A very big welcome back to all our families for Semester 2 this year and we hope you have had an enjoyable winter break.

We have a busy Term 3 ahead of us with a number of exciting events including a cultural excursion to Muru Mittigar out at Rosehill coming up in mid-August. More details regarding this will follow closer to the date.

We wish to thank all families who were able to attend our marvellous NAIDOC Assembly on Thursday 22 June last term. The Aboriginal Dances that the students performed along with Aunty Rayma were simply superb. We hope that you were able to have an enjoyable NAIDOC celebration during the holidays.

NAPLAN results for all students in Years 3 and 5 should be sent home in the next fortnight. As soon as we receive them at school, we will forward them on to home.

Our next GPAC Meeting will be next Tuesday 25 July at 2pm in the Bennelong Room. We look forward to seeing everyone during that time either in person or online.

Once again we welcome you all back for another term of academic and cultural learning. The students will have another enjoyable term ahead.

We wish you a wonderful and safe fortnight ahead.

May grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Mr John Ralph
Head of Gawura

CBCA Book Week – Save the date!

This year, we will be celebrating CBCA Book Week, 21-25 August. The library will host special activities, games and competitions over each lunchtime during that week. This year, we are very excited to announce that our visiting author for Years 5 and 6 will be none other than Morris Gleitzman. Students will participate in a writer’s workshop from one of Australia’s most celebrated Children’s Authors, who has tickled children’s funny bones, stretched their minds, and moved their hearts for many years. Students in Years K-4 can look forward to a visit from Ben Woods, illustrator of the Real Pigeons books (and more). Pre-orders will be available closer to the date, which can then be signed by the author/illustrator on the day. The week will culminate with our Book Character Parade on Friday 25 August. Parents are welcome to attend this event, so please save the date.
 

Premier’s Reading Challenge -  closes Friday 18 August

There are only five weeks left to complete the Premier's Reading Challenge (PRC)! Students can continue to borrow stickered books during their Browse and Borrow times and they can access eBooks through the Wheelers ePlatform app which has a comprehensive selection of PRC books for each level of the Challenge. Students in Stage 3 have been encouraged to enter titles read into their own PRC record. If parents of students in K-4 would like their child’s login details to be sent again, or if your child is new to our school and you would like their record from their previous school merged, please feel free to contact Mrs Nicole Cotter ncotter@sacs.nsw.edu.au
 

Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) Great Book Swap - Wednesday 13 September

Finally, towards the end of the term, we will host a Great Book Swap. This provides families an opportunity to refresh their children’s bookshelves while supporting a very worth cause. Books can be donated from Monday 28 August. More information will follow closer to the date.
 

Nicole Cotter
Coordinator Information and Digital Literacy – Junior School and Gawura

Gala Day

On the last day of Term 2 we held the annual St Andrew's Cathedral School Gala Day which was a great day filled with fun and activities. K-2 students travelled out to Sydney Zoo for a great day filled with animals and fun. Year 3-6 students made their way to Blackman Park for a wonderful day in the winter sun, playing sports in their houses and enjoying time on an inflatable obstacle course! The overall house champion from the day was Westminster. Well done to all the students on their participation in a great day!

Oliver Denny
Head of Sport Junior School

Write A Book in A Day

On Tuesday 13 June selected students from Years 5 and 6 participated in the Write a Book in a Day competition. As part of this event, students had to work in teams of 10 to write, illustrate, edit, and publish a full book of 1500-2500 words in one 12-hour period. The book had to meet a range of criteria and include specific elements that were only revealed on the day. Completed texts from the competition are donated to hospitals around Australia for children undergoing cancer treatment, along with any funds raised by the teams. So far, our Year 5 team (The Radical Writers) have raised $2475, and our Year 6 team (The Wordy Wizards) have raised $1984!

If you would like to support our fundraising efforts, you can do so at the links below:
 

• Year 5: Aiden Bhuyan, Berlin Buresti, Zac Collins, Annabelle Douglas, Lily-Rose Finemore, Bligh Jordan, Koji Takamura, Genevieve Williams, Isabelle Wood and Vanessa Yang
  Donate here
   
• Year 6: Violet Bloxsom, Ava Chakar, Amy Codrington, Clementine Collier, Devon Olsen, Meera Joshi, Kosta Konstantouras, Archie Lo, Camilla Mao and Rafferty McGonigle).
  Donate here

Below are some reflections from various team members about their Write a Book in a Day experience:

• “Write a Book in a Day was a fun yet challenging workshop involving a lot of collaboration and sheer hard work. The Year 5 team was very organised, having specific roles and responsibilities that were put into action as soon as we achieved our plot. We did take a while to decipher what our story was going to be about, particularly fitting all the must-do parameters into the story. Our assigned characters were a wrestler, a signwriter and a tree – it wasn’t easy! As soon as we had our plot, we assigned certain people to certain chapters. We had two chapters from the signwriter’s perspective, two from the wrestler’s perspective, two from the tree’s perspective, and one additional prologue.
  Write a Book in a Day was a really special event to be a part of and we will always remember the work and effort we put into our writing. We hope that our story is well considered by the judges and even if we may not win anything, we will know that we did our very best and had fun!”
  – Genevieve Williams and Zac Collins
   
• “During Write a Book in a Day, a competition that helps fundraise money for children in hospital with cancer, the clever group of skilled Year 6 writers wrote a thrilling adventure story titled, ‘The Art of Finding a New Home’. The story featured the interesting parameters of a rugby player, entertainer and a canvas bag, amidst the chaos of finding a stray puppy at the beach. The ‘Wordy Wizards’ used the five compulsory random words: shiver, melts, ruby, sponge and tasty throughout the threads of the story, having to think long and thoroughly about where to insert them. It may sound easy, but, for eight 11-year-old students, writing and illustrating a 2500-word story in one day was tiring and stressful at times; I’m sure everyone fell asleep quickly that night! We give our thanks to the incredible Mrs Lord for guiding us and making sure we could finish by the 9pm submission mark, and of course to our encouraging parents that have always supported us and got us to school very early!”
  – Violet Bloxsom and Meera Joshi

Mrs Rebecca Lord
Coordinator of Gifted and Talented Education Junior School and Gawura

Freddie in Frozen

Congratulations to Freddie Beck (Year 6) who performed spectacularly in a local production of Frozen Junior at the end of last term. Freddie was full of fun and mischief on stage. Well done.

Child Care Subsidy - Fact sheet

More families can now access cheaper child care with TheirCare!

• Families who were previously not eligbile for the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) may now be eligible.
• A higher rate of CCS is available for most families that do access CCS.

Click here for more information.

Semester 2 Community Prayer Breakfast

We seek to bring the second half of the year before God in humble prayer. To recognise that his completed work for us in Christ and his ongoing work through the Spirit are central to our life as a school.

Minister and author J.I. Packer wrote: “Jesus' pattern prayer, which is both crutch, road, and walking lesson for the spiritually lame like ourselves, tells us to start with God: for God matters infinitely more than we do.”

The Prayer Breakfast provides a great opportunity for our broader community to connect – staff, School Council, parents and students.

Our guest speaker, Mr Gary Hill (pictured above), is the Executive Director of CRU. CRU works alongside 220 Independent schools in NSW, the ACT and WA providing support for voluntary Christian ministry as well as running holiday camps and student leadership retreats. St Andrew's Cathedral School has had a long association with CRU. 

“Since 1930, CRU has been blessed to see lives transformed by the gospel on a regular basis. On average, CRU staff and volunteer leaders reach over 2,500 children and teenagers each week across NSW, the ACT and WA with the good news of Jesus each year. I hope that you will join us in the vision of CRU’s ministry, to share Jesus with a new generation.”  – Mr Gary Hill articulating the Vision of CRU.

Numbers are limited for the Community Prayer Breakfast. Please register now!

Friday 4 August, 7.15am- 8.15am
Upper Chapter House

For Junior School and Gawura parents – all ages

All Junior School and Gawura parents and carers are warmly invited to Coffee in Chapter House to meet other parents and briefly hear about the wellbeing programmes that support your children in their growth from Kindergarten to Year 6.

Thursday 10 August, 8am-9am
Upper Chapter House

Please RSVP by Monday 7 August