Dear Parents,

Congratulations to all of the students who performed at the Canberra Theatre last night for Wakakirri. The performance was fantastic and judging by the enthusiastic applause so did everyone else. The costumes and make-up looked amazing and at school I had trouble recognising the children! The back drops really helped set the scene for the performance.

Every time we enter I am amazed at the creativity and the professionalism of all schools present. It was great to see a range of schools participating and, despite the size of the school, all children thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

We had 120 students involved and rehearsals have been happening for the last 19 weeks. A massive commitment from all involved.

We had a large team of parents and staff at school on Friday and others that had spent countless hours prior to the performance, ensuring everything was in place for last night. I thank everyone for their efforts but I must single out a number of staff and parents who have given up countless hours to ensure the performance was as polished as it was. I thank Matt Smith, Kristina Hudina, Carly Tesoriero, Sarah Stubbs, Lucille Duvenhage, Katrina Blinkhorn, Kirsty Brook, Adam Gresham and Wayne Budd.

If you would like to purchase any professional photos or the CD from the night please go to https://www.wakakirri.com/mainsite/.  If parents have any photos that they would like to share from the night please do so by sending them to office.mts@cg.catholic.edu.au.

Staff Reviews

The school executive at MTS consists of Craig Hart (AP), Anne Leet (REC), Anna Williams (Co-ordinator), Brooke Jeffries (Co-ordinator), Kelly Boyton (Co-ordinator), Claire Addinell (Director ELC) and myself. As part of our employment contract all members of the executive team undergo a review before a new contract is offered. These reviews take a variety of formats but all involve receiving feedback from staff, parents, other community members linked to MTS and, in my case, the students. Currently Mr Hart, Miss Jeffries and Mrs Leet are involved in this process. I am also due to undergo a performance review in the next few months.  Thank you to the parents that have agreed to provide feedback for any of the above reviews.

Bottle Tops

Thank you to those that have been sending in a vast number of bottle tops. This week I received more information on what tops they need. I ask parents to send in only those outlined in the note below. We will sort out what we already have.

We can only use bottle caps with a grade 2 or 4 plastic. So, any with a ‘2’ or ‘4’ on the actual cap (not the bottle) will be fine! The number must be stand alone, not within a code. This will generally include soft drink, water and milk bottle caps. To see if the cap is usable, you can look at the numbers located on the underside of the cap. Any caps without numbers will be unusable as we have no way of knowing what grade plastic they are. We also ask that the caps are please rinsed before they are donated and that no extra plastic, metal or other material is attached. We also cannot accept any larger lids, such as those found on Vegemite or peanut butter jars as they are too difficult to process.

Maths Problem

Congratulations to Sofia Di Dio who was last week’s winner. This week’s problem is one shared by Mrs Williams. If you have already done it in class, all the better.

A Full Bowl of Fruit

There are three types of fruit in the fruit bowl:

• All pieces of fruit are bananas, except for three of them.
• All pieces of fruit are apples, except for four of them.
• All pieces of fruit are oranges, except for five of them.

Can you work out how many pieces of each fruit are in the bowl?

Sports Wrap

National Swimming Championships

Milana Sadler-Pather represented the ACT at the School National Swimming Championships this week. What an amazing achievement to make it to the national school carnival and compete against some of the best swimmers in the country, well done Milana!

Touch Football Gala Day

We had three teams complete in the touch footy gala day on Thursday 1^st August. All teams went really well and tried their best. MTS 2 went through the day undefeated with a narrow one try victory over the MTS 1 side in the very exciting inter-school clash. As always the students demonstrated exemplary sportsmanship and represented our school with pride. I would like to thank Tony Howell and Simon Blackwell for coaching teams on the day, Year 6 students Frankie Cappello, Tiarna Ruberto and Gilbert Almond for assisting our coaches and the people who came to support the students on the day.

Upcoming events

• Oztag gala day 8^th August
• 5/6 Netball gala day 13^th August
• North Canberra/Gungahlin regional Athletics Carnival 30^th August

God Bless

Peter Hughes

Front Office Reminders 

• Absentee Notes—If your child is absent from school due to sickness, holiday or other reason, please ensure a note is submitted via Szapp, our website or provided to your child’s classroom teacher on their return.
  
  
• Sickness—If your child has been sick and has been vomiting or had diarrhoea then they must be excluded from school for at least 24 hours after the symptoms have ceased.
  
  
• School Start & Finish times
  
  
  • School supervision starts at 8.15am with classes beginning at 8.45am
  • Lunch break is from 11.00am to 11.55am
  • Recess break is from 1.25pm-1.55pm
  • School finishes at 3.00pm with supervision at car line finishing at 3.30pm.
  • Parents who cannot collect their child/children by this time should arrange for after school care with Kidsbiz. In the case of any
    emergency which prevents you from collecting on time, please contact us so that we can make arrangements to ensure the safety/supervision of your child/children.
    
    
• Late to school procedure:-
  
  • If you are dropping off your child to school late please remember to sign in at the front office (any time after 9:15am). 
    Every student needs to have their late slip with them to hand on to their class teacher upon arrival at their classroom.
    
    
• Early Pickup procedure:-
  
  
  • If you are planning to collect your child early please try to let the class teacher know beforehand so that your child/children are at the front office waiting for you.
  • If you have an unplanned early pickup please contact the front office and let us know what time you will be arriving so that we can have your child/children ready. 
  • Please remember if this happens, we will do our best to locate your child but this is not always possible especially if they are out of class or on lunch or recess breaks.
  • In addition, if you are collecting your child early and you have requested they arrive at the office at a specific time, please ensure that you arrive at that time to collect them.  It is not appropriate that children be removed from class to be collected and then sit at the office and wait for extended periods of time for you to arrive.
  • A sign out slip will need to be completed for each child leaving the school prior to the end of the school day.