Dear Parents and Carers,

This morning we celebrated Father’s Day. The morning commenced with the wonderful staff of St Bede’s cooking gourmet bacon and egg rolls for our dad’s grandfathers and special friends. It was lovely to see so many families enjoying breakfast before we all joined in a special liturgy prepared by Kinder and Ms Cooper assisted by some Year 6 students. The liturgy was a beautiful reflection on why our dad’s and father figures are so special and the wonderful influence and important roles that dad’s and fatherly figures have on all our lives. We are certain all our dads were touched by the children’s words and prayers. It was so lovely to see so many parents and special friends this morning. We thank the staff for their time and assistance this morning arriving at school early to set up and cook and to Ms Cooper for all her organisation of the liturgy.

The Father’s Day stall will be conducted tomorrow afternoon at 2pm. The children love to have this opportunity to purchase a special gift for their dad or special person. Each child needs to bring $5:00 to school tomorrow, to enable them to purchase a gift. We are extremely grateful to Kristi Morrison and Rachel Farley for the purchase of gifts and organisation of the stall.

Plans are well underway for our students to be involved in the BYPAA Wonderwood performance. We thank Ms Cooper for her coordination of this for St Bede’s and the teachers for planning the Creative Arts rotations each Monday afternoon. Information has been sent home to all families about the performance and the dates of the rehearsals and performance. (Please refer to the note for these dates). Should your child/children wish to participate, this is a big commitment for the children and for parents. The children are required at each of the rehearsals, as well as the performance, and they must be accompanied by a parent or adult during this time for supervision. A teacher will attend but they do not have duty of care as it is not a school event.

Yesterday, our Years 4 to 6 students travelled to Canberra to participate in an excursion to the AIS and to the Botanical Gardens. The children had a fantastic day and we thank the teachers for their planning and organisation. Please see two student articles further down the newsletter. 

Last week, all families received information about the Walkathon which will be held on Friday September 27, the last day of term 3. The Walkathon will help raise much needed funds to purchase new play equipment for our Infants students. We are hoping to raise more than we did at the last Walkathon, which was $7000. We encourage all our students to start getting their sponsors with easy payment using the QR code on each students tally sheet. We are extremely grateful to our parents who have offered to assist on checkpoints or the barbecue. If you can assist, please ensure you return the note to school with the permission notes.

Next week, is National Child Protection Week. Our students from K-6 will participate in Australia’s Biggest Safety lesson. The lesson is live streamed from the Daniel Morcombe Foundation with the focus being ‘my body, my choice’ and strategies children can use to keep them safe.

The term is going very quickly! Next week is Sabbath Week which means all students have no homework and teachers have a meeting free week. This is a wonderful opportunity for all families to spend time together participating in outdoor activities or to enjoy family time. Enjoy this special time together!

We wish all our dad’s and fatherly figures a very happy Father’s Day. We are extremely grateful for all you do to support and care for your children.