27th October 2022
Principal News
Welcome to Week 4! What an amazing fortnight we’ve had. A huge congratulations to Vanessa Alexander, Michelle Ebsworth and the fete team on a very successful fete night! It was humbling to look out from the stage to see our community coming together for an evening of family fun and entertainment. I would also like to acknowledge the generosity of our staff, families and wider community, who donated items and/or volunteered their time leading up to, during and after the event. We are blessed to be so supported at St Mary’s School and we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.
School Fees – Fee Relief and 2022 accounts
At the end of Term 3, we were granted Choice and Affordability funding from the Australian Government through Toowoomba Catholic Schools Office. These funds have been used to offer every enrolled family a $200 fee relief for each child at our school. This relief credit can be seen on your Term 4 fee statement.
Gary Bruggeman and I are drafting our 2023 budget on Thursday this week. Part of this process is projecting our income generated through school fees. This income is relied upon to not only ensure we can pay our bills, but to fund much needed resources to accompany student learning and to keep abreast of ongoing maintenance throughout the school. If you have outstanding fees, or have not paid any money recently, I request that you attend to this at your earliest convenience.
Upcoming dates and events
Friday 28th October | World Teachers’ Day |
Friday 28th October | St Mary’s Got Talent in PAH |
Monday 24th October | Book Fair in PAH |
Monday 14th November | Awards Evening in Cobb & Co Hall |
Tuesday 22nd November | Year 6 Liturgy and Graduation Dinner |
Friday 25th November | Twilight Swimming Carnival from 4pm |
Thursday 1st December | End of Year Liturgy, Move-up-a-class session and Mega Draw |
Student Free Day and Modified School Days for Term 4
We have three days that are impacted for students this term. Please take note of these days and mark them on your calendar. Please note that OSHC will not be operating on these days.
- Tuesday 1st November is a half day holiday for the Melbourne Cup Shire/Bank Holiday. St Mary’s School will close at midday.
- Friday 25th November is a split school day for the twilight swimming carnival. St Mary’s School will close at midday and recommence from 3:30pm for a 4:00pm start at the local pool.
- Friday 2nd December is a pupil free day (travel day).
World Teachers’ Day – Friday 28th October
World Teachers’ Day provides us with an opportunity to thank our teachers for the significant contribution they have had in the life of our students this year. I take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge the passion and dedication given each day at St Mary’s School and thank all our teachers for the work they do each and every day.
Book Fair is here!
Book Fair is located in the Performing Arts Hall and will open every morning from 8:00am-8:30am and each afternoon from 2:45pm – 3:15pm. Book Fair is co-ordinated by our teacher librarian, Michelle Sheehan. Pop into the Performing Arts Hall this week to purchase a book or novelty item from the Fair.
Have a fabulous fortnight.
Cheers,
Katrina
Reminder
If you or your child's contact details have changed recently- please don't forget to contact the school to update the details.
School Fees
When paying your school fees - Please quote your personal CHA(number) as your reference.
Bank Details
Account Name - St Mary's Primary School Charleville
BSB - 064 786
Account No - 100025079
APRE News
Fr Warren Farewell Mass
A reminder we will farewell Fr Warren at Parish Mass on Saturday, November 5th at 6pm. We would love to see as many St Mary’s families there as possible! Please consider attending this mass to say thank you and farewell to Father Warren. He has asked that everyone bring a plate for a shared supper afterwards, on the lawn behind the church. Students from Years 4 – 6 will help Father Warren lead the mass.
Prayer Assemblies
Well done to Yr 1 (with the help of their 5/6 buddies) in leading prayer assembly Friday, October 14. They did a fantastic job explaining how important Mary is in our Catholic Tradition. We look forward to Yr 2’s prayer assembly on November 11th. Please see photos below of Yr 1 and 5/6’s prayer assembly.
Melbourne Cup Sweep tickets
A big thank you to all families who have helped to sell Melbourne Cup sweep tickets for our Parish. This is St Mary’s Parish one big fundraiser for the year. Please see the office if you have sold your booklet and would like to sell more.
Year Five Servant Leadership Retreat
I will lead our Year 5 students in a leadership retreat on Monday, October 31, at Graham Andrews Park (weather permitting), commencing at 9am. Students will be bused to and from the park in the school bus. We will finish the retreat with a short liturgy led by Fr Warren, Mrs Dunne and myself around 12:30pm and then have a BBQ lunch (sausage on bread and drink) before heading back to school. Parents are most welcome to attend the liturgy and BBQ.
During the retreat we will talk about the concept of ‘Servant Leadership’ – that as Yr 6’s next year and leaders of the school it is our job to serve others, as Jesus did. It’s very exciting to be able to offer our students this opportunity to take some ‘time out’ and reflect on their faith journey at St Mary’s.
As this term speeds by, wishing you peace.
God bless,
Kirsty Lines
APRE
Curriculum News
Thank you to everyone in our community who shared with us their family experiences when reading and counting. It is always so lovely to hear from other families explaining how they do things differently.
In the next couple of weeks, students will be completing their assessments and teachers will be making judgements on learning for the end of year report cards. Student attendance is key to ensuring maximum learning time. As I am sure you are aware, this is a busy time for everyone working in schools and if you need to have a conversation with your child’s classroom teacher or another member of staff, please make an appointment in advance. This will ensure you will have the full attention of the person you wish to speak with.
For my next newsletter item, I would like to share with you some information about student learning and nutrition. If you would like a head start, go over to The Root Cause (https://therootcause.com.au/) and check out some interesting facts.
Until next time, have a wonderful fortnight.
Vanessa Alexander
Middle Leader Curriculum
Library News
The year two students have been very busy calibrating and coding Ozobots.
The Prep students have been learning to program Bee Bots and testing algorithms.
Watch out for reptile books in your library bag.
Many thanks to parents and students each week for ensuring we meet our expectation.
Michelle & Alice
HPE News
Hello St Mary’s Families,
It has been a busy start to the term. My highlight in HPE has been getting to know our wonderful St Mary’s students. They have all been so welcoming and positive. Much to the students delight we are in the pool for term 4 swimming. I hope that over the next few weeks we can work on water safety and confidence and encourage as many students as possible to swim/participate in our upcoming twilight swimming carnival.
Over the past few weeks, we have been extending our learning in health.
Prep have been exploring emotions and have created some fabulous artwork to display in the classroom.
Year 1 and Year 2 were able to role play various classroom and playground scenarios to learn more about emotional responses to difficult situations.
Year 3 and 4/5 have been researching healthy messages and learning the skill of assessing the accuracy of these messages.
Year 5/6 had a special guest presenter last week. Emma Wex, local RFDS nurse, joined the class to educate students about the physical, social, emotional, and intellectual changes that students encounter as they move into adolescence. I was so impressed by the respect that students demonstrated to Emma and commend them for being such amazing students.
Please note that nomination forms for our upcoming twilight swimming carnival will be sent home at the end of
week 6. I would like to request that parents fill out the nomination form and return by the end of week 7.
Have a great week!
Mrs T
Learning Support News
The Arts News
This term we are jumping into dance! Over the past few weeks, we have watched a myriad of dancing from around the world and are exploring why we dance and what we can communicate through dance.
Prep – Year 2
We have been sorting and categorizing our dance moves between locomotor movements (dance moves that travel) and non-locomotor movements (dance moves that are done on the spot).
We have begun exploring our movements to identify meaning and looking at how we can tell a story with dance. Over the next two weeks we will be breaking into groups to create a dance that represents the various seasons.
Year 3
In year 3 we have been traveling around the world to see how different cultures and times use dance to celebrate! We have been breaking down movement, props, costumes, and positions to see how different cultures communicate through dance.
This week we will be on an alien planet, where our students create their own celebratory dance to welcome us to their planet!
Year 4 – Year 6
In year 4/5 and 5/6 we have been exploring symmetry. The students were completely blown away when they watched The China Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe, perform the ‘Thousand Hand Bodhisattva dance' where sixty-three dancers performed in perfect symmetrical shapes, with precise timing and elaborate dynamics.
Next our students will be looking to create their own dances getting creative with symmetry.
I am very excited to see what our creative students get up to!
Prep News
What another packed two weeks we have had.
We kicked off our PE lesson with swimming which is very exciting. All students were raving on how much fun it was.
In science we looked at observing our buddies move through the playgrounds and looked at how toys move. Students have loved investigating and learning about different positions of movement.
We had some little visitors last week - baby chickens. Students were obsessed with the chickens and loved holding them.
On Friday we had our school fete, and this was a huge success. I was very impressed with our students performing in front of the community.
We have yet another jam-packed two weeks ahead and I am excited to see where our learning journey takes us.
Kindest regards,
Imogen Hunt
Year 1 News
Wow what a week!
Over the last fortnight Year One students engaged in several different extra curricula activities. Students had their first swimming lesson for the term with Mrs T and Miss Short. Well done to each Year One student for having a go and getting in the pool!
Kurt Capewell came to visit St Mary’s on Wednesday. He visited Year One and spoke about the importance of following expectations in team sports, school and in everyday situations. We will be continuing to focus on this in class over the next few weeks.
Thank you to our Mystery Readers – Jacquie Hudson, Naomi Rodgers, Kirsty Lines and Amanda Barton. Students absolutely loved listening to you all read! We can not wait to see who will be visiting the classroom next.
Well done to all Year One students who showed resilience on Friday when accommodating for the Fete changes.
Year 2 News
These last two weeks, year 2 has had a focus on chance and probability in math and will now cover measurement – length and capacity. We have been exploring push and pull in science through using a variety of toys and tools to help with this. The class had a fantastic day with Kurt Capewell coming to our school to visit and having a chat with us in class. A huge thank you to everyone who helped with the St Mary’s fete and all the students who performed so wonderfully – such a great way to showcase our brilliant school!
Year 3 News
Year 4/5 News
Year 5/6 News
What an exciting fortnight we have had in Year 5/6.
We were so lucky to have Malakai’s Dad in to teach us about electricity! We had a great time playing around with circuits – see photos below.
Thanks Kurt, for popping in and saying hello to the kids, look how excited they were.
We have been so engaged in our learning – enjoy photos of students learning about the 12 key moments within a Mass and members of Parliament.
Student leadership sessions have begun. I am looking forward to hearing our Year 5’s present their speeches later in the term!
ST MARY’S FETE! What an amazing night that was – thank you to our community for getting involved and coming to celebrate this wonderful school and town.
Don’t forget, Book Fair is on this week. Year 5 and 6 did a wonderful job at helping the Preps make their wishlists.
Have a fabulous fortnight all.
Miss Morrison and the Year 5/6 Crew.
Tuckshop News
Parents & Friends Association
St Mary’s Fete – Revived!
Well, that’s a wrap team! It was wonderful to see so many families enjoying themselves at the St Mary’s Fete last Friday. There was a warm buzz in the air, and everyone seemed to be happy and excited to be outside.
There were a few hairy moments in the lead up to the event, not knowing if we would have it on the oval or Watson Street. Luckily the warm sun and soft breeze dried out the puddles from the 40mm of rain received on the Tuesday and Wednesday prior.
While we are still awaiting a final figure, we can confidently say that sales from the Fete made over $15,000 for the night. We are beyond excited about this result! We have decided to ensure some of the funds are kept as part of the entertainment budget for our next event and have asked our school community to send in ideas of what our school and students need to create the best learning environment we can. If you have any ideas, we would love for you to share these with us. Send an email to chapandf@twb.catholic.edu.au. We will make decisions at the final P&F meeting for the year which will be on Monday 21st November at 3:00pm.
Finally, we have tentatively set the date for our next Fete which will be on the Friday of week 3, term 4 in 2024 (18.10.2024). The decision to host our Fete every two years will give our hardworking volunteers maximum recovery and planning time. Thank you to everyone involved in making the event such a success for our community.
Please see race and raffle results below.
- Sophie Tickell Chook Race – 1st: Home Service Centre.
- Elders Chook Poo Lotto – 1st: Tiffany Blacker, 2nd: Jill Usher, 3rd: John Sommerfield
- Wheelbarrow of Alcohol: 1st: Kirsty Lines, 2nd: Angela Orupe, 3rd: Deanne O’Neil, 4th: Narelle Patterson
- Wheelbarrow of Groceries: 1st: Nathan Bailey, 2nd: Nathan Bailey, 3rd: Kerry Brown, 4th: Nicarla Nake
- Speediest Snag Race: 1st: “Bethany”, 2nd: “Teddy”, 3rd: “Charlie”
- Speediest Snag Sweep: 1st: Jen Frazer
- Ham Wheel Winners: Ellie Taylor, Glenda Fill, Kerry Brown, Ross Taylor, Chris Pezet, and Ray Matthews
Until next time…
Vanessa Alexander
Fete Convenor
October Birthdays
Anika Hayes, John Bryant, Laura Dare, Addison Itzstein, Alyssa Heinemann, Mackenzie Finall, Mrs Sue Williams
Happy birthday to all students and staff who celebrate their birthday in October