Term 1, Week 6 2022

Dear Community Members

Welcome to Week 6!

The demolition stage of our building program is now complete and the exciting part of the refurbishment now begins. Our building company ‘Harrold and Kite’ have informed me that we are well on schedule for the building works to be completed by July and be ready to move in for the commencement of Term 3.

In this edition of the newsletter we hear from the Parents and Friends committee. This committee works tirelessly to benefit our Dominican community. If you would like to play an integral part in this committee you are more than welcome to join. Please contact me directly if you are interested.  Our Sports Day is fast approaching us and the Parents and Friends provide a sausage sizzle on the day. We need volunteers to assist on Friday 8 April. Please let Nicolle Schrapel know if you are available to assist on the day. Please ensure that you have fulfilled all the requirements for volunteering in our school. Many hands make light work!

Also in this edition of the newsletter there are two reminders;

• School Board Annual General Meeting with Guest Speaker Mark Le Messurier- Monday 4 April at 6:30pm for a 7:00pm start- this will be an amazing opportunity to listen to a world renowned speaker on Children’s Well-being
• School Board Nominations- please let me know if you would like to nominate to be a member of the School Board- this is an exciting opportunity to be involved in the School at a deeper level, supporting new directions of the school

SA Health have advised that schools are no longer required to maintain COVID-SAfe QR Codes for checking in of adults attending our sites.

We will now revert to our usual visitor registration process via the Front Office. Please continue to wear masks when entering the school grounds or visiting the Front Office.

This week we welcome Paula Northeast our new OSHC Director to our Dominican Community. We also welcome John Bowler our new Grounds and Maintenance Officer who will commence with us on Friday.

The highlight of my day is when I welcome and farewell our students and families at the gate in the mornings and afternoons. I truly believe we have a strong school community that is thriving and one that we all should be very proud of. Let’s continue to work together to ensure Dominican School is the best school it can be.

Have a great week!

Kind regards,
Phil Holmes - Principal

I am delighted to officially launch our school Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and thank the School Board who endorsed this important document at their last meeting.

This Strategic Plan will enable the school to continue to achieve new levels of excellence in the following domains: Catholic Identity, Education, Student Agency, Community and Resources.

I look forward to sharing components of the Strategic Plan as we journey ahead.

Phil Holmes

JUSTICE LEADERS

This Friday our JUSTICE LEADERS for 2022 will be presented to our school community at our Student Leaders Assembly.  We congratulate Ashlee, Chloe, Madison, Wesley, Teliyah, Kaitlen, Jackson, Lucas, William, Jacob, Oscar, Isaac, Alana, Lilly, Siahn, Erika and Keira.  These Year 6 students are committed to leading our school community in our Catholic mission to work for social justice and outreach to the poor.  They have already been active in their ministry, organising our Shrove Tuesday Pancake Morning Tea, helping to prepare our Ash Wednesday class liturgies and launching this year’s Project Compassion Appeal. We look forward to our Justice Leaders guiding us throughout the year to put our faith in action for a just world.

LENT AND CHOICES

During Lent, we pray for God’s guidance to help us to listen, speak and act with love. Our Lenten journey encourages us to set aside time to reflect on our CHOICES in light of Jesus’ words and actions.  At Dominican, we talk about ‘A’ and ‘B’ choices. The ‘Way To A’ means we are learning to make choices that are safe, kind, helpful, and respectful.  You might like to use the following questions at home to promote conversations about your child’s choices during Lent - What ‘A’ choices did you make today?  How were they safe/kind/helpful/respectful choices?  Did you make any ‘B’ choices? What happened? How will you flip them to make them ‘A’ choices tomorrow?  

PROJECT COMPASSION

Our support of CARITAS Australia’s PROJECT COMPASSION gives expression to the Gospel value to pursue justice and help those suffering from poverty.  Our donations to CARITAS Australia this Lent will help to bring love and hope to those in need throughout the world for a better future.  In Pope Francis’ words, ‘To love God and neighbour… means seeing in every person the face of the Lord to be served.  And you are, dear brothers and sisters, the face of Jesus.’

Alison Tanti-Clark
Assistant Principal Religious Identity & Mission

AGM – Monday 4th April 2022 

If you would like to nominate to be a parent representative on the Dominican School Board, please email our Principal at principal@dominican.catholic.edu.au expressing your interest. No prior experience is necessary however, Board members will need to be available to meet after hours, twice a term. This is an exciting opportunity to be involved in the future developments at Dominican School.

If we receive more nominations than available positions for the Board, it will be taken to voting at our AGM, on Monday 4th April.

STARTING SCHOOL

Vacancies exist for 2022 Mid Year Intake

Free Term 3 and Term 4 Tuition for Mid-Year  Reception starters.

ENROLMENTS FOR RECEPTION 2023

If you have a child at Dominican School and have a younger child due to start school in 2023 please complete an Enrolment Form asap. We are currently finalising our interviews for 2023 enrolments. Please note that siblings require an enrolment interview.

Hello to all our families at Dominican

As the P&F Coordinator I'd love to say a big welcome to all the new families at the school. 

For those of you who don't know what P&F are or do, we're a group of volunteers who work hard through the year to support student wellbeing and improve the learning environment.

We run fundraising and social events throughout the year and then use that money to support different projects within the school. Some of our projects recently have been installing the Nature Playground,  supporting Yr 4 - 6 Girls and Boys with by funding the Butterfly Effect and Boys programs, running Book Fair to help increase books and resources available to students and teachers through the library, funding school purchases such as Lighting for the front of the Convent and buying a large screen TV for the staffroom to assist with online meetings. 

There are many different ways to get involved with P&F. We have 2 meetings a term to discuss activities and events which support the school and community, we then look for volunteers to help at these events, and finally we ask you just to support these events. Whatever level of involvement you are willing to give, we can find something for you.

P&F are responsible for the Canteen and Breakfast Club at school. We run the annual Book Fair in term 2, Easter and Christmas Raffles, several BBQs and stalls for Sports Day, Mothers Day and Fathers Day and last year organised the End of Year BBQ on the foreshore which, although a tad windy, was a lovely evening where we finally could catch up and feel that amazing community connection. 

We have our fingers crossed that this year we are able to come back and enjoy being together, supporting each other and our children, and being part of the fantastic school community at Dominican.

If you are willing to volunteer, whether as part of the P&F committee, as a one off volunteer with a little time to share or maybe for breakfast club one morning, please leave your name and contact at the office and we'll be in touch.

Personally, I love being part of the P&F. It has been a great way to meet new parents from the school and to contribute to the amazing school community. As a work from home parent it is a break for me from the hum drum and recently it has been a great distraction from a stressful time in our lives. It's great to be able to contribute to the school but to also have a chat and a laugh, and leave with a smile.

Our first big activity will be the BBQ at Sports Day and we'll be looking for some volunteers to help cook and serve. Keep an eye out for more information.

I hope to see you there. 

Nicolle Schrapel 

In 3/4L our learning intention in Mathematics has been using the place value system to read, write, compare and order numbers up to and beyond ten thousands.

The class has engaged in a variety of activities to cater for our different learning styles, even incorporating the use of technology. This included maths mental warm up games, independent tasks, hands on experiences and shared group work. Students have all experienced success working towards improving their understanding all whilst having fun along the way. We are really proud to share some of our work!

On Tuesday 8th March, 22 students in Years 4-6 attended the Port SAPSASA Swimming Carnival, which was held at the Largs Bay Swim Centre. Dominican School came an overall 2nd place out of the 13 schools in attendance! Congratulations to all competitors, as their Dominican spirit, determination and enthusiasm went a long way to making the carnival a great success. They performed admirably and made us all very proud.

Congratulations and good luck to the students who will further represent Dominican School at the Swimming State Championship Day.

Martina Kovacev

SA Health advises that if your child has a cold, cough, runny nose or flu-like symptoms, please keep them home to avoid exposing vulnerable people, staff, students and families to illness.

If children present at school with any of the above symptoms, parents will be contacted to collect their child from school.

We appreciate your cooperation in keeping our school healthy.

We acknowledge that we are on the traditional country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. We recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land. We acknowledge that they are of continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today. Approved by Kaurna Elder Uncle Lewis O’Brian 2004