ST. BENEDICT S SCHOOL NEWSLETTER 15th December 2016 Newsletter No. 41

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1 3 9 Central Avenue, After School Care on the Premises Burwood Extend OSHC Phone Fax Supervision 3.15 to 6.00 pm. principal@sbburwood.catholic.edu.au Extend After School Care School website: Parish website: Office hours 8.45 am to 4 pm ST. BENEDICT S SCHOOL NEWSLETTER 15th December 2016 Newsletter No December 2016 Dear parents, This is my final newsletter. It has been a great honour and privilege to be St Benedict s P rincipal for the past 9 years. It is a position I have thoroughly enjoyed. I thank all our families for your friendship, trust and support. I will always keep St Benedict s school community in my thoughts and prayers. I am sure our new principal, Meredith Bennett, will be great for our school. I wish all our families every blessing and success in the future. Farewell to the following staff who will be leaving our school this year: Annette Harding, Rhett Masters, Kathryn Lane, Hayley Bottomley and Brian Moore. Thank you for your great work at our school. We wish you every success in the future. Well done. Farewell also to Sister Melissa Brown. Sister Melissa has been working with us over the past two years in a voluntary capacity as a learning support officer but is now moving interstate. Well done and thank you Sister Melissa. New staff for 2017 We welcome two new teachers for next year. Jessica Fielding will teach Prep/1 and Grace Fuge will teach Yr3/4. I know that they will enjoy being a part of our school community. A Thanksgiving mass for our school year will be held tomorrow at 9am in our new church. Please join us if you can. Advent We are now in the third week of Advent as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas time. Hopefully we can, in our busyness, have some time to reflect on the importance of his birth and life. Community Spirit Award At the Yr6 Graduation mass on Monday we presented the Community Spirit award to Will Hine. The Yr6 students and staff nominate children and indicate the qualities that they demomstrate. Will is seen to have the following qualities: mature, considerate, always looking after the underdog and is consistently putting others first, considerate, generous, empathetic, innately lives the gifts of the Holy Spirit; excellent role model to peers and the younger students, shows an overall warmth and kindness to all children, respectful, caring and a wonderful role model for students, caring to all students and staff, supportive of fellow classmates and younger children, encouraging to children who need acknowledgement, kind and sharing, has the most beautiful manners and a wonderful sense of humour, embodies every virtue and value we aspire to, displaying qualities of a 'spirit filled person', helps out the younger children, kind to peers, always says hello to teachers, demonstrates leadership qualities, kind and helpful. Congratulations Will. Farewell to the following families who will be leaving our school community tomorrow: Chen, Cook, Hickey, Katzourakis, Lim, Roxas, Vargas, Velona, Christodoulou, Davies, Dinehin, Barnes, Prasel, Sherlock, Story and Stafford. Thank you for your support of our school. We wish you every blessing and success in the future. Classes and teachers for 2017 The children met their new teachers and classmates on Tuesday. The classes and teachers are as follows: Prep/1F - Jessica Fielding Yr 1/2B Yr 1/2O - Yr 3/4C - - Mary Brooks Ro O Dwyer Sophie Campbell Yr 3/4GL - Grace Fuge(3 days), Lorraine Walker(2 days) Yr 5/6SP - Yr /6T - Tanya Petersen(3 days), Mandy Shannon(2 days) Deb Torre St Benedict s Lightening Basketball champions Congratulations to Grace Cave, Seb Bodnar, Xavier Blenkhorn, Alexei Bradley- Malcolm, Lachlan Healy, Sam Dambrosi, Domanic Reith, Noah Caruso, Bradman Docherty and Patrick Panoussis. Their basketball team won the grandfinal last week. End of term The school year concludes at 1pm tomorrow 16 December. In 2017 school commences on Tuesday 31 January(Yr1 to Yr6) and Thursday 2 February for our new preps. Congratulations to the following students who received student of the week awards at the assembly last week: Prep-Mali T and Hugh D Yr1/2B- Ava N & Lucas R Yr1/2O- Noah H and Leo M Yr3/4C- Ben M and Owen S Yr3/4H- Marina L and Patrick S Yr3/4M- Chiraag N and Amina C Yr5/6SP-Domanic R and Xavier S Yr5/6T-Majella H and Rian S Happy Christmas Barry McLellan P&F NEWS 2016 P&F Fundraising and end of year thank you A big thank you to the St Benedict s School community. In 2016 with your help thep&f raised over $26,500-. These funds have already been put to good use purchasing a number of google chrome workbooks, a new PA system, new lighting and numerous other small improvements around the school grounds and to the school facilities. Without the school community continuing to volunteer (from turning sausages to turning discs at tonights disco) your P&F would not have been able to raise the funds we have. Thank you. A big call out to all the class reps for their help this year. They all embraced the change to having different year levels organise different functions - well done to the 5/6 class reps who coordinated the Father's Day breakfast and the 1/2 class reps coordinated the disco. This tradition will continue in 2017 (and 3/4s you won t miss out you will be looking after Mothers Day morning tea!). Thank you also to Ivy for organising the wine and cheese night. Finally thank you to the 2016 P&F for your great work and dedication in 2016 (Gen, Lou, Annmaree, Cassie, Jenny, Kate, Leanne, Carolyn, Justine, Kirstin and David) and to all school members thank you once more (and we are always looking out for new people to join P&F). Wishing everyone a safe and Merry Christmas and a fantastic 2017! David Blenkhorn MARK YOUR CALENDAR DATES 16 th Dec End of Year Thanksgiving Mass, 9am 16 th Dec Students finish, 1pm 19 th Dec Staff Conclude TERM DATES 2017 Term 1 Tues 31 January Fri 31 March Easter April Term 2 Tues 18 April Fri 30 June Term 3 Mon 17 July Fri 22 September Term 4 Mon 9 October Fri 22 December (TBC) 30 th Jan Office Opens & Staff commence for st Jan Students in Grade 1 Grade 6 commence 2 nd Feb Prep students commence school 2 nd Feb Welcome Morning tea for new St. Benedict families 6 th Feb P&F Meeting 27 th Feb P&F Meeting, 8PM

2 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION FOCUS Tomorrow morning we celebrate our Thanksgiving Mass of This year it is an extra special occasion as we celebrate and give thanks for Mr Barry McLellan, our Principal, and Miss Hayley, Miss Lane, Mr Masters, Brian Moore and Mrs Harding. We have been truly blessed to have had Barry leading and guiding us over the last 9 years. I realise that the disco is this evening and the children may be tired but I ask you to please make every attempt you can to have your child (and yourself if you are able) to be at Mass tomorrow morning at 9am. There are a number of children reading at Mass tomorrow so please check if you child is participating in a special way tomorrow. The newly renovated church not only looks beautiful but I have feel a sense of peace and calm when there. Fourth Sunday of Advent - Year A Gospel: Matthew 1:18-24 Jesus was born of Mary, the betrothed of Joseph, a son of David. This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins. Now all this took place to fulfil the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, a name which means God-is-with-us. When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home. Gospel Reflection We will see throughout the coming liturgical year that the gospel of Matthew places a great deal of emphasis on the importance of the Law and upon its proper application. Indeed, the gospel writer casts Jesus in the role of the new Moses Moses was the great Law-giver of the Old Testament and Jesus is portrayed in this gospel as bringing a new Law to the people of Israel. In this gospel, the proper application of the Law is as important as the Law itself. In today s passage, Joseph provides an example of the proper application of the Law. His betrothed wife was pregnant; she would have been subject to the Law against adultery and probably would have been stoned to death. Under the Law, Joseph was obliged to divorce her, and yet he determines that he will do so quietly and protect Mary from too much shame and possibly save her life. Joseph did not intend to ignore the Law, but he sought to carry it out in such a way as to bring the least shame and the least hurt to all involved. The role of Joseph is often overlooked. There is no mention of him during the public ministry of Jesus. In fact the latest mention in any of the gospels is the account of Jesus in the Temple at the age of 12. After that, Joseph disappears and we can only assume that he has passed away by the time Jesus takes up his ministry. Yet Joseph is truly a man of great faith. By rights he should have divorced Mary and walked away. But he trusts in the word of the God that is addressed to him in a dream and from that point on he goes to great lengths to protect and care for his family. Living the Gospel Advent Emmanuel; God-is-with-us that s what we celebrate through Christmas and that s what we ve been preparing for during Advent. We celebrate God-with-us in a particular time and place through our celebration of the birth of Jesus. But we remember it every year because we also use the Christmas celebration to remind ourselves that God continues to be with us. That is what is so remarkable about the Christmas season: that God-is-with-us now, not just in a stable in Palestine so many years ago, but now! Advent is the time to remind ourselves of this incredible truth and prepare ourselves to acknowledge it once again. Greg Sunter Weekday Mass and Adoration We ek Day & Date Mass CHRISTMAS APPEAL Tomorrow is the last day to bring food items for the hampers which will be distributed to families who need it most in our area. St. Vincent DePaul will collect the items at 11:00am Many, many thanks to all those who have contributed. Let us give to show the true meaning of Christmas. Thank you for your wonderful giving spirit. Regards, Mrs Walker Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a safe and happy holiday. 11 Thanksgiving/End of Year Mass Friday December 16th 9am Ms Mary Brooks, Religious Education Leader only 10 more sleeps!

3 BOCCE AT ST BENEDICT S Earlier this year we applied for, and were successful in receiving a Languages Partnership Grant from the Catholic Education Office to use with the Years 3 and 4 students. The aims of the grant were both cultural and linguistic - the students were going to learn how to play bocce and be assisted by Italian speakers. We were going to bring their learning into the wider community and have them be spoken to, and then be able to respond, in Italian. After reading their reflections, it is obvious that they enjoyed the experience. They appreciated the volunteers who came to help, tasting crostoli and pizzelle, and the environment of being in an Italian club. I would like to take this opportunity to thank The Whitehorse Club in East Burwood for supplying the venue and their bocce players and the Furlan Club in Thornbury for their bocce players. This was a big commitment for both clubs as the activity was held over 3 Fridays so a huge thank you for your support. I would also like to thank the Years 3 and 4 teachers. Without your support and enthusiasm this would not have been possible. Also, a big thankyou to the parents who helped with supervision. It is through the generous donation of your time that these activities can take place. We look forward to new experiences in Buon Natale e Buon Anno, Maria Smarrelli

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