January 2018 at a Glance

• 2018-2019 School Year New

Registrations

• Ski Lessons for gr. 5 & 6

• Cold Weather Reminder

Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences — Dec. 1st

• Cold Weather Reminder

• Transportation Contact

• Winter Band Concert

• Feeder Schools Visits

• Leadership Update

• Christmas Concert “Joys of

Christmas”

• Senior Girls Volleyball

• Senior Girls Basketball

• Quebec Fundraising

• Celebration Honoring Our La-

dy of Guadalupe

• St. Brendan Open House

• Gr. 9 Farewell Update

• Superintendent’s Message

and more...

Administration Team Message Dear Parents, The month of December was filled with joy and good will! Thank you to students, parents and staff for your generous support for our social justice projects over the month of December and supporting Catholic Social Services Sign of Hope. Activities during December raised $675.30 cents that will be donated to the campaign. A big congratulations also goes out to all of the staff members who worked hard to present our wonderful Christmas concert on December 20th. We wish good luck to our grade 6 students who will be participating in the annual St. Brendan volley tournament scheduled for January 11th.

Finally a reminder to our Junior High parents term one final report cards are available on January 25th.

The St. Brendan Catholic School staff wishes you a joyous and Blessed New Year and looks forward to continuing to support your child’s academic, social and spiritual development! All the best 2018!!!!!!

Administration Team

Epiphany Prayer O God

Who by a star guided the wise men to the worship of your Son

we pray you to lead to yourself the wise and great of every land

that unto you every knee may bow, and every thought be brought into captivity

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Happy New Year!!!!! St. Brendan Admin T

Principal: Mr. Dale Astill Assistant Principals: Mrs. Lori Lundeen, Mrs. Larysa Matchak Administrative Assistants: Mrs. Annette Abbenhuis & Mrs. Lidia Radyo

Next Newsletter

January 31st

School Council Meeting

Please join us!

Wednesday, January 10, 2018.

6:30 p.m.

9260 - 58 Street Edmonton, AB. T6B 3W2 Phone: (780) 466-1281 Fax: (780) 466-6057

Powerschool: https://powerschool.ecsd.net website: http://www.stbrendan.ecsd.net

2018-2019 School Year

New Registrations

We will begin accepting registrations for the 2018 - 2019 school year starting January 22nd. Kindergarten students must be 5 years of age on or before March 1st, 2019 to register for Kindergarten. Please call us for more information and pass the good news around our community. Open House for all programs will be held on Thursday, February 8, 2018 at 6:30 p. m. We hope you can join us. Word of mouth is the most effective way to promote our school. We ask that you spread the good news about our wonderful school to your friends and neighbours.

Ski Lessons Grades 5 & 6 The Grade 5 &6 students are going skiing or snowboarding at Snow Valley on Monday, February 6th. Students will be leaving the school at 8:45 a.m. and will be receiving skiing or snowboarding lessons in the morning. In the afternoon the students will have the opportunity to try out their new skills. Please ensure that your child is appropriately dressed for this day and brings a hearty lunch. If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Matchak at 780-466-1281.

Cold Weather Reminder Please make sure that your child has warm clothing, boots and mitts so that they can enjoy the winter weather. It is also very helpful if mittens and hats are labelled with your child’s name. Students are expected to go out for recess every day except during severe inclement weather. We monitor the temperature and use -20 as a benchmark to determine if students will be kept inside the school at recess and during the noon hour.

TRANSPORTATION ISSUES Please call transportation

office 7:15 AM – 5:00 PM

780 441 6078

Winter Band Concert

The winter band concert will be held on Thursday Jan. 25th at 7 p.m. and will feature the grade 7, 8 and 9 bands as well as the jazz band. Band students are asked the wear black and white, and to be at school by 6:45 p.m.

Feeder Schools Visits

On Thursday, January 11, we will once again host our annual Grade 6 Feeder Volleyball event. Students from 6 feeder schools will gather to join in some food, volleyball competition and welcomed to St. Brendan. Parents of these students are encouraged to attend and cheer on their children as they participate in this event. The tournament will run from approximately 1:30 –5:00 pm. Come check it out! In addition to this event, we will be hosting each grade 6 class with a tour of the school, begin-ning on January 15. The purpose of these visits is to familiarize the Grade 6 students with our school, have them see some of the activities and classes going on, meet some fellow students, and to have them begin thinking about their future as students of St. Brendan Junior High. The schedule for these visits is as follows: January 15th St. Matthew/Father Leo Green January 16th St. Martin/Grandin January 22th St. Gabriel/St. Brendan

Leadership Update

Huge thank you all students for collecting non-perishable food for students in need in our school community. We collected over 40 huge boxes of food or around 2500 food items that were donated to many families in need in our St. Brendan community. Congratulations to Grade 8D who was the top class who collected over 300 items following Grade 6 with over 200 items.

As tradition Candy Grams was on sale before Christmas. They were sold out by the end of the week and were still in demand! Congratulations St. Brendan’s students. We made $279.50 in Candy Grams sales! All proceeds from the Candy Gram sales will go towards the Catholic Chalice Organization. Privilege Day took place on Thursday, December 21. During this special day students were allowed to wear hats, eat snacks, listen to music and use their phones in class among other things for a donation of $5. This is a very popular fund raising event among students at St. Brendan and because of that, students raised $705.50 in donations. This money will be donated to the Chalice Catholic Or-ganization to purchase medicine and other medical supplies for those in need around the world.

The leadership team is planning a Winter Dance on Friday, January 26. It will be a semi-formal dance with students wearting something white, but do not despair if you feel you have nothing to wear! Boys, it can be as simple as wearing a tie and dress shirt. Girls, it can be as simple as wearing a glittery top with your favorite jeans! Your leadership team teachers, Mrs. Sukhy, Ms. Richards and Mrs. Kearnan

Christmas Concert 2017 Thank you to all of the parents, families and friends who joined us for our December 21st concert. Thanks to our dedicated music teacher, Mrs. Ilkiw, our beautiful and talented students and the St. Brendan staff for the amazing concert. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to prepare the school for events like this and we appreciate all of the helping hands in our school. We are pleased to inform you that a total of $160.00 was collected from the “Best Seats of the House” fundraiser which has been given to the Sign of Hope. Thank you to the School Council who prepared the treats for students, and hosted the hospitality tables.

Senior Girls Volleyball

Wow, what an amazing season! The Senior Girl’s Volleyball team began their Division 2 season with 7 scheduled games which lead us to the Quarter-finals. On December 4th, 2017 at St. Edmunds, we were eliminated. It was a very intense and thrilling game. A huge congratulation goes to Captain Robyn A. #5, Captain Marianna K. #4, Marina S. #13, Elena S. # 10, Deana H. #12, Alisha T. #2, #, Zelaya D. #9, Erika F. #6, Keirra R. #3, Selyna S. # 8, Mysty K.-E. # 7, Julianna W. # 11, and Sofia O. #14. St. Brendan coaches are proud of your unwavering sportsmanship and your pursuit to learn and play the game well. Well done and thank you for a great season!

Senior Girls Basketball

Congratulations to the girls who made the senior girls basketball team for the 2018 season. These girls range from grade 7 to 9. We hope for a success-ful and fun season.

Girl’s Roster as follows:

Robyn A., Mikayla L., Sofia O., Kayleigh D., Marina S., Selynna S., Keirra R., Madelyn V., Andrea G., Hailey M., Ruzelle D.R., Anamaria H., Christina T.

Quebec Fundraising

The St. Brendan French Students are fundraising for their Spring trip to Quebec City, Montreal and Ottawa in April 2018 and your gently used clothing and household items can help them get there!

Bring items to Room 226 at St Brendan School. Acceptable donations include clothing, shoes, acces-sories, books, linens, and small household items (no furniture).

Your donation is greatly appreciated.

Mrs. S. Rossi

Celebrations Honouring Our Lady of Guadalupe

On December 8th, our Spanish Bilingual students participated in the annual Spanish Bilingual Mass celebrated at St. Thomas More Parish in honour of the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas. Our students joined over 1000 students representing four Elementary Schools, three Junior High Schools and one High School from Edmonton Catholic Schools. Father Augusto Garcia officiated the mass and we were joined by the choir from Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish who accompanied the celebration with wonderful music.

On December 14th, our grade eight and nine Spanish Bilingual students lead a prayer service and performed the play representing ‘The Apparition’ to the St. Brendan School Community. Thank you to the grade eight class for their many hours of rehearsal, and all of the students that contributed to the painting of the backdrops in preparation for the performance of the play. What a blessing to honour our Holy Mother as a school community.

Sra. Hernandez

Sign of Hope “We Care” Fundraiser

St. Brendan School is delighted to share that we raised a total of $675.30 towards the We Care Cam-paign. All of these funds went towards Sign of Hope and we will continue to raise money for some of these initiatives throughout the year.

With the help of generous sponsors from Sobeys Mill-woods (50th street and 34th Avenue) as well as the Ottwell T.G.P the St. Brendan student leadership group sold hot chocolate and cookies to students at school to raise funds for Sign of Hope. As well, the school sold "Best Seats of the House" tickets for front row seats at our Christmas concert, and the staff of St. Brendan began a monthly soup fellowship with proceeds from soup sales going towards Sign of Hope as well.

Grade Nine Farewell Updated:

Fundraising

· “Drop and Go” bottle drive. We have planned this fundraiser to be a quick drop your bottles at the

depot and go!

Date: Sunday February 11, 2018

Time: 12:00 pm -3:00 pm

Depot: Capilano Bottle Depot

Location: 4957-93 Avenue (Edmonton)

· Please note if you cannot make it or want to get rid of your bottles sooner, please take them to a depot

close to you and turn the money into the office in an envelope marked “Grade Nine Farewell”

· We need all grade nine to students to please fill 2 blue bags with bottles! If all the students can do this,

we will be well on our way to our $5000 fundraising goal!!! We need everyone’s help! Students will be

receiving a blue bag in class with a bottle drive flyer!

· Also please ask the grade nine students to reach out to their network of friends on social media

through; Snap chat, Facebook and Instagram, to help spread the word. The grade nine students could

take a picture standing by one of the bottle drive signs or make funny skits about the bottle drive and

post it! The more funds we can raise the less the grad tickets will cost!

Future Fundraising Opportunities – Please Mark Your Calendars!

· Pizza by the slice fundraising Wed Feb 21 - $3/slice - $5/2 slices

· We are considering doing a “Stawnichy” sausage fundraiser for Easter, more to come on this!

Grad Details

· Friday Jun 15 – St. Basil’s Church and Cultural Centre

· Ticket cost $40-45/ticket based on amount of fundraising (fundraising goal $5000)

· Next Farewell Committee meeting Monday January 15/18 at 6 pm in the Teacher’s Lounge. We hope

you can join us! · If you have any questions, please email us at: “stbrendan2018grad@gmail.com”.

Thanks for your support,

Grade Nine Grad Committee

The Wondrous Gift of Epiphany

During the Christmas season we celebrate with our families and friends with the giving and receiving of various gifts. Perhaps the greatest

gift we receive, as Christians, takes place during Epiphany, when our Lord makes his first public appearance.

Throughout the ages, Christians have celebrated Christmas, including the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany, which falls on Jan-

uary 7. The season begins with the Nativity of our Lord, and ends with the celebration of His baptism, and His manifestation ("Epiphany") as

Messiah of Israel and Son of God. This extraordinary gift calls for us to open our hearts and minds to God through His son, Jesus, who came

to us as man, to live and suffer in the same way His lay people would.

Another one of the extraordinary gifts we receive is our ability to praise and worship the Father through the Holy Spirit, as a result of the

Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. Knowing Jesus is the Body of Christ, we, through our Baptism, enter the Body of Christ as members of

our faith community. Through this union, we are able to share in the cleansing of sins, and essentially, our re-birth.

The gifts of the eastern Magi, allow us to remember that they offered what little they had (Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh), and in return,

Christ gave them Himself. This ‘exchange’ of gifts takes place for us whenever we celebrate the Eucharist, by the glorious power of the Holy

Spirit!

Throughout the holy Christmas season, God fills us with joy and hope! By celebrating Epiphany and these wondrous gifts bestowed upon us

by the Christ-child, may we, in-turn, use them to take a step closer to the Kingdom of God, in unity with His one, holy, Catholic and apostolic

Church.

Susanna Kaup and Kathleen Nguyen

Religious Education Consultants

Putting the Word of God into Practice – A Reflection

In Archbishop Richard Smith’s Pastoral Letter: Living in the Word of God: A Call to the Clergy and the Lay Faithful

of the Archdiocese of Edmonton, His Grace asks us to consider what it means to follow Jesus. Here, the question

can be answered rather simply. It is a matter of listening and doing; an authentic disciple of Jesus Christ is one

who first listens to his Word and then puts it into practice. Throughout the history of the Church, the Christian re-

sponse to God’s love revealed in Christ has been threefold: worship, witness and service.

Worship

“In all of Scripture, the words of Jesus likely most familiar to Catholics ears are these: “Do this in memory of me.”

Spoken by the Lord at the Last Supper, these words have always been understood by the Church as his command

to repeat in his memory what he did with his disciples the night prior to his crucifixion. This is why we gather for

Sunday mass, the sacrament of the Eucharist, and why the Church insists that doing so is a sacred obligation. At

mass, enabled by the Holy Spirit we offer our lives to God the Father, through Jesus his Son, as an act of joyful

praise and heartfelt thanksgiving for God’s saving love” (Archbishop Richard Smith).

From our awareness of this wondrous gift that is the Eucharist, and of the Lord’s command that is celebrated in

his memory: Do we consciously make the Eucharist the heart of our lives?

Witness

“Saint John writes these beautiful words at the beginning of his first letter: ‘We declare to you what was from the

beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our

hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you

the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us — we declare to you what we have seen and heard

so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus

Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete’ (1 John 1:1-4). Here St. John is expressing

what we know from experience to be true. When we have encountered Jesus Christ and been transformed by his

mercy and love, we naturally want to tell others about it and invite them to be one with us in a community of joy”

(Archbishop Richard Smith).

We give witness by making known to others what God has done for the world in Jesus Christ, and for each of us in

our own individual lives. The most effective way we can put the Word of God into practice is by the way we live our

lives: What message do we communicate to others by our way of living, patterns of thought and speech, and

modes of behavior?

Service

“On the night of the Last Supper, after Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, he taught that by this action he was

giving us an example to follow, and then spoke this command: ‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one

another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my

disciples, if you have love for one another’ (John 13:34-35). Putting the Word of God into practice means serving

our brothers and sisters in love. To love as Jesus loved means that we make sacrifices daily for the good of the

other” (Archbishop Richard Smith).

We serve others by using God’s gifts according to his purpose and in keeping with our identity as disciples of Je-

sus Christ. We consider: What use do I make of time? Do I set aside time for prayer, for Sunday mass, for the enjoyment of

family? Am I able to dedicate some time to volunteer in the parish, our schools, hospitals or charitable organizations? The call

to give of ourselves relates not just to the direct support of our parishes and Catholic organizations, it pertains also to the

embrace of our baptismal call to be missionary disciples. Each of us is sent into the world in service so that it be transformed

with the power of the Gospel of our Lord.

~Sandra Talarico, Religious Education Consultant

January 2018

To celebrate Mary as Mother of God and our mother at the beginning of the new year means recalling a certainty that will ac-

company our days: we are a people with a Mother; we are not orphans.

(Pope Francis, Homily, January 1, 2017)

Each year, January 1 marks the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God. As Pope Francis shared, turning our gazes to Mary

as the new year begins fills our vision of the horizon in front of us with a model of perfect love. We see the example of faithful

love for God when we think of her “yes” in response to His call. We see the example of parental love in the mother who tender-

ly nurtured her Son, walking alongside Him through His life and to His death. We see the example of selfless, humble love in

her willingness to be the instrument of bearing Salvation into the world. As we contemplate our plans and aspirations for the

new year, let us take inspiration from Mary!

We are always so excited to spread the great news of the amazing things that take place daily in our schools. We want every-

one to know that Catholic education offers rich and vibrant opportunities for students to learn and grow in a Christ centred

environment. We have launched a new hashtag, #ECSDfaithinspires, which beautifully portrays how our Catholic faith guides

every aspect of our schools as we live out our District vision to learn together, work together and pray together in answering

the call to a faith-filled life of service. We encourage all our staff, students, and ECSD families to use this new hashtag and

help us share the good news of how faith inspires our daily lives at Edmonton Catholic Schools!

We are so pleased with the participation in our Hour of Code Week last month. This week, which saw 25,804 of our students

engage in a variety of coding based activities, brought so much excitement and creativity into our classrooms. Special thanks

to our EmTech team for their drive and passion in ensuring that our students have the skills that they need to navigate our

digital world.

The month of January brings the end of the semester for our high schools. One of the enhanced services that we are pleased

to offer our students who will be writing Diploma Examinations is Diploma Prep courses. These courses provide an excellent

structure for students to review the content of their exam courses so that they can approach them with greater confidence.

Visit www.ecsd.net and click on the Diploma Prep banner for more information.

The new year brings much new information and opportunity for our students and families. This is always reflected on our Dis-

trict website. Watch for our new Guide to Schools as well as information on registration for 2018-2019, Open Houses, and our

upcoming session on Breaking the Cycle of Anxiety from our Mental Health Caregiver series. The newest information is always

highlighted in the rotating banner at www.ecsd.net for your convenience.

The Government of Alberta is seeking the input of Albertans as they begin to shape their upcoming provincial budget. You can

complete a brief online survey at https://www.alberta.ca/budget-consultations.aspx. This is an excellent opportunity for your

voice to be heard!

The week of January 18-25 is the Week of Prayer For Christian Unity. I will leave you with a thought from Pope Francis:

“…unity is achieved by journeying, to recall that when we journey together, that is, when we encounter each other… when we

pray together and collaborate together in proclaiming the Gospel and in the service of others, we are already united.” (Papal

Audience, 10/11/2016)

Many blessings as you begin the journey of a new year!

Sincerely,

Joan Carr

Superintendent

1 2 3 4 5

Ukrainian

Christmas Eve

7 8 D3

School resumes

CTBS for gr. 6’s

9 D4 10 D5

SAC Meeting - 6:30 p.m.

11

Feeder Schools Volleyball

Tournament - p.m.

12 D6

13

14

Ukrainian

New Year

15 D1

Feeder Schools Visit -

St. Matthew, Father Leo Green

16 D2

Feeder Schools Visit -

St. Martin, Grandin - a.m.

17 D3

18

Щедрий вечір!

19 D4

Christmas Celebration/

Blessing of the Water - a.m.

Водохреща

Йордан

20

21 22 D5

Feeder Schools

Visit -

St. Gabriel, St. Brendan -

a.m.

23 D6

24 D1

25

St. Joe’s

Presentation for gr. 9 - a.m.

Winter Band

Concert - 7:00

26 D2

Winter Dance - a.m.

Junior High Reports Cards Go Live - 3:00

27

28 29 D3 30 D4

31 D5

Science

Fair - gr. 7-9’s

JANUARY 2018

Tuesday, February 6th.

Faith Development Day

No School All Students