Dear Parents

Today is the Feast of the Sacred Heart, once a significant feast in Australian schools. It is associated with recognition of the poor and collecting items for donation. With the school’s focus on raising funds and collecting winter items for St Vincent de Paul, St Kieran’s is handing over $1442 to the St Kieran’s SVDP chapter. Mr John McCarney will be accepting the donation on behalf of Vinnies in the next couple of weeks. Thank you to everyone for your generosity in donating money, blankets and clothing towards the appeal. 

Linked in the Parish News section of this newsletter, is this week’s Parish Bulletin. Fr Dave’s pastoral perspective refers to Pope Francis’ latest letter, “Tend the Flock of God”. I encourage you to take the time to read it.  

Open Day 

As part of the Open Day on Monday, we were visited by one of our local pre-schools, with approximately twenty children along with their parents and educators. They were very impressed by the Kindy rooms and the quality of learning and teaching taking place. They even had a list of interesting questions that they asked members of the Civics and Citizenship team. Next Tuesday evening, we are hosting eight of our local pre-schools, approximately 20 educators, sharing with them the ways we teach literacy and numeracy at St Kieran’s. We have done a lot of work in developing strong ties with many of our local pre-schools. 

Benefits of Staying Until Year 6 

A few weeks ago, we hosted an evening for parents who were interested in finding out more about the benefits of children staying at St Kieran’s until the end of Year 6.  Some schools are asking parents at this time, to make the choice between starting in Year 5 or waiting until Year 7. If you are one of those families still unsure, I am more than happy to discuss with you the options available. Contact the school office to make an appointment. 

Sporting Success 

On Tuesday there were two significant sporting events for St Kieran’s. We had five representatives in the Broken Bay Cross Country team compete at Homebush and a Stage 2 tennis team compete in the inaugural Todd Woodbridge Cup at North Manly. Congratulations to all these competitors for representing our school so proudly. More details including photos and student recounts are included in today's newsletter. 

Prayers 

Please continue to keep Mrs Leydon’s husband Patrick in your prayers at this time. He remains in hospital recovering from surgery. Mrs Leydon will return to school next term. I ask you to remember the Reade family also in your prayers after the passing of Angela’s mother last week.  

Youth Mass 

St Kieran’s Youth Mass will be held this Sunday evening at 6pm in the church. The invitation is open to all families, especially students in Stage 3. 

God bless, 

   Michael Gallagher
   Principal

 

Congratulations Stage 3 on your participation in our Vinnies Winter Sleepout. Students collected their supper in the 'staffroom soup kitchen' before trying to settle down for a few hours of sleep. The children got to ‘walk in the shoes’ of the homeless by trying to sleep on a cold hard playground. A huge thank you to Stage 3 teachers, Miss Wright and Mr Gallagher for attending the evening. Mrs Ucchino has prepared a short video that tells of our evening.  https://vimeo.com/561161947 

Thank you to our school community for the gifts of blankets and warm clothing. Mrs Hughes will be loading up her van on Friday to take the gifts to Vinnies.  Today we transferred just over $1442 to the Vinnies Winter Appeal. Once again the generosity of our school community was in evidence.

This week both Year 2 and Stage 3 have had a visit from Fr Jepser OSA.  Year 2 is learning about the Church and Fr Jepser spoke to the children about the people of the church and the role of Priests in our church.  Stage 3 had a conversation about prayer before Fr Jepser led Lectio Divina with the children.  Lectio Divina is a form of prayer that is inspired by a writing.  We thank Fr Jepser and the Augustinian community for their generosity and care of our school community.

YOU ARE INVITED TO THE PARISH YOUTH MASS
Sunday evening Youth Mass is on this Sunday at 6pm.  Lively singing led by Simon Hyland and the Gospel enacted by students make this a great celebration of the Mass for our youth.  Please consider braving the cold and joining other youth from the parish for this celebration of the Eucharist.

Yours in Religious Education,
     Mrs Kerrie Wetzlar

Congratulations to the following students who received Merit awards this week:

KB: Charlie M and Aria F
KW: Diego AD and Chloe C
1B:  Max D and Greta P
2B:  Jude C and Ruby H
2W: Fletcher C and Annabel M
3B:  Toby S and Charlie B
3W: Marcus F and Mateo B
4B: Harrison D and Bellinda D
4W: Aidan C, Juan D and Jasmine L
5B: Brooke B and Jake B
5/6: Zoe M and Lukas G
6B: Maddison R and Tahlia M
PE: Matthew C and Louis H

Last Tuesday we played in a Tennis Tournament at Kierle Park which is close by. It was a fun day. Everybody was really good at tennis. It was a little difficult though because we played against older kids but we tried our best.
      by Monty T



“Some Year 3s and Year 4s participated in the Tennis Gala Day on the 8^th June. The people who attended were Marcus, Monty, Madison B, Billy, Tash, Sophie, Jasmine and I. My partner for most of the day was Marcus. We also did mixed pairs and I was with Madison B. Our school came third out of six schools! Some of the other schools have more than two teams so technically there were 10 teams altogether! Marcus and I played a game in the semi-finals. We won 1-21 so we beat the other team by 20 points! It was a really great day and we would love to go again.”
     by Finn W

On Tuesday 8 June students from St. Kieran’s made it to the 2021 Polding Cross Country 
Pip, Maddi, Aoife, April and Michael all participated in the Polding 2021 Cross Country at Eastern Creek. All competitors had a wonderful and fun day with amazing results. 
 
Results:

Pip:
Hi I’m Pip! I participated in the Polding Cross Country and had a very fun day! I’m very proud of my results on Tuesday because I won the U12 3km race! Polding Cross Country is located at Eastern Creek race track, which means our race is on a racing car track! I was in an U12 female Broken Bay team with Aoife, which means they add up everyone's points from the race, and fortunately our team had the most points and won! Aoife and I got a photo up on the podium and it was pretty magnificent. Polding Cross Country was very crazy and fun and luckily I got to enjoy it with my friends. 
 
Maddi:
Hi I’m Maddi! I had a great experience at Polding cross country. I was very happy with my results because this was my first time making it through to Polding so I was pretty nervous about the course but I ended up coming 2nd out 42. I was in the U11 female Broken Bay team with April and some other girls. We got the most points so that means we won! It was pretty cool being on the same podium as the race car drivers! Overall I loved cheering my friends on and spending time with them! 
 
April: 
Hi, I'm April! I had a great day at the Polding Cross Country while cheering on my friends, running the race and much more. I was in the 11’s Female Broken Bay team and our team got the most points so we got to have a gold medal each. It was a fun day going to Eastern Creek because we got to do some running and cheering. I had a great day out at Eastern Creek!
 
Aoife:
Hi, I'm Aoife. We had an awesome day at the Polding NSW Cross country race. The race track looked so cool because it was a professional race car driving track! I did cross country this year because I wanted to try something new and do it with my friends. I was very nervous on the start line looking at all the competitors but when the gun fired I felt excited and ready. Overall I came 13th in the 12-13 yrs age group. Our Broken bay team won the overall points in our under 12 - 13 yr girls division. We got gold medals and stood on the podium all together, which was a very exciting moment for us. This cross country journey has been a great adventure to cheer on my friends, finish my races and have so much fun!

Michael:
Hi, I’m Michael! I had a great day while I was at the Polding Cross Country. I was in the 12/13 years boy’s race. I ended up coming 23rd but the best thing about Polding was that I got to miss school and get to race. I enjoyed being at Polding. It was held at the Sydney Motor Sport Park in Eastern Creek. There were a few canteens downstairs which had lots of food. I had an awesome day at Polding!!!

Friday 23 July is the day set aside for the children to think about the gift of their grandparents.  Our celebration is timed to coincide with the feast day of Jesus' grandparents, St Anne and St Joachim.  We invite grandparents to a Grandparent Liturgy in the church at 10am followed by morning tea in the hall then a visit to the school to read a picture book with the children in the playground.

In preparation for this wonderful celebration we ask you to send in a photo of your grandparents to contribute to a slideshow to be used during our liturgy.  Please send only one photo per family.  Photos can be sent to FamiliesSKMV@dbb.org.au and must be submitted by the last day of school this term - Thursday 24 June.

If you have a child starting in 2022 please forward their application to the school as soon as possible.  Applications are available from the school website.