APRE NEWS

Dear Parents and Carers,

As we reach the half way mark for Term One, we also find that Ash Wednesday and LENT are upon us next week. It is a time to stop and think about how we are preparing ourselves for Easter. With the students we will be taking time to reflect on how we can become a little more like Jesus. What will our Lenten journey look like? For Ash Wednesday, Fr Michael has made himself available for most of the day, so will be meeting up with class groups to discuss the significance of the day prior to distributing the ashes.

Right across the school, during Lent, classes will be discussing CARITAS' 2019 Lenten theme of "Give Lent 100%". Project Compassion focuses on "the many ways that CARITAS works around the world with local partners to offer hope to people most vulnerable to extreme poverty and injustice. Through an holistic approach, CARITAS is working with communities providing hope for a just and fair world regardless of their ethnicity, political beliefs, gender or religion."

Students and teachers will be looking at real stories of children and families across the globe and over the next few weeks we will share some of those stories and the students' responses to them.

Today, while writing this, eight of our Year 6 leaders have joined with student leaders from other primary Catholic schoools to spend a day learning and planning for Just Leadership as part of a CARITAS: Just leadership Day. Pascal, Amelia, Lottie, Talia, Lindsay, Bridget, Connor and Khai will be taking on the role of helping to promote further awareness across the school, not just during Lent but throughout the year.

FUNDRAISING/ Awareness: While Project Compassion is our focus between now and the end of term, our Free Dress Day last Friday raised $600 which has been sent to Townsville to assist families impacted by recent floods. Thank you very much for your generosity.

Service Days later this term: In the last week of each term this year, we are asking each class to hold/ run a service based activity. The hope is that this will lead to more ongoing outreach throughout the year. Further discussion and planning with teachers will take place over the next couple of weeks however I happened to cross paths with the ROSIES crew next door as they were returning from their own outreach on the weekend so I asked them was there any practical way that the SSPS community could assist them. Being a primary school, we cannot actually join them on their weekly trips into the community. Along with a few other suggestions which we will look further into, I was given the following list of things that are often asked for/ required by the clients of ROSIES who are usually not living comfortably at all. The following items were suggested:

noodles

small tins plain tuna

small containers of shampoo and conditioner

small tin or packs of fruit

paper towels

combs/ small hair brush

There will be a basket in the school office, so if/ when anyone is able to donate something, it can be collected there for later distrubution to Rosies.

WELCOME CUPPA under the GUM TREES: Our wonderful Pastoral Care Team is hosting afternoon tea from 2:20pm tomorrow (Friday). Everyone is welcome to attend and we would love to have you come and say "hello". 

2nd Hand Clothing Pool: Please note that Cathy Condon is unavailable to coordinate the Clothing Pool so if you require second hand uniforms please contact the school office.