Dear Parents, Guardians and Carers, 

Last week we had the opportunity to listen to a large group of grade 5 students give a speech about why they should be considered as a St Michael’s 2025 School Captain . It is always a pleasure to hear the students not only share their leadership aspirations but demonstrate their growth in confidence to be able to talk to their cohorts and teachers. The quality of the speeches was very high, 

It is with great pleasure that I announce that our 2025 School Captains are:

• Aria Pearson
• Branson Flewin
• Charlie Mortimer
• Olivia Wisewould
• Vinuli Dissanayake 

I wish them all the best for next Year. 

On Friday we farewell the grade 6 students with a special day. The highlights include opportunities to visit previous teachers and spaces within the school, a special lunch in the hall and their final assembly and hat throwing on the final bell. We then conclude the day with a graduation Mass starting at 6pm at St Michael’s Church. It is a lovely day for the staff, students and parents. All are welcome to join us for the hat toss at the end of the day. 

Important dates: 

• 11th Dec - Year 3/4 Fun Day     
• 12th Dec - Year 6 Fun Day 
• 13th Dec - Year 6 Graduation Lunch and Mass at 6pm
• 13th Dec - Foundation Breakfast Camp experience 7:30am 
• 17th Dec - Grade 5 Fun Day 
• 17th Dec - Year 1/2 and Foundation Fun Day 
• 18th Dec - Term 4 ends 3.20pm 

Luke 3:1 - 6

The second and third weeks of Advent this year focus particularly on the role of John the Baptist as the one who prepared the way for Jesus and announced his coming. It continues the theme of preparation that was begun last week, but still, rather than preparing for the birth of Jesus, we are exploring the wider theme of preparation.This gospel emphasises that John was preaching ‘a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’. Throughout the gospel of Luke, the recognition of sinfulness and the desire to repent and seek forgiveness is the prelude to receiving God’s favour.

This gospel makes it clear that one way in which we can prepare a way for the Lord is to recognise our faults and failings and to seek forgiveness. It is only through such repentance that we can make ourselves receptive to the love of God. The only preparation of the way that is necessary for the Lord is a personal preparation to be receptive. We are absolutely assured of God’s love. The problem is that we often feel that we are undeserving of that love or are unable to receive it. When we are called to ‘Prepare a way for the Lord’ it is a call to prepare a way in our own hearts – to break down the barriers that we have put up; to clear the obstacles that we have placed in the path. God’s love will find a way! We simply make the way easier for ourselves to recognise God’s love if we ‘Prepare a way’.

Last week all 3/4 classes were excited to welcome visitors from Dalkeith Heights Retirement Village to St Michael’s.  Below are some personal recounts from some of the students.  It was a great experience for all involved and we were very proud of our students.  Hopefully this partnership can continue into the future.

On Tuesday the 3rd of December, the 3/4 students were lucky enough to receive a visit from Dalkeith Heights Retirement Village. Each grade had the opportunity to perform their concert item and a Christmas themed song.

For our show, we presented the dance that we had performed at the concert. We later sang Christmas themed songs for them, some of which had actions.

After our performance, we were split up into groups of 3 with one visitor per group, and allowed a chance to show them our artwork from the art show. My companion was named Heather, and she was quite nice.

One of the highlights of the day was learning about our visitors from a different point of view. For instance, I learnt that Heather actually used to be a teacher at Grey Street! 

The 3/4 students are very grateful to have been privileged enough to spend some time with others from a different generation, and we sincerely hope that it will become a more frequent event.

Evie W

On the third of December some residents from Dalkeith Heights came to our school for a visit. Alexis (me) welcomed the visitors and introduced us to them before we started to present the visitors with our concert dances. After the dances and songs finished we presented our artwork we have created during art class. Previously, our class was placed into groups of 3 so everybody could present their artwork while 1 visitor came along with each group. Once we had all shared our artwork, we got to read a picture-story book with one of the visitors. It was an exciting experience, especially when some of the visitors shared stories and information from when they were in school and gave their thoughts and feedback about the art and dances. It gave all of us a great feeling like we have made somebody's day a bit better. When our class came back we shared our thoughts on the experience and everybody was a bit happier and more lively afterwards.

Alexis

When I first came into the hall I felt nervous but when we did the dance I felt calm and happy. In the groups  I felt shy but then I realised that she is very nice so then we showed art. In the end I felt really happy that I got  that time to spend with them.

Amber

I honestly think that this was a good incursion because we got to read and show the visitors our artwork.  My visitor was a really sweet lady who was partially deaf but was very nice, and she was trying to listen, as close as she could.  I had a great experience and think that we should do this next year.

Ashar

Our visit with the elderly community of  Dalkeith Heights was a fantastic time!  We should do it again. A lot of students enjoyed having them over. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the experience. We performed our concert song and rudolph the rednosed reindeer!!

Jack

At first I was nervous to talk to them but then it felt good. So we did the concert and our  Christmas songs and we showed them some of our art  and they had the best time, well the one we had.

Kaiden

On Tuesday the 3d of December we had some visitors in our school, they were from “Dalkeith Heights”. Our person was called Chris. They were all really nice, everyone showed them our artwork and we all had some laughs and after some of us felt joyful afterwards. I think that I speak for everyone that they had a great time.   

Kyan

My visitor was Heather. She was a primary school teacher.She also likes adult art but she thinks kid art is more creative.  I showed her my dragon and she thought it was amazing. Heather learned the piano when she was a kid.

Louis

Our class had people from Dalkeith heights to perform in front of.  We would like them to come back. They were really nice and comforting, they were also really glad to share their history.  After the dance we went in groups. Theo and I were in the same group with Vivienne. All of us met someone named Bruce. We showed him our artwork one by one, he was really thrilled about our work. His favourite hobby is riding his bike and he used to be a teacher at Grey St primary school. Then he asked us some questions like what grade are you in? And what's  your favourite hobby? Then it got to the point where we had to go and say goodbye.  And now that I reflect on that I realise that it was a good experience, I made somebody's day and I got to meet someone new.

Lakyn

Today we met the people from Dalkeith Heights and we performed our class concert dance and performed a christmas song for them.  We got into groups of three and met a new person.  We loved meeting the lovely people from Dalkeith Heights and they shared their stories with us.  We also presented our artwork and we were so happy we could see them and share our love and commitment to them.I met a really kind woman whose name is Chris, she was so kind and loved coming to us.

Thank you visitors for coming .

Zahlie

We met people from Dalkeith Heights. We met different people. One of the people I met was called Bruce. He was nice and we ended up finding out that he worked at Grey Street and that also his wife was a teacher.  She taught piano and guitar and one of her little kids does piano music on Spotify.  We hope that the Dalkeith people come again and we hope there's more people. We sang Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and we also did our concert song Everybody Dance Now .

Vivienne

Lots of the people there were nice, thoughtful and kind. We all felt nice doing all this because all the people at the end had smiles on themselves. 

Violet

We performed our concert song and we sang a christmas song for our visitors.We got into our groups we made sure to introduced ourselves.Then we showed them  our art from the art show and if we had time we would read them a book.My group read a Christmas book called The Christmas Pine.  We took turns reading each page.

Blair

Thank you to the folllowing students for being part of the 2024 Premiers’ Reading Challenge.

Certificates have been distributed at assembly on Friday 29th November 2024 to all student participants.

 PRC Champion Lapel Pins Recipient for 2024

2025 travel offers

Families have been emailed travel offers from the Student Travel Assistance Portal for bus travel in 2025. Families have until 14 December 2024 to accept travel offers for 2025.

Please review your travel offers in the Student Travel Assistance Portal and check all travellers details are correct. If you have changed address or your travel offer is incorrect you will need to decline the travel offer, update your address in your profile(if required) and then submit a new travel application. 

Bus service waitlist

Where bus services have reached capacity, some students have been placed on a waitlist. The Student Transport Unit reviews the waitlist every day and when a seat becomes available, the system will automatically email a travel offer to families. Priority of access is given to eligible students.

Contact

Families requiring assistance with STAP (including requests to change their allocated bus service/stop) can email: schoolbus@education.vic.gov.au or phone:1800 338 663.

We offer hot lunches weekly on a Monday with Munch Lunch. They are a local company that offer a variety of lunch items. 

Ordering is simple, download the Spriggy Schools app via your App Store or Google Play store, select St Michael's School,  add your children and their class to the app and place your order!  Lunches will then be delivered to school. Orders need to be placed by 9:00am on the day. You can pre order lunches 2 weeks in advance.

Contact: Munch Lunch 0459 220 445 or hello.munch.lunch@gmail.com