Term 3 - Week 8 / 31st August 2023

Principal - Ms Katrina Dunne

The children of a prominent American once decided to give their father, someone who had everything, a novel gift for his birthday, the family history in book form.

They hired an experienced biographer, but felt honour-bound to warn him of one problem: Uncle Charles, who had gone to the electric chair several decades earlier for doing away with his business partner. They could not ignore his existence, but they certainly did not want to publicise the shame that he had brought to their family name.

Fortunately, the biographer was a professional.

“No problem,” he reassured them. “I’ll just say that Uncle Charles occupied the chair of applied electrics at a leading government institution, that he was attached to his position by the strongest ties and his sudden passing came as a great shock.”

The above highlights the power of language.

People who have the power to use language effectively are more likely to be well employed and well educated.

Strong links abound between young people who read for pleasure and are read to, and their success in education. Why?

1. Reading expands young people’s vocabularies.
2. Reading leads to a solid core of general knowledge.
3. Reading improves comprehension skills which improves ability to do well on tests.
4. Reading can be a source of simple, reflective pleasure in the busyness of life.
5. Reading gives our children the power to wield words in an effective and professional manner.
6. Reading expands horizons, by showing young people whole other life journeys and cultures. They learn that their own problems may not be as dire when compared to the lives of others.

Young people today actually do more reading than those of ten years ago. But that reading is low level: text off phones, Instagram, Google and other social media offerings.

I can often remember vainly, placing classic books and better-quality magazines in front of our own older siblings and my children today. It can be like leading a horse to water.

As parents and carers, keep battling because creating a ‘good reader’ assists in creating a better educated, more well-rounded person.

As we approach the end of the school term, please ensure your child borrows holiday readers from the library and continues to read during the vacation period.

Have a fabulous fortnight!

Cheers,

Katrina

Date Claimers

APRE - Mrs Kirsty Lines

Mercy value of Excellence

Did you know our students are learning about the Mercy value of Excellence this term?  Catherine McCauley said, ‘Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well'.  At assembly on Monday morning, we talked as a school about the Excellence displayed by St Mary’s students and staff at the Performing Arts Festival on the weekend – through all of our performances, whether we won a gold medal, bronze medal or no medal – we performed as a school extraordinarily well and gave it our all!

A big thank you to Fr Peter, who, at parish mass on Sunday morning, acknowledged all the hard work of teachers, staff and students in preparing for and performing in, the Performing Arts Festival.  The Mercy value of Excellence is alive and well at St Mary’s!

Wishing our entire St Mary’s community, a peaceful fortnight.

God bless,

Kirsty Lines

APRE

Learning Support News - Mrs Belinda Phillips

It's great to be on the ground this week, working with students and teachers in the classrooms. It is wonderful to see the growth in reading that has occurred this term. The students have been working so hard on their decoding and comprehension and this is shining through in their confidence and reading successes.

This week I have been hearing about the upcoming student-led conferences and student goals as this approach closely aligns with our Planning for Personalised Learning which teachers implement across Key Learning Areas and throughout their day. It has been uplifting to hear students reflecting on areas they have strengths in and areas they would like to further develop.

We are excited to be conducting some of our Prep 2024 interviews this week. I am looking forward to our Mini Mary’s Prep transitions taking place next term. It is such an exciting time for our pre-preppies! 

The Auslan sign for this week is - 

GOAL

Curriculum - Mrs Vanessa Alexander

This term we have implemented the Daniel Morcombe Child Safety Curriculum.

The first key safety message of the curriculum is Recognise. Recognise is about being aware of your environment.  

Children, young people, and adults can all learn to take notice of what is happening around them to help keep themselves safe. Everyone can use clues, such as the things we see, hear, smell, or feel to help protect us from harm and keep ourselves safe. Clues can be simple things that warn us about a danger, e.g. hearing a fire alarm or seeing smoke, that prompt us to react. We can also use clues to prepare for potentially unsafe situations, e.g. if we are walking alone at night, then we try to use a well-lit route and avoid secluded lanes or parks.  

The second key safety message of the curriculum is React. Students will have opportunities to think about ways to react using real-life scenarios.

Our students will also learn that breaking the rules (e.g. saying no to an adult who is behaving inappropriately) is sometimes necessary so that they can become safe again. Please take the time to talk with your children about what they have been learning about and, in particular, the ways they could react if they are unsafe to make themselves safe again. Talking with your child about ways to stay safe will help them to develop life-long safety skills. 

The third key safety message of the curriculum is Report. This means that when children or young people have been in a situation that is unsafe, that they are taught to report what has happened to an adult.

Even if a child has been able to make themselves safe, it is vital that they still report what has happened. Adults need to know about unsafe situations so that some action can be taken to help the child be safe again or ensure it doesn’t happen again. Students involved in the Daniel Morcombe Child Safety Curriculum will be encouraged to make a list of adult safety helpers. These are adults the children and young people nominate whom they can talk to when they are feeling unsafe or have experienced an unsafe situation or feel they are at risk of something that may cause them harm. This list will include a selection of adults who live in and outside the home. 

Report also includes telling an adult about unsafe or inappropriate incidents which may occur when children or young people are online. This might occur when surfing the net or using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and can include cyberbullying, viewing or receiving inappropriate images or messages or communicating with unknown contacts. 

It is important that the key safety messages of the Daniel Morcombe Child Safety Curriculum: Recognise, React and Report are reinforced, both at school and home. I encourage you, wherever possible, to talk with your child about safety to help them stay safe now and in the future. 

Vanessa Alexander

Eating a Rainbow of Fruit and Vegetables

Library - Mrs Michelle Sheehan

So wonderful to see so many creative and colourful characters at our Book Week parade. A huge thank you to students, parents, and teachers for making such an effort.

Snap one of the titles in the Children’s Book Council of Australia awards provided a stimulus for the Preps to explore for the first time the features of the Show Me App. Next, we will learn how to add text to our illustration.

Students in Year 4 also enjoyed participating in some fun Book Week activities.

The Year 5/6 students completed a range of online Book Week activities on our Accessit Web App.

We are excited!

 Next Wednesday the above students along with Betty Thomas will depart for Brisbane to compete in the State Finals of Readers Cup, accompanied by myself and Mrs. Dunne. The students have been busy reading the five nominated titles and will compete as a team against other teams to answer quiz questions from each of the books. We will also have the opportunity to partake in two author presentations, hosted by Deborah Abela and Pamela Rushby.

A big thank you to the P & F for facilitating $100 towards the cost of the trip for each of the five students and a huge shout out also to Rex Airlines and Tony Greigg at the Charleville Airport who provisioned seven resident fares for us to travel to and from Brisbane.

Due Thursday 31st August

Prep - Miss Imogen Hunt

WOW!! HASN’T THIS TERM FLOWN FAST

The past 7 weeks in prep has been full of fun and exciting events.

At the start of the term we participated in our first ever athletics carnival which was a hoot. It was fabulous to see all preps giving the events a go and striving for excellence.

Then we marked a milestone of reaching 100 days of schooling. This was an exciting event where we were able to dress up and show our age.

Then we were lucky enough to have a fruit and vegetable platter to explore a range of foods that support growth in our body.

We celebrated Catholic Education Week with our 5/6 buddies where we understood the message of faith, hope and love which explored the story of a mustard seed and how we can embody this.

Science week – What an engaging week of learning for our school. I think the highlight in Prep was watching the volcano erupt.

Last week we began with Book Week where students came dressed up as their favourite book character. It was fabulous to see students really embrace their characters for the whole day.

To finish our week off we performed at the Charleville Preforming Arts Festival in the categories of verse speaking and singing. I was beyond proud of each student for getting up on the stage and giving their absolute best.

Year 1 - Mrs Bernie McPhee

What an eventful term we are having. So many fun and exciting things have been happening in Year 1. We have been learning about 3D objects and their properties. Students had a go at making some of the 3D objects, such as cube, sphere and a cone.

In week 6 we had a visit from the RACQ Streets Ahead program. Students learnt about how to cross the road safely at a crossing and at traffic lights. They learnt about what a “Safety Door” is and how to put on their bike helmet properly.

Science week was lots of fun, with dressing up as crazy scientists, science quizzes, science inspired fruit snacks and finally an afternoon of science experiments. It was great to have the support of families. We did a milk and food colouring experiment, the skittles and water experiment, we made a storm in a jar, and we made our own sherbet. We saved the most explosive fun for last, where we found out what happens when you add mentos lollies to Coke.

Character Day was another fun day. All students were keen to show off their costumes in our school parade and confidently spoke about what character they came dressed as and which book it was from. The teachers also put on an entertaining show about “The Day the Crayons Didn’t Quit”.

What little Superstars we have in Year 1. They performed magnificently at the Charleville Performing Arts Festival. I am so proud of the Verse speaking they did and coming away with a Gold Medal! Then to back up that win they won their second Gold in the Choral singing!

Monday this week saw the day start with much excitement as students arrived to find their classroom doors taped up with “Caution Tape”. There had been a “Rhyme Crime”. When they finally made it inside, they found out that someone (Mrs McPhee) had stolen some items from the classroom and replaced them with a word that rhymed with the missing items. (The thief stole a bin and replaced it with a pin). After figuring out all the rhyming clues another letter was found to tell them where to find the items (in the library). We had a great time solving the “Rhyme Crime”.

Year 2 - Miss Holly Price

A huge congratulations to everyone who entered in the Performing Arts Festival this past weekend – all students put in a huge effort to showcase their talent! You should all be very proud of yourselves.

Book Week and National Science Week has kept us busy in our dress-ups.

Thank you to Mrs Alexander for running an extra health lesson, bringing in a variety of different fruit and vegetables for us to try.

Year 2 have been very busy completing assessment and are keen to show off their amazing work at our Student-Led conferences. Please book a time in for this through Parent Portal.

Miss Holly Price.

August Birthdays

P & F News

Flyers