September/October, 2023
Spring is a metaphor for change. Some changes we eagerly await, and some we do not.
Some changes we plan and others arrive uninvited. To all these changes we ask the gift of Your perspective beckoning us to expectation, hope, and rebirth.
May the sunlight and the rain be reminders that You are at work renewing the earth.
As a God of renewal, You are ever at work in our lives, too.
Open our eyes and lives to the needed changes in our lives this Spring.
Awaken us to new life and perspective, for we pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen
A message from Emily.
St Alipius Principal | Emily Clarke
Welcome back to Term 4!
I hope everyone had a great break and our students are feeling rested and ready to take on these last 10 weeks. I am sure our Collingwood supporters have returned with a slightly bigger spring in their step this week....
As we head into the final term of 2023, we look forward to continuing to strengthen our community bonds and fostering a deeper connection with each other.
A strong school-community connection is essential for creating a holistic and enriching educational experience. It fosters an environment where all of us can thrive, contribute, and grow, ultimately leading to the success and well-being of students and the entire school community.
This term we celebrate our specialist subjects, with Japan Day, Sports Day and our first-ever Science Day. These days offer our students an opportunity to shine and showcase their skills and knowledge in these specialist areas.
We also look forward to:
Mission Day
A Family Maths Afternoon
Our major fundraiser 'The Colour Run'
The whole school Performance evening for families
Our Bunnings BBQ fundraiser
Keep an eye on the 'Week Ahead' emails each Friday to see what is coming up, as it will be a busy term!
I hope all our families are well and enjoying this changing season. As we are edging closer to the festive season, I thought it might be a nice time to begin a community pantry in our front foyer. This pantry will be open to all, to both contribute to and take from. I hope it helps to create a deeper sense of community and highlights the value and gift of sharing with each other. Please see the flyer below for more details.
Have a wonderful rest of the week,
Emily
A Glimpse into Our Learning Communities.
Open to God's presence, St Alipius is a Catholic learning community of excellence, equity, and empowerment. We see evidence of this in our community, in many ways, each and every day.
Excellence
Equity
Empowerment
Year 4/5 LC
Footy Colours Day was a huge success. Throughout the day our Year 4/5 Leaders ran a series of football clinics with the Foundation Learning Community.
Year Six Learning Community
Last term, Andrew Chinn joined us for a series of workshops to bring alive some of the music we have come to know and love throughout our time at St Alipius.
Sporting Achievements
Congratulations to our students who competed in their recent netball grand final. They went down in a great contest, demonstrating super sportspersonship and effort.
Thanks to Amy Romeril for coaching the girls. We’re very proud of you all!
Year 3 Learning Community
On Thursay 14th September, the Year 3 Learning Community exercised our powers of observation 👀 on a 'Mindfulness Nature Walk' 🍃 🌳 👣
In pairs, we meandered out of the school gate, down to the oval and back again.
On the way, we kept a look out for any items we could check off our checklists ✔️
Some of these items included:
- 3 different shaped leaves
- something to help/assist people
- something that could be improved
- something that's 'perfect just the way it is'
We all agreed that it was a lovely, mindful way to round out our recent learning about 'social and emotional' wellbeing and to finish off 'R U OK Day' on a high! 👍 👌
Foundation Learning Community
During our recent inquiry unit, Foundation students were able to describe the appearance, diet, habitat and some interesting facts about animals in our environment.
We presented our findings in the form of a poster that included an information report showcasing our research.
We also made a replica of the animal of our choosing, using the information we found about it's appearance.
We learned different ways to research (non-fiction books, or using voice to text for Google searches or YouTube videos), and then translated this information into written text.
At the completion of this learning cycle, we worked with the Grade 6s who helped us type up our writing.
We are very proud of the finished products, which are all displayed in the hallway next to our classroom.
Year 1/2 LC
Learning about 3-Dimensional objects and enjoying Nature Walks!
Year 3 LC
We are learning about Shape.
Specifically, we are learning to understand and calculate Area using formal and informal methods.
We have explored breaking irregular shapes into two or more regular shapes, then simply calculating area as we would for regular shapes just with the extra step of adding each separate area together.
We know 💡 Area = Length X Width or A = L x W
Year 1/2 LC
In Performing Arts last term students created their own masquerade masks. The students have also made their own puppets and performed in front of an audience. Through these experiences, students learn as both artist and as audience members to be focused, innovative and resourceful through making and responding.
Academic Achievement
Congratulations to these students for competing in the Australian Maths Competition during Term 3.
All students put in a ripper effort and can be proud of their achievements.
In total, they received 2 participation, 5 proficiency, 18 credits and 2 distinction awards. These are impressive results considering over 13,000 students participated across Australia.
A special congratulations goes to Elsie Spicer for receiving the Best in School award. Elsie's score was in the top 20% of students from her year level who participated in the competition.
Well done to these students, their families and their teachers for all of the effort they put into developing their mathematical problem-solving abilities.
History in Year 3
Persistence sure pays off! ⏳
These double-sided History posters required persistence, attention to detail, planning, keeping track of our work, publishing completed work and presenting our learning as an oral presentation.
Throughout this cycle of inquiry, we uncovered so much we never knew about History. We actually discovered that History is quite cool 😎 and people have done some pretty amazing things!
We explored First Contact, European Settlement, the Moon Landing, the Agricultural Revolution, the British Empire, various Olympic events, the Gold Rush, Ancient Egypt, the Explorers, the Titanic, prehistoric times, and more!
This learning really stretched our thinking and enabled us to learn in a variety of ways from retelling, imagery, inferred meaning, symbolism, 2D art representations, language, storytelling and imaginative writing, word association, discussion, note-taking and more!!
We were so excited to take our posters home!!
The Great Debate in the 1/2 Learning Community
On Thursday 14th September, the students of Year 1/2 wrote a persuasive piece sharing their opinion for or against whether we should order some pizzas for lunch on Thursday to celebrate our time together. As you can see it turned into a great debate with 14 students joining the affirmative against 6 on the negative team.
There were some strong arguments presented each way, however, the verdict opted for a pizza picnic in the sun to celebrate last week of term.
The Great Debate: ‘Should our class have pizza for lunch on Thursday’
Community News!
Ballarat East Connections
Laudato Si Reps!
A beautiful morning at the Ballarat Community Garden!
Our Laudato Si group visited the garden today and learnt about fruit trees and which fruit can be enjoyed in each of the seasons. We enjoyed a morning tea and a garden treasure hunt.
Thanks Cathy and Sandy for partnering with our students to foster their love of the environment.
We look forward to getting more of our students back visiting the community garden!
Fundraising Event THIS Term!
Look what’s coming!! Save the Date!
The St Alipius Fundraising Committee are excited to announce that we will be holding the School Fun-Run this year at St Alipius!
Our fun run date will be Tuesday October 31st at 2pm at McKenzie Reserve (St Alipius oval).
We’ll be launching the fundraising this week and all students will bring home information about the event on Wednesday. This event will help to raise funds towards a brand new playground for our students.
Parents and family welcome to come along and cheer the kids on! It is sure to be lots of fun!!
Be the Change!
On the last day of Term 3, the wonderful Emme shaved her head for @worldsgreatestshave.
Emme was incredibly brave and generous as she raised funds to support those living with cancer.
Our school community and her family and friends rallied around her to raise over $1600. A wonderful effort!
Well done Emme!!! #worldsgreatestshave
Ballarat East Connections
The students of the Year 4/5 Learning Community visited the Ballarat Jewish Synagogue.
This building is just down the road from school but none of us had ever been inside before.
We learnt a lot about the Jewish faith and about the building itself and its history.
We thank John Abraham for inviting us into this special space and for sharing his knowledge with us.
