog can open doors, helping them to connect with their community and new opportunities. Donate at www.paws4kids.org.au by 28^th of April and your gift will be multiplied by 3!