Dear Parents and Carers,

On Tuesday the staff and children dressed up in Tu Tu’s and house colours. This was such a fun way to celebrate a rare calendar event - 22/02/2022. The children really embraced the opportunity to have some fun and earn House points at the same time. There were also some very dazzling staff members who all joined in on the fun. Points for House team spirit were awarded to an outstanding student in each class. The winners were: Kinder - Poppy (Araluen), Year 1 - Jack (Araluen), Year 2 - Nina (Araluen), Year 3 - Joey (Araluen), Year 4 - Harvey (Budawang), Year 5 - Stella (Araluen) and Year 6 - Dexter (Budawang) and best dressed staff member Mr Chifley (Gillamatong).

This week we received notification that Covid restrictions have been lifted for schools. As of this Monday, parents are permitted on school grounds and at assemblies and are no longer required to call the school before entering. Parents are still required to wear a mask and test their children with a RATS test each Monday and Wednesday. Tests will be sent home tomorrow for the next fortnight.

Last night we held our first Community Council meeting for the year. The Community Council are the backbone of our school, assisting with decision making, fundraising and grounds maintenance. The Community Council are looking forward to organising some social and fundraising events this year. As is  tradition, we rely on our wonderful St Bede’s parents to volunteer. The Braidwood Show is on Saturday March 5 and St Bede’s parents will be running the drinks stall. This is our first fundraising opportunity for this year. A working bee at St Bede’s will be held on Friday March 28, commencing at 2pm. This has always been a HUGE success! Please, put these dates in your calendar. The working bee will conclude with a barbecue dinner and refreshments will be provided for workers and families from 5pm. More information on all these events will be sent home in the coming weeks.

We would like each class to have a Class Representative. The Class Representative could organise a social event e.g., weekend activity at the park or a get together once a term. If you would like to volunteer for this job, please contact or email the front office. Thank you to Kristi Morrison who has kindly volunteered to be the class represntative for Kinder this year. Kristi is looking forward to organising a social event for Kinder parents and children, soon.

Last year, our canteen was a huge success. Each Friday our parents volunteered a few hours of their time to organise lunches. We are hoping to have our Canteen up and running again very soon! We plan to have our first lunch day on Friday March 18. To enable this to happen, we rely on our parents to volunteer but you must have a Working with Children Check. If you would like to assist, please contact Bec Thistleton on 0438211071. If we get plenty of volunteers, we will be able to have canteen each Friday!

Interim Reports will be sent home with each child on Friday, March 4. The Interim report provides parents with information about how their child has settled into school routines and learning and how they interact with peers and teachers. Following this, in Week 6, parents will receive a note home from each teacher about a 5-minute check-in on a Teams meeting with each parent. This is not a parent interview but an opportunity to meet the teacher instead of the Parent Information Night.

With the unpredictable nature of our day to day lives, preparing and packing a healthy lunchbox can be a difficult task. Finding time to shop and prepare interesting and healthy meals for school lunches can stressful. But the foods we send to school with our kids can contribute up to 1/3 of their daily intake of nutrients. So, it’s important to pack a balanced lunch to ensure they’re getting the nutrients they need. We have included some suggestions in the newsletter today which may be of assistance:

Healthy Recess and lunch ideas

• Pack a water bottle for your child each day and remind them that they can also get water from the taps or bubblers throughout the day. Please don’t send juice poppers or milk to school.
• Cut fruit into pieces and put them in a small container. Squeeze some lemon juice on apples or pears to stop them from going brown.
• Cut up vegetables such as carrots, celery and cucumber and put them in a resealable plastic bag. Put dips or yoghurt in a separate container.
• Make wholemeal muffins and freeze them.
• Try different breads, such as rolls, pita, wholegrain or tortilla wraps.
• If using tomato in a sandwich, slice it thinly and place the slices between other fillings to stop the sandwich from going soggy.
• Cook a little extra dinner and save some for lunch the next day. You could make quiche, homemade pizza slices, salmon patties, roast vegetables, noodle salads or sausages. A freezer brick or frozen drink can help keep this food fresh.

Get more school lunch and snack ideas at https://education.nsw.gov.au/parents-and-carers/going-to-school/preparing/starting-primary-school/health-and-wellbeing/eating-at-school#%3Cspan1 and .http://healthy-kids.com.au/parents/packing-a-healthy-lunchbox/

Parents who need to change arrangements for departure from school need to contact the front office before 2:30pm. If the phone is busy, you may not get your message through to your child. Currently, we have quite a few parents who are calling after this time.

This Tuesday is Shrove Tuesday. This year, the staff will be providing the children with a pancake each and their choice of topping at Recess in exchange for a gold coin donation for Project Compassion. Children who are gluten intolerant will be catered for.

God Bless

Marylou Gorham
Principal

Have you seen the Healthy Lunch Box site?

They have great suggestions for quick and easy lunch box ideas using their lunch box builder also some great dinner ideas for the whole family.

Healthy Lunch Box