4th August 2022
Principal News
Catholic Education Week
Last week we celebrated Catholic Education Week. This annual event is held to promote the special ethos of Catholic schools and to highlight the great things that take place in Catholic schools every day. The week commenced with staff from all three western schools attending Bishop’s Inservice Day at St Mary’s School. Brother Damien Price presented to our staff and they reflected on their strategies for successfully developing and supporting critical, independent and rational thinkers in our classrooms.
Uniform and Behaviour Expectations – keeping the bar high!
We continue to raise the bar with our uniform and behaviour expectations this term. Thank you to the parents and carers for your support in ensuring students are wearing the correct uniform each day. Teachers continue to implement the Essential Skills for Classroom Management throughout all aspects of their classroom and the playground. If you would like to know more about the implementation of Essential Skills for Classroom Management, please ask your child and/or a staff member of the school.
Prep Enrolments 2023
Does your child turn 5 by 30th June 2023? Enrolment interviews for Prep 2023 will take place in Week 9 of this term. Please contact Deidre or Loretta in the school office to arrange an appointment for an enrolment interview. Our Mini-Mary’s pre-prep program will be held in Weeks 2, 3 and 4 of Term 4.
Tuckshop will return very soon!
We have secured a tuckshop convenor for our school, however we cannot re-open the tuckshop until we can confirm if we have volunteers to support each week. We require a volunteer in the tuckshop every Friday from 8:30am – 10:30am. If you can give two hours of your time, we would love to have you helping prepare the food for our students. Please note: no children are permitted in the tuckshop at any time. Please reply to your class teacher via dojo/email or phone the school office with the date that you can support our school tuckshop. Thank you in advance for your support.
Tuckshop Dates – Please let us know if you can assist with helping in the tuckshop on any of these days | ||
Friday 26th August | Friday 9th September | Friday 16th September |
Friday 7th October | Friday 14th October | Friday 21st October |
Friday 28th October | Friday 4th November | Friday 11th November |
Friday 18th November | Friday 25th November |
Date Claimers:
- Confirmation Mass – Saturday 13th August at 6:00pm
- Performing Arts Festival – 24th–28th August
- P and F Meeting – Thursday 4th August 3:30pm
- Week 9 – 2023 Prep enrolment interviews
- Student Free Day – Friday 2nd September for Consistency of Teacher Judgement Day
- Week 9 – Parent-Teacher Interviews
- Grandparents Liturgy and morning tea – Friday 9th September
Have a fabulous fortnight.
Cheers,
Katrina
APRE News
Sacramental Program
Please pray for our Sacramental candidates as they work towards receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation on Saturday, August 13 at 6pm Mass. Please consider supporting our candidates by attending Mass.
Class Parish Mass
We are excited to announce our students in Years 4 -6 will participate in a Parish Mass this coming Saturday, 6th August. This will be instead of performing a Prayer Assembly / Liturgy of the Word this term. We’d love to see as many St Mary’s families at Mass at 6pm to support our students as they read, sing and generally celebrate the Eucharist together. What a fantastic leadership opportunity for our older students! Thank you, Fr Warren, for encouraging and welcoming our students to participate in Parish life.
Catholic Education Week
We were so excited to celebrate Catholic Education Week last week. Unfortunately a whole school mass was not possible, however classes were able to celebrate with class liturgies. Please see pictures below.
Wishing you all a blessed fortnight,
Kirsty Lines
APRE
Curriculum News
Hi Families,
Welcome to Week 4! Over the last fortnight I have had the opportunity to learn a few new things, that in time, I look forward to sharing with our teachers.
Firstly, earlier this year, the Australian Government released the new version of the Australian Curriculum. It is a more connected curriculum and will hopefully support all stakeholders in delivering it and learning it. Our school, along with many others, are currently in conversations with how we will roll the new curriculum out. Once we have decided and this has been approved, we will endeavour to share this with you.
Secondly, our planning tool, the DLP, has had some new additions that will support teachers to develop a deeper understanding of the new Australian Curriculum. This is called Hexagonal Planning and has been developed in a digital space for us to utilise. We will be supported to use this in the coming months and years as the new curriculum is rolled out.
Finally, I have had the opportunity to read and reflect on a book released earlier this year: Stolen Focus: Why you can’t pay attention by Johan Hari. It has proved to be an interesting read and provided me with multiple opportunities to reflect on the way we go about out daily lives and the external forces that influence the choices we make. If you get a chance to read or listen, please do.
Before signing off for the fortnight, did anyone read the 3 tips for supporting reading at home from last fortnight? I would love to hear your experience with this. If you have a story to share with us, we would love to know about it. Email: vanessa.alexander@twb.catholic.edu.au
Until next fortnight,
Vanessa Alexander
Learning Support
Library News
This term we will be celebrating Book Week (20th – 26th August) - YEAH!
We have been exploring the theme, “Dreaming with Eyes Open” in our library lessons, with students in every class initially uncovering the theme by completing an online jigsaw puzzle. As well all students completed a Kahoot, an online quiz, all about Book Week. One of the questions in the older years Kahoot was how many years have we been celebrating Book Week? The answer is 77 and discussions about what happened around 77 years ago ensued. Obviously during the war period the development of children’s literature was not a priority, so at the end of the war it was determined that there was a need to encourage publication of children’s literature, and what better way… than a competition. There has been a Book Week competition and theme ever since – just wanted to share a little history.
Book Week is fast approaching, and parents are encouraged to join our celebrations.
Book Character Parade – Tuesday 23rd in the Cobb & Co Hall
On this day students, teachers, and parents as well, come along dressed as a book character with their book.
“Dreaming in the Library with Eyes Open” – Thursday 25th 5:30 -7pm.
During this time parents and students are welcome to come along to the library for some fun with books.
We are so excited to have a bumper supply (thanks to Brad Frousheger) of wood off cuts for carpentry at lunch time.
Tom and Kingsley were super busy in the library last week making their Coolock wooden banners.
Renovating or building … supplies of off cuts most welcome.
Michelle & Alice
HPE News
Wow, what a jam packed few weeks students have had. Thank you to everyone who came to cheer on and support our students at our annual athletics day. Congratulations to Xavier on the win and commiserations to Coolock. All students displayed great sportsmanship at the carnival and exerted huge effort in all events. The vibe from the Coolock Captains speech is that the swimming carnival is going to bring some tough rivalry!
Please enjoy some photos below of what now is the infamous ‘Tug of War’.
Please remember if you have any concerns about your child in PE or Health, please feel free to contact me via Class Dojo or Email susan.mcinnes@twb.catholic.edu.au
Yours in HPE,
Ms Mac.
The Arts
Prep News
Year 1 News
Year 2 News
What a busy fortnight we have had! A huge thank you to Ms Mac for our fabulous sports carnival last Friday. Everyone involved had a great day.
We have been focusing on 3D shapes in math and the students have enjoyed creating extravagant buildings out of shape blocks. This week we will be moving onto data collection and representation using graphs.
In English we are learning all about persuasion and how to best care for our environment. We are very busy practising our poem for the Performing Arts Festival!
Year 3 News
Year 4/5 News
Year 5/6 News
What a crazy fortnight it has been at St Mary’s!
Ms Dunne, the Year 6 cohort and I had the best time away at camp. It was so wonderful to see how much our students have grown in their confidence, abilities, teamwork, and kindness toward others. It was an absolute blast.
Last week we enjoyed an in-class Liturgy for Catholic Education Week. Although it was different to our normal Church gatherings, we appreciated getting to reflect, sing, hold discussions and share our thoughts together as a class.
Who could forget about Athletics Day?! What a fabulous day getting to take part in sporting events to gain points for our houses. It was incredible seeing the amount of participation from students this year! Well done St Mary's students! 😊
This week we look forward to continuing our learning on News Reports in the Media, human rights, our Solar System, Jesus’ Message and our focus Mercy Value for the term, Justice. We are eager to welcome Michael Jeh to Charleville this week to talk to us about ‘Life Skills’. On Wednesday, we are excited to take part in ‘Step into Stories’ with Mark Wilson!
Students from Years 4-6 will be leading our Parish Mass this Saturday (6pm) at Church. We would love to see some friendly faces from the town join us. 😊
Start preparing your costumes for Book Week as it is quickly approaching!
Have a wonderful week everyone.
Warm regards,
Miss Morrison and the Year 5/6 Crew.
August Birthdays
James Dare, Caitlyn Schumacher, Kaylee Pamenter, James Brayley, Grace Sullivan, Sllim Owen, Benjamin Newby, William Hay, Millie Williams, Ben Williams, Luca O'Toole, Gabriel O'Toole, Mrs Ann Russell, Miss Molly Brooker
Happy birthday to all students and staff who celebrate their birthday in August.