Dear Parents and Caregivers

I hope you are reading this week’s newsletter in a warm and cosy place. The wintery weather hit hard and stuck around for the week. This impacted our lunch times and pick up procedures, but the students have been fantastic through it all. They have continued to arrive at school with a big smile, and I have heard the students using wonderful manners to greet teachers and each other.

This week we saw the lost property bucket fill up with jumpers. Unfortunately, they do not have names on them so we can not return them. Please ensure all jumpers are clearly labelled. If they have, previous owner names, put a line through and write on the new name. This will help us to promptly return the jumpers to the students.

Mr Coughlan and the class teachers have led activities to commemorate Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week. Reconciliation Week aims to promote our shared histories and achievements and look for ways to move Australia forward as a more just an equitable nation. In the picture, you will see how the Pre-Primary class have done a fantastic job at colouring in their work using colours of the Aboriginal and the Torres Strait Islander Flags. They have also used sensational cutting skills to cut a circle. In recent years, the Year 5/6 classes have attended the Danjoo Koorily Reconciliation Ceremony at Eden Hill. This is a great day for the students and we look forward to attending again next year.

On Friday 12 June, St Michael’s be completing a changeover of our administration system. We will be moving over to the CEWA designed Administration of Schools (AoS). For the changeover, our office staff will be undergoing training from Tuesday 9 June-Thursday 11 June. We will have a relief admin assistant to cover the office and take calls during these days. There will be a delay in responding to emails during this time. Thank you for your patience.

The changeover will also impact all parents’ access to Seqta Engage and reports. After the changeover, all parents will be sent an email with a link to re-provision your account. This needs to be completed within a week of receiving the email. If the link expires, parents will need to contact the office to get the email sent again. Once parents have re-provisioned their account, it will allow them to sign in to Seqta Engage, access previous reports and view the interim report for the end of the semester.

At the end of this semester, parents will receive an interim report rather than the traditional report due to the impact of COVID. To describe student progress, the report will use terms: Working Towards the Expected Level, Working at the Expected Level, Working Above the Expected Level. Each subject will also highlight the student’s attitude and effort their learning at school. The report contains a values page with descriptors about the student’s social development along with a general comment. Term overviews outlining what concepts have been taught are available on the Connected App.

A reminder there is school on Tuesday 4 June. At the start of the year it was listed as a student free day but the pupil free day has been moved to Friday 4 September. We have not provided a calendar. We were hopeful it would be possible to celebrate masses and run some other events towards the end of the term. Due to the restrictions, we are still unable to hold any of these. One event we do plan on holding is a modified Cross Country. Miss B will send out more information once we finalise a format following CEWA guidelines.

I wish everyone a safe and enjoyable weekend.  

Warm regards,

Ryan Powles
Acting Principal

principal@stmichaelsbass.wa.edu.au.