1st February 2023

Principal

Welcome to 2023 to all our new and returning St Mary’s families. It was wonderful to see our students come flooding back through the gates to start the new school year in our newly renovated classrooms.

A shout out to our amazing tradesmen who have worked tirelessly over the holiday break to have the renovation completed in time for the first day of school.

This year, we will host the Principals’ Forum for all Toowoomba Catholic Schools Principals in Term 2 and we also undergo a Quadrennial School Review in October this year!

Staffing

This year, we welcome Mrs Bernie McPhee, Miss Katherine Spalding and Ms Amy Halliday to the classroom teaching team. Mrs Angela Stirton is teaching Physical Education in Term 1.

Our music teachers have planned their timetables and have visited students this week to finalise enrolments, instruments and lesson times. They look forward to formal music lessons starting next week.  

We welcome Miss Kalee Kidd to the Prep room as an additional School Officer each morning.  

Parent Portal

Thank you everyone who has signed up to our Parent Portal application. Please reach out if you require any support with signing up or accessing this application. Teachers and Administration Staff will be using Parent Portal on a daily basis for communication between school and home including: entering student absences, teacher-parent classroom specific communication, fortnightly newsletter, extra-curricular notes and information, just to name a few.

Outside School Hours Care

We continue to support the Outside School Hours Care being provided to our community at the Performing Arts Hall each afternoon. If you require after school care for your child, please call Betty Couch on 0419 699 201 or follow the link below to access the enrolment forms: www.tckc.qld.edu.au

Dates to highlight on your calendar:

NOTE: please see the calendar on the Parent Portal app for up-to-date events throughout the term.

Have a great two weeks,

Katrina Dunne

APRE News

Welcome to 2023 – 110 Years of Learning through loving and living at St Mary’s!

What a wonderful start to 2023 – seeing our students so excited to be back at St Mary’s and delighted by their newly renovated classrooms!  We are already looking forward to an action packed, exciting year celebrating 110 years of St Mary’s.  If you or a family member are a former student of the school, please spread the word we are celebrating this milestone and will have further information in coming weeks around celebrations specifically in Terms 3 and 4.

Sacramental Program

Information about the Parish Sacramental Program will be provided in the coming weeks.  Students in Yr 4 - 6, who are baptised Catholic, can participate in the program, which is mainly parent led, with assistance from myself and the Parish.  Please contact me via email, Kirsty.lines@twb.catholic.edu.au or phone 46541638 during office hours if you have any questions around the program.

Opening Mass

Our opening mass for St Mary’s and Yr 6 investiture is scheduled for Friday, February 17^th at 9am in the church.  We look forward to being able to participate in Mass as a whole school – COVID has disrupted our masses in recent years and it will be wonderful to be able to celebrate the Eucharist in its fullness as a school community.  We’d love to see all parents, grandparents, family friends at the mass – everyone is welcome!

Former St Mary’s student meets Pope Francis

One of our former students, Isabella Pfingst, was able to celebrate Mass and meet the Holy Father, Pope Francis, whilst studying in Rome last week.  Isabella is a former Xavier House Captain and recipient of the Nancy Lines Outstanding Achievement Award.  There is no limit to what our students can achieve!!  Please see photos below.

Curriculum News

Welcome families to the beginning of 2023. There has been a lot of change at St Mary’s over the past two months. It is a credit to you and your children how well you have navigated these changes.

Over the holidays I read Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart. Through her research she has identified 87 human emotions. To my surprise, tired wasn’t one of them. Laughs aside, the section I enjoyed reading the most described feeling happy and joyful for other’s successes and realising that our lights need to shine together. We don’t need to dampen other’s lights for ours to shine brightly. I have attached a little video from 123NOURISHME that talks about how, through our actions sometimes, we can put out the lights of others and how we can help other’s shine bright. Let’s be light sharers at St Mary’s.

I hope you enjoy. Please reach out if you have a comment to share. Vanessa.Alexander@twb.catholic.edu.au

Vanessa Alexander

Middle Leader: Curriculum

Library News

A big welcome to the 2023 school year and to St Mary’s School Library. The library is a vibrant learning space utilised not only for teaching and learning but also as a place to relax and have fun.

We are all happy to be back in the library and we welcome our new students.

We also love creating with wood at lunchtime, so any pine/soft wood off cuts are always appreciated.

The library is staffed by me, Michelle Sheehan a Teacher Librarian two days per week (Tuesday and Wednesday), and our Library Assistant Mrs Alice Short (Monday to Thursday.) Parents are most welcome to pop into the library (located on the second floor) any time to view the learning space, to borrow some extra books or if you simply have a query.

Additional renovations happened in the library over the holidays, and we also have some new furniture arriving soon. YEAH!

It was great to have all classes visiting and borrowing last week. Just a friendly reminder that all students require a library bag for borrowing.

We are also implementing a new routine for students upon arrival. The expectation is that all students are required to return their library books on their borrowing day to the library before play. Always great to have those parents involved in school drop off in the loop, so that we can all work together to make this expectation a routine.

Book Club Orders Due Thursday 9^th February

Michelle and Alice

HPE News

Learning Support News

Welcome to 2023 in Learning Support! I am so excited to continue working with the amazing students and staff at St Mary’s to provide an inclusive and equitable learning journey for all students to thrive and be happy at school.

I am looking forward to seeing a new approach in place – aspects from the Berry Street Education Model which focuses on a whole school approach to positive education strategies. The key focus for this is consistent and familiar routines for students. I look forward to participating in class Welcome Circles during my next campus visit and reflecting with teachers on these processes.

During Weeks 2 and 3, I will be working with teachers individually to plan for personalised learning for their students – this will help teachers to understand each student’s strengths and needs and how we can make adjustments to various class elements. This will provide a learning environment where all students are included, valued and supported to achieve success.   

This term I will be on campus during weeks 3 and 8. Parents are always welcome to meet with me when I am on campus or if you would like to contact me at any time my email address is: belinda.phillips@twb.catholic.edu.au.

This year I will be continuing with the Auslan signs each newsletter. This week I have chosen to present the Auslan alphabet. The alphabet is used when spelling out words such as names or specific places. See if you can memorise how to do your name in Auslan. I would love to see people sign their name to me during my week 3 visit!

Have a great term!

Belinda Phillips

The Arts News

This year will look a bit different in the Arts space, we will be splitting up the year into:

• Semester One = Creative Arts [Media Arts & Visual Arts]
• Semester Two = Performing Arts [Drama & Dance]

‘But what about music’ I hear you ask? This year we will be learning music ALL YEAR LONG!

This semester our Creative Arts Units are as follows:

• Prep: Learning through play.
• Year 1 – 2: In my Hearts.
• Year 3 – 4: We play, we create, we learn.
• Year 5 – 6: Learning through loving and living.

All of our units are inspired by our motto of ‘learning through loving and living’ to showcase our school pride and unpack what it means to be an active learner here at St Mary’s. This is also because at the end of Semester One I will be taking a lucky group of students to Toowoomba for the TCS Believe in the Arts Festival. Part of this festival will include an art gallery where each school in the diocese will contribute a display of works from their school, that represents what each school values.

Arts lessons start this week, in our new Arts room, what do you think?

Choir starts this week!

All students are welcome. I will pick them up from the lunch area at second break every Thursday. Students can bring their lunch and water while they sing their hearts out.

Last year we got to go on a special excursion to Waroona to sing Christmas Carols. We hope to head to Waroona again this term. So we will dive straight into our new songs!

Prep News

Welcome to Prep 2023

What a fun packed first week of prep we have had. We started our day on Tuesday with our morning circle, which will happen throughout the year. This circle allows us to say our prayer, expectations, values , greet one another and say any announcements we have as a class together.

We have been enjoying having our fruit snack outside and listening to a story. Once we have finished fruit snack we are straight to the playground where we have lots of fun playing in the sandpit, on the monkey bars and on the swings. A highlight for students was the crocodile chase game, even some of our teachers joined in for the fun.

To finish off our week, we enjoyed interacting with a range of our friends in prep during indoor games. Once we packed away we headed outside to enjoy some delicious watermelon which our year one teacher grew in her garden. This was some pretty yummy watermelon.

I can’t wait to see what the next two weeks has in store for us in prep.

Thanks

Imogen Hunt

Year 1 News

We are having a ball in Year 1.

It has been a great first two weeks back; students have been participating in a range of getting to know each other and learning experiences. Students are learning about our STAR Expectations and Mercy Values. We have been discussing how these can be shown in the classroom and playground.

This term in maths, students will be learning how to count forward and backwards from 100, counting by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s, and identifying 2D and 3D shapes. For English, students will be understanding how to respond to literature and give their own opinions about the text. In science, students will be investigating why animals have certain external features.

Please remind your child that on Tuesdays we have PE and Library. Students will need their library bag and books and return them to the library first thing Tuesday morning.

Year 2 News

We have had such a wonderful first week in year 2!

This term we are focusing on information reports in English and students will develop a report to explain the life cycle of an animal or insect – linking to our Science unit.

In HASS we are focusing on geography on a local scale.

In Religion we will investigate compassion and over the next fortnight we will be exploring number sequences and numbers to 1000 in Maths.

I am so excited for this year ahead. If you need to contact me please feel free to message Via Parent Portal or to email me on holly.price@twb.catholic.edu.au. I look forward to working alongside you to provide the best outcomes for your child!

Year 3 News

It has been a busy start for our year three class. 

I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the wonderful students of the year three cohort. We have been very lucky to welcome some new faces to our class as we are all settling into the new routines of the year. 

Our learning this term will include persuasive writing in our English Unit and continuing our fluency of equations and number quantity in Mathematics.  In Science we are investigating habitats and needs of 'living  things', while in Hass we will explore historical features of our local and global communities and their different celebrations and commemorations. 

All this learning should help support our preparation for NAPLAN testing in Week 8. 

On a personal note, I just wanted to thank everyone I have met so far in the St Mary's community for their warm welcome. Very grateful to be part of this school community. 

Looking forward to the exciting year ahead. 

Year 4 News

Year 5/6 News

This fortnight Year 5/6 have been working on settling into routines and getting used to our new, rather large group! The students are enjoying their newly refurbished spaces and are appreciative of the aesthetics and exceptional resources. We are excited for the year ahead and all the opportunities it holds.

This week we started our study of connotation, imagery and symbol used in uniquely indigenous texts. This will facilitate the practise of writing beautifully structured paragraphs. Science is looking interesting too, with the study of marvellous micro-organisms. As a tuning in activity, you can see students (in featured photographs) using magnifying glasses and a classification table to record observations about different types of bread. A tasty lesson!

Years 5 and 6 are the “business end” of primary school. The days are busy and there is a particular rigour required to meet educational outcomes for these year groups. It has been lovely to see Year 5/6 students stepping up into their leadership roles and taking responsibility for their learning. Keep up the hard work team!

Tuckshop News

Wanted!! Tuckshop volunteers

Our tuckshop requires volunteers each week to operate efficiently. Please spare 2 hours on a Friday morning (8:30-10:30am). Complete the form below & return to the school office by this Friday 3 February, or alternately contact the office on 46541638 to add your name to the list.

P & F News

Welcome to another year at St Mary's Primary School!

Our P&F is holding its first meeting on Monday 6th February, 3pm in the library. Everybody is welcome to attend.

The St Mary’s P&F Association is an inclusive group of parents and friends who encourage new and innovative ideas. Our primary focus is fundraising to improve our school for our children. 

Please join our Facebook page St Mary's Charleville P&F Association  to keep up to date with what we are up to, email us at CHAPandF@twb.catholic.edu.au or contact one of our current committee members - Melissa Doolan, Jacqui Tickell, Michelle Ebsworth, Vanessa Alexander and Melissa Jones.

Our AGM will be held in March and all positions will be open, so please consider coming along!

January Birthdays

February Birthdays

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