St Mary's School, Charleville eNewsletter

Principal - Mrs Katrina Dunne

Twilight Swimming Carnival

Another reminder that we are holding our annual swimming carnival as a twilight event. This will be held on Friday, 24^th November. On this day students are to be collected from school at 12noon and will meet back at the pool at 3:45pm for a 4:00pm start. The carnival is scheduled to finish at 7:00pm. Dinner will be available to purchase at this event. This will be co-ordinated by the P & F and parent volunteers.

2024 Enrolment and Class Planning

Class arrangements and planning for 2024 is underway. If you know that you will not be returning to St Mary’s in 2024, please let Loretta or Deidre (at the school office) know at your earliest convenience. The number of class teachers and the year level class model is directly linked to the number of students in the school. The class structure and teaching staff will be announced, once finalised, closer to the end of term.

Your ongoing support of our school is greatly appreciated and should you know of friends, relatives or work colleagues who are considering schooling options for 2024, I ask you to encourage them to consider St Mary’s School. Should you or they require any further information regarding enrolment at St Mary’s, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I am always happy to meet with people to talk about what St Mary’s has to offer. At any stage, prospective families are more than welcome to come along, tour the school and see firsthand the calm and connected classroom environments conducive to learning.

Student Free Day and Modified School Days for Term 4

Friday 24^th November is a split school day for the twilight swimming carnival. St Mary’s School will close at midday and recommence from 3:45pm for a 4:00pm start at the local pool.
Friday 1^st December is a pupil free day (travel day).

Have a fabulous fortnight.

Cheers,

Katrina

Date Claimers

Wednesday 15^th November	Awards Evening in Cobb & Co Hall
Friday 17^th November	P & F Meeting 3:30 – 5:30pm at RSL
Monday 20^th November	Year 6 Liturgy and Graduation Dinner
Friday 24^th November	Twilight Swimming Carnival 4pm – 7pm
Thursday 30^th November	End of Year Liturgy and Mega Draw

Library - Mrs Michelle Sheehan

As well as our annual stock take, we are genrefying the fiction section of the library. Essentially this entails reorganizing the books into topic areas, so if students are looking for a funny read then they go to the humorous section of the library. Part of the process involves placing genre stickers on the back of each title and covering the sticker with a piece of contact. If you can help with this, we are happy to send home packs of 20 books. Feel free to pop into the library to see us if you can assist.

During their library lessons the Year 4 students have been busy completing mathematical activities utilising the Ozobots.

Book Club Issue 8 ordering is now available online. Once catalogues arrive, these will be sent home with students.

Learning Support - Mrs Belinda Phillips

This term is moving at a crazy pace, and I am looking forward to being on campus again next week!

We have been working hard in the Learning Hub, providing intervention and support for many students across different areas including phonics, reading, comprehension, writing, spelling, handwriting, numeracy, social-emotional and English as an Additional Language. This year we have worked hard to build a team approach to curriculum and student learning approaches. I have been working closely with teachers each term to build inclusive approaches in their classrooms (Tier 1 student support). Through this, we can ensure all students have access to the curriculum and engage in learning (as well as to show their learning and understanding). Hearing how each teacher caters for the different needs in their classes and seeing this come through in their planning and teaching has been wonderful to witness!

We have also been very lucky to have Lindy Sommerfield from Anglicare working with various groups of students throughout the year across various year levels. She has been running various programs developed by Kenneth Nathan to build social-emotional development. St Mary’s has developed productive partnerships with many community groups to offer our students more opportunities to develop themselves wholly.

As I will be out next week, I would love to meet with any parents to discuss your child’s learning and wellbeing. Please feel free to send me an email so we can arrange a time to meet while I’m on campus: belinda.phillips@twb.catholic.edu.au.

My Auslan sign for this week is related to the current bushfires and the communication issues which deaf people face. Because most emergency communication is spoken, they are often the last to receive important information. If we all learnt some key emergency Auslan signs, it could save people’s lives. This reminds me of growing up during the 1990 Charleville flood. Because my parents were deaf, they couldn’t hear the midnight evacuation siren (and we were only 4 or 5 so had no idea what it meant!). It wasn’t until people came to our house that was already knee deep in water that we evacuated in the dark of the night.

Auslan sign for fire:

Start with the left hand below the right hand.
Run the left hand up the right hand with both palms flat.
As the left hand gets to the top, slightly twist the left hand so the palm is facing you.

Have a wonderful week!

Belinda Phillips

Learning Support Teacher

Year 3 News - Miss Katherine Spalding

Halfway through Term Four already! What a busy term it has been so far. We have been so lucky to have so many opportunities to be out of the classroom and participating in exciting activities. Here are some of the highlights.

We were lucky to have a visit from Healthy Harold who shared with us ways to make and keep healthy friendships!

The flipside circus has taught us a few new tricks!

We had a celebrity guest appearance from Mrs Sheehan who shared with us some tips and tricks on writing an excellent narrative. We thoroughly enjoyed writing our own Grungies book.

I am very proud of Year Three’s efforts in being the best ‘Lined up’ Class TWICE this term! We were able to celebrate our efforts with a bit of extra play time!

We also had a fabulous time with our Day for Daniel Splash and Dash.

We have loved our weekly visit from Deadly Choices. They have been sharing some great advice on how to keep ourselves healthy and taught us a few new games!

And most recently, we are proud of our prayer assembly performance recognising All Saints Day.

Year 4 News - Miss Taylor Morrison

Wow Term 4… oh how time flies when you’re having fun!

Over the previous few weeks, we have enjoyed taking part in Grandparents' Day, Flipside Circus, Life Education and a virtual visit from Sami Bayly (Author). How lucky are we to get to experience such exciting events!

Students have been smashing their learning in the classroom. See photos below of our exploration of symmetry, magnetic force and chance.

This week, we participated in PAT Testing and the growth is just incredible! I am so proud of our Year 4 students and am looking forward to celebrating the end of year together, through Awards Night, Swimming Carnival and much more!

Don’t forget, this Friday, Year 1 and 4 will present a Prayer Assembly on the 7 Sacraments. We hope to see you there!

Warm regards,

Miss Morrison and the Year 4 Crew.

Year 5/6 News - Miss Sophie Saffy

Term 4 in 5/6

What a busy start to what is the final term of primary school for our very excited year 6’s! Term 4 for our whole class is quite a busy one! 4 weeks left, and the 5/6’s are counting down! I have loved starting my teaching journey with this class. We have been lucky enough to participate in so many extra-curricular activities that have been keeping us super busy mixed in with our classroom learning.

It has been so nice the last couple of weeks especially Grandparent’s Day, getting to spend the morning with our loved ones! In week 2, we performed our final Prayer Assembly for our year 6’s and it was amazing watching the students fully apply themselves to roles of characters and speakers.

5/6 have been loving our Fridays spent with our buddies in Prep with Miss Hunt. See some pictures below of us working together. This is the best part of a Friday if you ask the students.

In English this term, we are learning all things narratives, and are learning about experiences of people affected by the Stolen Generation, using the text called “The Stolen Girl”. The 5/6s have been incredibly mature and interested when listening to experiences and their impacts on individuals' lives and are learning to connect experiences and emotions to writing.

Additionally, in HASS we have delved into the topics of Immigration, Migration and Human Rights. It is awesome to see the students be really interested in learning and researching the impacts, reasonings and key information of how Immigration impacted Australia.

In Maths, we have been working super hard in understanding symmetry, location and translation, worded problems, 4 by 1-digit multiplication and are discovering BOMDAS in the upcoming weeks.

In the coming weeks, we will be super busy with Graduation and Award’s Night, leadership speeches, swimming carnival (p.s go Xavier), end of year Liturgy.

OSHC News

Outside School Hours Care service will close on Wednesday 20 December 2023 and reopen on Tuesday 23 January 2024. Parents wanting to enrol their children for 2024, to start on Tuesday 23 January, will need to enrol prior to 15 January.

For enrolment enquiries email enquiries@tckc.qld.edu.au

Enrolment phone contact details: 0436 381 304

Website: www.tckc.qld.edu.au