1st March 2023

Principal

Welcome to Week 6!

Principal’s Forum

Last week, I attended the Principals’ Forum online. The week provided an opportunity for principals across all Toowoomba Catholic Schools to come together for professional development covering strategic intent and organisational leadership for 2023 . Some of the key focus points were:

• Leading from the front – what capable leaders do when faced with a seemingly insurmountable agenda
• Sentral overview
• The TCS story ‘Belief in a better world’
• Parent engagement – getting the foundations right
• Annual Action Plans – develop, monitor and review processes

Annual Action Plan 2023

Key focus areas for our school this year include:

• Engaged students, personalised learning:
  • Mathematics curriculum planning, teaching and assessment for Prep – Year 6
  • Essential Skills for Classroom Management – profiler training for all classroom teachers
  • Implementation of Berry Street Education Model across the school (including an update of the St Mary’s Behaviour Policy)
• Being distinctively catholic
  • Align schoolwide social emotional and behaviour systems to create Learning Dispositions at St Mary’s School
• Staying on mission
  • Clarity of the Annual Action Plan for students and school community
  • Increase parent engagement and seek parent/student feedback to inform school improvement through the parent and student lens.
• Collective efficacy and Using resources wisely
  • Developing a culture of care for all staff including goal setting and weekly meetings for intentional planning with teachers and leadership staff.

P & F 2023

The P & F will hold their AGM on Monday 20^th March at 5:30pm in the Cobb and Co Hall.  All positions will become vacant and election of new members will take place. Please come along to support our school and the election of our P & F members.

School Contact Process

This year, we have implemented the Parent Portal for communication between home and school. Please know that you are welcome to phone or email the school for all queries. Below is a guide for your convenience.

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

Opening Mass

Thank you to everyone in our St Mary’s community who attended our Opening Mass and Yr 6 Induction on Friday, February 17^th.  Thank you also to Fr Peter for leading us in prayer.  It was lovely to be able to acknowledge our Yr 6 leaders for 2023.  Please see photos below.

Ash Wednesday Liturgy

On Wednesday, February 22^nd, our school community reflected on the start of the Lenten season by attending an Ash Wednesday Liturgy in the church.  Students were excited to be able to receive the ashes, to help remind them of their Lenten promises, after three years of COVID restrictions.  A great question to ask your little person during the season of Lent is ‘What is your Lenten Promise?’.  Lenten promises are displayed in our classrooms, please feel free to venture into your child's classroom to see their Lenten promise – see some pictures below of our students with their Lenten promises.

Project Compassion

At whole school assembly on Friday, students watched Laxmi’s story and, as a school, we discussed how fortunate we are to live in Charleville and have homes, uniforms, a lovely refurbished school to learn in.  Each week during Lent students can learn about stories of different ways Project Compassion helps those less fortunate than ourselves.  Please consider giving some spare change to your student to put in their Project Compassion boxes in their classrooms.  Every little bit helps!  Please read below and feel free to follow the links to learn more about Laxmi and Project Compassion.

We begin our annual Lenten Project Compassion journey by learning about Laxmi, a 16-year-old girl living in Jajarkot, a remote district in Nepal where almost half of the population live below the poverty line.  Tragedy struck when Laxmi was 10 years old and her father passed away. Her father worked hard to pay for his children's education and, after losing him, Laxmi was at risk of falling further into extreme poverty.

With the support of our partner Caritas Nepal, Laxmi joined a child's club at her school where she was encouraged to resume her education. Through the child’s club, Laxmi developed the skills and confidence to become a leader, advocating for clean water taps at her school. 

Laxmi is now excelling in her studies and working towards her dream of becoming a civil engineer. She continues to be involved in the child's club, serving as an advisor and mentoring the next generation of young leaders at her old school.   

Watch a short film about Laxmi’s story here.

Please support Project Compassion: www.caritas.org.au/project-compassion.

Prayer Assemblies

Well done to Yr 2 for their insightful Prayer Assembly about the beginning of their Lenten Journey on Friday, 24^th February.  The next class prayer assembly will be Prep who will present their assembly with their buddies!  We can’t wait to see it!  Please see some photos of Yr 2’s assembly below.

Sacramental Program

It’s been fantastic to see so many of our Sacramental candidates attending Parish mass on the weekends in preparation for their first Reconciliation on March 17^th.  Mass this week is on Saturday, March 4^th at 6pm.  All are welcome!

It’s week 6 already!  Wishing you a peaceful fortnight as our term progresses.

God bless,

Kirsty Lines

APRE

Curriculum News

I hope you have all had a wonderful fortnight and had a chance to check out the videos from last newsletter. What did you learn? Did you try anything? I would love to hear your feedback!

NAPLAN

The NAPLAN testing will take place this year in week 8 (15^th – 27^th March 2023). Your child will be bringing home a note explaining the NAPLAN tests. If you have any questions about this, please make an appointment with the school to discuss this.

Parent / Teacher Conferences

In the coming weeks, classroom teachers will be sending home information about parent / teacher conferences. These will take place towards the end of term. These conferences are set for 15 minutes. If you feel you would like more time to talk about your child’s learning, please discuss this your child’s classroom teacher.

Wellbeing

To be the best I can for our school, our students, and our staff, and in my personal life for myself and my family, it is important that I take time for myself. I try to paint monthly, exercise a few times each week, write weekly and have a day sleep each Sunday. Every day, I try to find five minutes to read a quote from my diary and reflect on its meaning and acknowledge all that I am grateful for. What do you do in your life that nurtures your wellbeing? Why is this important? How do you see others nurturing their wellbeing?

Library News

Book Fair is happening in Week 9, check out the times below.

Tuesday 21st March

2:15 – 3:15 pm

Late Night Shopping 5:00pm – 60:0pm

Wednesday 22nd & Thursday 23rd

8:00 - 9:00 am

2:15 – 3:15 pm

Parent helpers required, sign up roster available in the office from Week 8.

Some snaps from the previous fortnight.

The Prep students busily sequencing story cards after listening to and viewing The Very Hungry Caterpillar felt story.

Wow! Look at the Year 3 students’ type, type, type using the Rapid Typing Program.

We love creating with wood and urgently require pine/soft wood offcuts.

 Book Club Orders due Thursday 16th March

Learning Support News

Welcome to Week 6 in the Learning Hub.

This week we are lucky enough to have some wonderful support from TCS inclusive learning. Several teachers will work with these TCS staff to develop Curriculum Modification Plans and inclusive strategies for behaviour and social-emotional development.

We are well and truly into the swing of things with small group intervention supports taking place in the Learning Hub. Students are responding well and have been completing tasks in a variety of formats including online and written as well as hands-on activities. These activities are designed to fill any gaps in the students’ learning as well as provide a scaffold to help them in preparing to learn new concepts in their class.

Students in my groups have met a new friend, Wally – who has been helping them with decoding as well as High Frequency Words in our synthetics phonics approach.

Our wonderful helper, Wally.

 Auslan sign for - SAD

Sad: Our Auslan sign is another emotion to follow on from the last newsletter. The sign for sad is done with a flat hand with the thumb against the palm, just in front of your face. The index finger is closest to your nose.  Bring the hand straight down the face so the top of the fingers line up with the chin.

Have a great week.

Belinda Phillips

The Arts News

ARTS

Another big fortnight in the Arts space! We have been exploring concepts of Line and Colour as a school and the children have blown me away! Check out Prep and Year 5/6 working on their colour wheels:

CHOIR

An important note in regard to choir badges:

Students who are consistently attending choir are given these badges to recognise their achievements. If students fail to come to choir, they will be asked to return their badges. Please help your chorale performers to look after their badges. We have had several students request another badge because they have lost or had a younger sibling steal them. So please support your students to be responsible for their badge.

Bright colours shining, wonderful and new.

And in the east, the dawn was breaking,

And the world was waking.

Any dream will do.

For those who read last fortnight's newsletter item, the song lyrics were from the latest song we are working on: ‘Any Dream Will Do’ from ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’ based on Biblical story of Joseph, son of Jacob, in the Book of Genesis. It’s a great musical, and this song allows us to work on our harmonies and canons!

Sport News

Congratulations to the following students who have been chosen to represent the school at the following sports -

• Swimming Regional Trials - Charleville– Monday 27^th February 2023 - Addison Itzstein, Riley Sullivan, Charlie Sullivan, Malakai Thompson, Harry Thomas
• Touch Regional Trials– Chinchilla – Wednesday 8^th March 2023 - Riley Sullivan, Charlie Sullivan, Gabriel O’Toole, Luca O’Toole, Sophie Tickell, Maggie Thomas, Peggy Stirton, Alec McKellar, Harry Thomas, Ben Williams
• Charlie Peart has made the 10 – 12 years Cricket South West team to compete at the State Carnival at Rockhampton on 27^th – 31^st March - well done Charlie.
• Addison Itzstein, Harry Thomas, Charlie Sullivan, Malakai Thompson have qualified for the South West Swimming Team and will be competing at the Swimming State Championships that will be held at the Brisbane Aquatic Centre, Chandler - 26th - 28th March - congratulations to these students

We wish all the students the best of luck with their upcoming trials.

Prep News

Hip hip hooray! We have made it over half way.

In science we have been exploring living and non-living things. Over the past two weeks we have explored the world outside our classroom. Students found all different creatures. From this we discussed what living things need to survive and how we can care for our animals that we might already have at home.

In library we have been learning all about the very hungry caterpillar. We read the story and then had a very hard challenge of sequencing the story. Students worked together and successfully completed this task.

In Religion we have been learning all about the church and even got to go on three visits to the church. Students then had the challenge of designing a sacred place out of Lego.  It was wonderful to see students working together and thinking deeply.

In our buddy session we look at our reading to learning scale and where our emotions might fit within the scale. Our preps loved working with the Year 5/6 class on this challenge and they felt confident with their answers. It’s great to see the bonds they are creating with their buddies already.

Year 1 News

Year 1 have been talking about their Lenten promises! What is your Lenten promise?

Year 2 News

Over the last two weeks, we have been busy preparing for our prayer assembly, learning about life cycles, informative writing, and using a variety of addition and subtraction strategies.

In science we have looked at the life cycle of humans, plants and cicadas. See the picture below of students predicting the baby photos of staff members – we had lots of fun doing this! We will be focusing on the life cycles of frogs and butterflies this fortnight, and will use this knowledge to assist in our writing of an informative report in English.

I will send out available times for Parent-Teacher Interviews in the coming weeks, please let me know via Parent Portal or in person a time that will best suit you.  

Year 3 News

Another busy few weeks from year three. Some highlights from the past fortnight would have to include meeting Belinda from the Root Cause. We are all feeling a little more knowledgeable on how we can start making healthy choices to support our bodies. Belinda was kind enough to share her favourite smoothy recipe… as you can see by our faces most of us LOVE it (while others had mixed reviews). Conversations about our food choices are vital in promoting healthy and sustainable habits!

We have also taken time to remember how we commemorate the start of the Lenten season. We shared a liturgy with Sister Elizabeth and marked our foreheads with ashes. We have all taken time to make a Lenten promise to help us be the kindest versions of ourselves.

In class we have been busy continuing our persuasive writing in English and are developing fluency with addition and subtraction equations in our mathematics. In science we are continuing to classify and investigate living and non-living things and in HaSS we are building our knowledge of all the monumental features in the different states and territories around Australia.

Year 4 News

Happy Week 6 St Mary’s Community!

We are continuing to develop our skills in Year 4 and are having so much fun doing so!

We thoroughly enjoyed having ‘The Root Cause’ out recently to teach us about healthy eating, which links to our Health unit for this term!

In English, we are currently writing legends, whilst exploring the legend of ‘Malamander’.

Mathematics has consisted of lots of Place Value! We are becoming experts now, how fun do our Math lessons look!

Looking forward to grooving together at our School Disco on Friday!

Warm regards,

Miss Morrison and the Year 4 Crew.

Year 5/6 News

5/6 have been busy demonstrating their knowledge in a variety of ways, such as recording themselves teaching maths concepts, and assisting Prep students to identify Ready to Learn emotions with visual organisers.

We managed to undertake a Science experiment this fortnight with plenty of adult helpers to make sure this was done in an organised and authentic manner. We had some great success with students writing a hypothesis, making astute observations and relating the outcomes of the experiment to the break-making process.

Tuckshop News

TUCKSHOP URGENTLY NEEDS HELPERS on the following dates - 10.03.2023, 24.03.2023 & 30.03.2023

The food on our menu is prepared in our kitchen for your children using fresh fruit and vegetables. The children love the biscuits and muffins that have hidden fruit or vegetables in them. 

For tuckshop to continue I need your help one day every term. Please contact the school office to register or the class teacher.

Thanks to the parents who assist.

A reminder to families to use the new tuckshop menu for this year which is on the Parent Portal and also in this newsletter.

P & F News

The P & F AGM will be held on Monday 20 March commencing at 5:30pm in the Cobb & Co Hall. All positions will become vacant. Please attend and support our wonderful school.

March Birthdays

Flyers