Dear Parents and Carers

I hope you had an opportunity to have a rest over the Easter holiday break. The children returned yesterday full of energy and keen to reconnect with their teachers and friends.

I would like to welcome back Louisa Mitchell who has returned from Maternity Leave. Louisa will work in a part time basis providing Learning Support assistance to our younger children in the morning and completing her Religious Education Coordinator duties in the afternoon. Louisa will bring a wealth of experience to both roles and we are delighted to have her back on staff.

Welcome back also to Sam Hornby who has returned to Year Five following Paternity Leave.

I hope by now you have received an update on the most recent COVID restrictions. As you would have heard via the media Catholic schools have relaxed the restrictions somewhat, reflecting the advice of the Health Authorities. Please let our Front Office know if you did not receive this note via Compass yesterday.

Mother’s Day Breakfast

The easing of the restrictions has enabled us to offer a Mother’s Day Breakfast next Friday, May 6^th on our Junior Playground. Breakfast will be served from 7.15 am, with a coffee cart on site as well.

It will be lovely to offer an opportunity for our mothers (and grandmothers if you wish) to reconnect and share some time with each other. For our new parents, breakfast normally consists of an egg and bacon roll. Remember that this year’s event will be held outside so come rugged up on this morning.

Our 50^th Anniversary Dinner Committee are also planning a fund raiser, the proceeds of which will be donated back to the school to enable the ticket cost of the dinner to be defrayed.

Further details will be provided next week, but please save the date for what is normally a lovely morning.

Building Update
All classes, with the exception of 4B have now relocated to their new Learning Spaces. We are anticipating that building works will commence in the very near future.

Our plans to enable children to settle into their new environment have worked well with all classes beginning the new term very calmly. Thankyou to the teachers who have worked hard to ensure the smooth transition.

Our Year Six classes appear below:                                                                                           

                                 

Enrolment Evening Open House

The 2023 enrolment period is now open and we are encouraging potential visitors to attend a tour and Information evening on Wednesday afternoon 11^th May commencing at 4.30pm. Following the tour an Information Session will be held in our Kindergarten classrooms.

Could you please encourage any families who may be considering enrolling their children to attend this event.

May God bless you and your families.

Graham Pollard

Principal

A ring was found on Monday 25 April near the basketball courts at St Matthew's.

If you are the owner of the ring, please see the front office.

Webinar: Encouraging good behaviour

Presented by Dr Justin Coulson

8 June 2022 8:00pm AEST

Discipline is one of the most confusing and challenging topics that parents grapple with. When you look up the word discipline in the dictionary, the first definition is “punishment”. But this is a relatively new way of understanding the word. Until a couple of hundred years ago, to be disciplined meant to be shown a way to follow. This webinar, presented by Dr Justin Coulson is for every parent who has ever been so desperate to get their kids to ‘behave’ that they’ve tried Triple P, Super-Nanny, 1-2-3 Magic, and pretty much everything else out there, and still found themselves stuck. It explores the concept of discipline and how parents can encourage good behaviour in children.

Key learning and discussion points include:

• why the centuries-old strategies we still cling to should be left in the past
• how we get discipline wrong and why
• real world examples of discipline that are as imperfect as parents and their kids, but that still work
• ideas for discipline that turn everything you thought you knew about the topic on its head
• applicable strategies for everyone

St Matthew’s has special access to a voucher that can be redeemed for this webinar, which is delivered by Parenting Ideas.

The voucher code for this webinar is ENCOURAGE and can be used by you in the Parenting Ideas online shop, where the webinars are sold. The voucher will reduce the webinar cost to $0 at the checkout.

Watch from any device, any location

See the experts as they speak

Catch up recording available anytime

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Dr Justin Coulson writes and speaks about parenting and family – because nothing matters more. Justin returned to full time study in his late twenties where he earned first class honours and a subsequent PhD in Psychology so that he could learn how to be a better husband and father. Now the focus of his life is his family and helping other families flourish – in that order. He lives with his wife and six daughters in Brisbane, Queensland.

Justin has written six books and is a four-time bestselling author. He is an occasional columnist for the New York Times and appears regularly in all of Australia’s major news outlets for television, radio, and print. He has built an enviable reputation as a parenting educator of the last decade, but he is perhaps best known as the parenting expert in Channel Nine’s reality show, Parental Guidance.