St Thomas' News

St Thomas’ Primary School is part of a faith community centred on the life of Jesus, as expressed in our Motto, ‘Together in Christ’

Our Vision is to 'Educate the Whole Child' and empower learners as global citizens, to be curious, collaborative, creative and critical thinkers, inspired by Christ.

Heavenly Father, on this special day, we turn our thoughts to our mothers and the many ways they have blessed our lives.

We thank you for their love and the example of their faithfulness.

Give them the strength to carry on and the courage to face the future with hope.

Bless them with a deep sense of your presence and the assurance of your love.

May all those who honour their mothers on this day be filled with a joy that comes only from you.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

TERM TWO

Wednesday 03 May P&F Meeting - 7pm - All welcome

Friday 05 May - Cross Country Carnival - Years 1-6

Monday 08 May - Homework Club

Monday 08 May - Italian Club PP - Y2

Wednesday 10 May - Mothers Day Stall @ 8:10 am - 8:45 am

Thursday 11 May - Mothers Day Stall @ 8:10 am - 8:45 am

Friday 12 May - Mothers Day Liturgy 9 am St Thomas' Apostle Church followed by Mothers Day Morning Tea - all welcome - please rsvp

Monday 15 May - Homework Club

Monday 15 May - Italian Club PP - Y2

Tuesday 16 May - Edudance

Tuesday 16 May - Parish Rosary Year 5 @ 12 pm

Tuesday 16 May - Parish Mass - Yrs 5 & 1 @ 12:30 pm

Wednesday 24 May - Advisory Council Meeting 7pm

Tuesday 30 May - Parent Information Session: 7 - 8:30 pm 'Raising children in a digital age'

Please remember dates of events can be subject to change

(Full 2023 term dates at the end of this newsletter)

STAFFING

We wish Mrs Natalia Thomson well on her well-deserved Long Service Leave, and look forward to her return on Monday 22 May. In her absence, I will be Acting Principal. We wish Nicky Sullivan a speedy recovery from recent surgery and she is eager to return, as we are eager to welcome her back at some stage around the second half of this term, or early Term Three. In her absence, Mr Ron Wray will ensure students can borrow books from the library. In other exciting news - we are excited for Mrs MacDonald, our Year Two teacher, and her husband who recently announced she is pregnant! We can’t wait for baby MacDonald to join us later in the year.

SLIP LANE

Thank you for your patience with the altered process for drop-off and pick-up. Our message to students is simple: Be calm, be observant, be prompt, and above all - be safe. We will continue to work with the Town of Claremont rangers who are assisting us in developing signage and protocols for this area. It is your responsibility to park appropriately and observe existing signage. Please note: safety is the first priority and while it may take an extra 15-20 seconds for the car in front of you to move, it may be safest to wait. A handout is being created and will be distributed to all parents shortly.

2023 - THE YEAR OF EXCELLENCE

As mentioned in the Welcome to Term Two email, I spoke to all Pre-primary to Year Six students regarding our annual focus on the value of Excellence. I was incredibly impressed and proud of the receptiveness of the students to hear this important message and their positive reaction that has been anecdotally fed back to me by multiple teachers. This theme was broken down to an expectation that students: use manners; develop self-discipline and set goals. We will continue to explore this yearly focus, as we challenge students to achieve their best in all they do.

ANZAC SERVICE

Thank you to Miss Mulholland and the Year Five class for leading us in a reflective ANAZC service last week. A special thank you to Miss Mandry for playing a moving rendition of the Last Post.

P&F MEETING - TONIGHT

I look forward to as many parents as possible joining our Parents & Friends Association meeting tonight at 7pm. Information and the link to attend online is available here.

TERM 2 CLUBS

Please view the Term 2 Clubs offering available by clicking here. I really hope parents appreciate the amazing effort and commitment our staff show to the students. Having teachers volunteer their time for children to participate in the areas of interest is an absolute credit to them, and shows the high level of dedication your students are so lucky to have. Thank you staff for the amazing work you do with clubs, and across our school.

UPCOMING MAJOR EVENTS

Our School Cross Country will be held at Rowe Park this Friday 5/5 morning (this was previously advertised on a different date).

We look forward to celebrating Mother's Day on Friday 12/5 for a liturgy at 9am. Mother's day stalls will take place

Best wishes,

Heath Nankivell

(Acting Principal)

The Mother's Day Stall will be held on Wednesday 10th and Thursday 11th May from 8.10 - 8.45 am. A lovely opporutintiy for students to buy a small gift for Mum, Grandma or someone special. We are seeking volunteers for both mornings to assist the P&F team with this event.

The Mother's Day Morning Tea will be held after the Mother's Day Liturgy on Friday 12th May. We are seeking volunteers to set up and serve the morning tea.

We encourage our St Thomas' dads, grandads and father figures to help out, if at all possible, to help celebrate Mother's Day.

Click here to volunteer at either the stall or morning tea (or both!).

RSVP for Mother's Day Morning Tea Friday 12 May

We warmly welcome you to join us to celebrate Mother's Day following the Mother's Day Liturgy (which starts 9am, Friday 12 May).

Please let us know you're coming, click here to RSVP for catering purposes.

Thank you for your support.

St Thomas' P&F

2023 Interschool Swimming Carnival

St Thomas' Champions 2023

Congratulations to all the swimmers who represented St Thomas’ at the Catholic Primary Schools Interschool Swimming Carnival on Friday 31st March 2023. This is the third year in a row St Thomas’ has won overall and the sixth year in a row we have won the Boys Trophy overall. This year we narrowly missed out on the girl’s trophy by 20 points!

All the students swum extremely well with 36 individual and 5 team first placings which is an amazing achievement, including both medley relays. Those early morning swimming trainings paid off and thank you to the staff who assisted me at training and the parents taking the children down to Claremont Pools.

Special mention to these swimmers who broke a team record in the Year 4 Boys Freestyle relay: Frankie P, Maxwell V, Charlie J and Joseph C.

Below are the results for St Thomas’ from the day:

Overall – 1st

Boys Trophy – 1st

Girls Trophy – 2nd

Sporting Schools Badminton

The year 3-6 classes participated in Badminton classes last term and the students thoroughly enjoyed the classes.

If any child is interested Badminton, please see the flyer below.

St Thomas Cross Country Carnival – Friday 5th May

Cross Country Programme:

Please find attached the programme of events with approximate times for each event, but please be aware that races may begin 10 minutes earlier or later.

8.55am Welcome to country and prayer Mr Nankivell and Sport leaders

9.00am Start of races as per the format in the table.

Start Time: Class: Distance:

9.00am Yr 6 2000m – 4 laps

9.20am Yr 5 1750m – 3 ½ laps

Presentations - Years 5 and 6

9.45am Yr 4 1250m – 2 ½ laps 750m – 1 ½ laps

9.55am Yr 3 1000m – 2 laps

Presentations - Years 3 and 4

10.15am Yr 2 750m – 1 ½ laps

10.30am Yr 1 500m – 1 lap

A final presentation for the overall faction and spirit award recipients will be presented at the conclusion of the day at St Thomas' Primary school at 2.45pm.

Uniform:

Children are required to wear their coloured faction sport shirt and sport shorts uniform, including a hat and water bottle. If students require any required medication, please provide it to them. It would be wise to bring rainwear, a change of clothes and a towel in case of wet weather. All items brought to school should be clearly marked with the student’s name.

Participation: Each class will participate in their race and return to school to continue with their regular school day. As this is a school event, all students are expected to participate in their class event.

Cancellation: Cancellation, if necessary due to extreme weather, will be made by 8.30am on the day of the carnival.

Parent helpers:

Volunteers are a very important part of the smooth running of our carnival, and we will require assistance of 4 parents per timeslot to help with marshalling around the course. No experience is necessary, you just need to encourage the children as they run around the course. If you can help on the day, please let me know as soon as possible Sharon.seaman@cewa.edu.au as races will not start until we have adults on the course. I particularly need marshals on the course, and people to assist with setting up and packing away, even if you can spare 1 hour that would be lovely.

UPCOMING EVENTS TERM 2

Running Club – Every Friday starting after the Cross Country Carnival for years 1-6 students from Friday 12 May at Rowe Park 8am start time.

Interschool Cross Country Carnival – Monday 29th May

Year 5 and 6 Winter Carnival – Thursday 22nd June

Sharon Seaman

Physical Education Specialist Teacher

If you have not heard from Mrs Miller regarding your child's entry to CPAF please contact her immediately: mailto:renee.miller@cewa.edu.au

We look forward to sharing the wonderful experiences of all the entrants for 2023.

At St Thomas', we are keen to start a school community directory to support the family and friends of our school.

If you have a small business that you would like to share, promote and support, please complete the form on this LINK by Monday 15 May,
to provide the following details:

• Business name
• Business address
• Business contact details
• Business website link (if applicable)
• Business logo (website link)
• Contact name (if you would like to communicate this)

Our intent is to circulate this complementary service, through internal and external social media platforms on a frequent basis.

If you have any questions, please contact the front office on email admin@stthomas.wa.edu.au.

Help us collect bread bags so we can earn points to redeem on new RHSports equipment.

It's simple….

All you need to do is keep your empty bread bags and send them to school with your children. Then place them in Wonder's pink collection box and we will post them off to be recycled. The more we collect the more points our school earns.

Collections close 7th July.

Tip for collecting:

Use one empty bread bag to collect a bunch of other bags.

The box is located next to the lost property box near the library.

Please see the flyer below and any queries contact Sharon Seaman.

Sharon Seaman

Physical Education Specialist Teacher

We are currently interviewing students for Kindergarten 2024 & 2025. There are limited vacancies. If you wish to enrol your child, please email Mrs Julie Wray our Administration and Enrolment Officer on admin@stthomas.wa.edu.au asap.

There has been a change in date for one of our pupil free days in Term 2. This day was originally scheduled for the Tuesday 6 June however, this Pupil Free Day has now moved to the week before, Friday 2 June. This change has been made to accommodate the EduDance program on Tuesdays.

Childhood in 2023 has changed significantly and educators everywhere are reporting children turning up with less foundational social, emotional and learning competence. Why? Well, the impact of children's device use at home has meant less opportunity to practise the skills of emotional self-regulation, with parents often avoiding tantrums and meltdowns (and the learning that comes out of them) by instead distracting with a device.

Children are spending less time in free play and community sport activities and learning the resilience-building skills of joining in, sorting out, missing out and stepping up.

Claire Orange, Child Advocate, Child and Family Mental Health Author, Advocate and

international speaker, will be taking a deep dive into the digital lives of children and the impact, at a parent information session at St Thomas’ Primary School on:

• Tuesday 30 May 2023
• 7pm – 8.30pm in the school hall

Funded by our school P & F, this is a free session for parents.

Please register your attendance on this LINK

Instrumental music lessons are available at St Thomas' Primary. Children can learn voice, keyboard, piano, violin, drums, guitar and flute. Please contact the school office for a music form if your child is interested in commencing music lessons in 2023.

• TERM 1
• Wednesday 1 February - Thursday 6 April
• TERM 2
• Wednesday 26 April – Friday 30 June
• TERM 3
• Tuesday 18 July – Thursday 21 September
• TERM 4
• Monday 09 October – Friday 9 December

Pupil free days:

Monday 24 April

Friday 2 June

Monday 17 July

Friday 18 August

Friday 22 September

Public Holidays

Monday 6 March (Labour Day)

Friday 7 April (Good Friday)

Tuesday 25 April (ANZAC Day)

Monday 5 June (WA Day)

Monday 25 September (King's birthday)

Email: admin@stthomas.wa.edu.au
Website: stthomas.wa.edu.au
Location: 8 Warden Street Claremont WA 6010
Phone: (08 9286 9500
Facebook: www.facebook.com/stthomasprimaryschoolclaremont
Twitter: @StThomasCPS