St Mary's School, Charleville eNewsletter

Principal - Ms Katrina Dunne

Welcome to Week 8 of the term! As we embrace the changing seasons and the cooler air of winter approaches, it's essential to ensure our students are equipped for the colder weather while maintaining our school's uniform standards. At St Mary's, our uniform isn't merely about conformity; it's a representation of our shared identity and values. It fosters a sense of belonging, pride, and unity among our students.

Uniform expectations serve a crucial purpose in our school community. They promote equality, minimise distractions, and create a conducive learning environment. However, it's not just about all wearing the same thing because the school says so. Rather, it's about instilling a sense of responsibility and respect for our school's traditions and ethos. Therefore, I urge all students to uphold these uniform expectations with pride and dignity.

As we transition into the colder months, it's paramount that all families ensure their children have the appropriate winter attire. Our uniform guidelines include plain navy winter attire to provide warmth and protection from the elements while maintaining a smart and professional appearance. This includes items such as navy jumpers, jackets, scarves, and beanies. By adhering to these guidelines, we not only ensure the comfort and well-being of our students but also maintain the integrity of our school's uniform policy.

I would like to extend my gratitude to our parents and caregivers for their continued support in upholding our uniform expectations. Your cooperation in ensuring your child is dressed appropriately for the winter season is greatly appreciated and contributes to the overall success of our school community.

Have a wonderful fortnight.

Kind regards,

Katrina

APRE - Mrs Kirsty Lines

Children’s Mass

Thank you to all of our families and St Mary’s community who attended children’s Mass on Saturday, June 1^st. How fantastic to see so many students, (some as young as 8), want to participate in Mass. It would not be possible for us to have such a strong link between the Parish and School without the support of Fr Peter, Sr Elizabeth, our Principal, Katrina Dunne and all of our families. The Parish looks forward to our next children’s mass in term 3. Please see pictures below.

Sacramental Program – Confirmation 15 June

The time is drawing closer to when our candidates are confirmed by Bishop Ken Howell on Saturday, June 15 at Parish Mass at 6pm. You are warmly invited to attend Mass and support Hope Castles, Clara Alexander, Grace Sullivan, Sophie Williams, Ari Thompson, Dominic Chang, Sam Jones and Henry Lehmann as they confirm the baptismal promises their parents and godparents made on their behalf. These candidates have already been preparing to receive this sacrament for over a month – we’d love to see you there in support of them and their families. Please see photo below of candidates.

APRE Review

In July this year, the school, with assistance of TCSO Mission and Identity team, led by Angela Travers, will undertake a review of the APRE role. This review happens every 5 years and you may be contacted by the school to provide feedback during this process. Students and staff also have the opportunity to provide feedback to the school and TCS.

Ordinary Time begins Sunday 9 June

If you visit your child’s classroom next week you may notice the sacred space is no longer white – it will be green for the beginning of ‘Ordinary Time’ – this liturgical season will now continue until the season of Advent in December.

A presumption that is easy to make is ‘Ordinary Time’ just means we go ‘back to normal’ after the special time of Easter. Nothing could be further from the truth! There is nothing ‘Ordinary’ about Ordinary Time. If you are interested please read the paragraph below, written by Joe Paprocki a National Faith consultant for Faith formation at Loyola Press. It certainly reminded me to think of ‘Ordinary time’ as still special!

In fact, the Scripture readings teach us that there is nothing ordinary about Ordinary Time. Aware of God’s presence and continuing love, the Church does not let a day go by without counting it as belonging to God. Because we count our Sundays in this way, we call them Ordinary, as in the word ordinal, meaning “numbered.” Because we encounter, day by day and Sunday after Sunday, the deeds of the Lord proclaimed in Scripture, we are reminded regularly that this moment and indeed every moment belongs to God. In fact, at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday, which is the centerpiece of the Church year, the priest prays these words as he blesses the Easter candle: “Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega; all time belongs to him, and all the ages; to him be glory and power through every age for ever.”

For Catholics, time takes on a unique sense in the context of liturgy and worship. When we enter liturgy, the time that we mark with clocks and watches, kronos, is suspended. At that point, kairos—eternal time or “heaven’s time”—overshadows our time and invites us to enter God’s “eternal now.” This eternal now is experienced by the Church through the Church’s liturgical year. This means that, for Catholics, every day of the year has a connection to Jesus.

Wishing you a blessed fortnight,

Kirsty Lines

APRE

Prep - Mrs Bernie McPhee

What a busy term it has been! We have had lots of fun things happening this term. On Monday, Week 5 we were visited by the STEM Roadshow Crew who gave us a small glimpse into electronics and the Army Cadets showed us their drones and let us have a go with their computer drone program.

On Tuesday, Week 5 we were lucky enough to go to the Town Hall to watch the performance of “The Twits”. The actors were fantastic, the students had a great time, and lots of laughter was had by all.

On Wednesday, Week 5 we participated in “Step-into-Stories”. Students got to meet author/illustrator Renee Treml. She read us a book that she had illustrated and then talked the students through her process of drawing animals from the story.

Monday Week 6, we again spent time with our buddies. In small groups of 4-6, students were tasked with building the longest marble runs they could, using a variety of materials.

I hope you got to go and view the school work at the Charleville Show. The Prep students worked really hard at doing their best work. Congratulations to Hennie who won first prize in the Prep handwriting section.

National Simultaneous Storytime was on Wednesday last week. We were very fortunate to have one of our lovely Grandma’s come and read,“Bowerbird Blues”, by Aura Parker to us and then stayed for a while to help us complete some activities related to the text. Thank you!!

Under 8’s Day was a blast. Students had a great time exploring all the different activities on offer at the State School. Unfortunately, as I was supervising my activity, I didn’t get to take many photos of what was on offer to students.

Year 1 - Ms Susan Holloway

Hi Everyone,

As I write this, I find it hard to visualise where the past six months have gone. The old saying 'Time flies' certainly applies in Year One!

Our learning team has continued to be busy since our last newsletter item. Our recent Prayer Assembly was an expression and celebration of what we had learned about baptism through acting and dance. What a great job the students did!

Rehearsing for last week's Prayer Assembly.

We begin writing our fairy tales this week and we are looking forward to becoming published authors! Thank you for engaging in all the chats about fairy tales at home as part of our homework. Having your input has been a great support in this process.

We start building our city next week, putting our geographical knowledge together to show our understanding of what we have learned about how spaces can be used for different purposes and what are natural elements and what are man made. As we live in a town, we decided to build a city to challenge our thinking about the use of places and the different structures that are required.

Investigating how heat changes the properties of spaghetti in Science.

Exploring measurement and capacity.

Cheers,

Sue Holloway and the Year One Team

Year 2 - Miss Imogen Hunt

Hello families,

Wow! What a busy term we have had so far. Can you believe it is Week 8!!!

Over the past few weeks we have had a few extra-curricular activities.

First up being "Step Into Stories". We got to listen and engage with an author through the laptop where we learnt how to draw different animals that Renee Treml creates in her books.

Following this we were lucky enough to have National Simultaneous Story Time. Year 2 and Year 6 had the pleasure of listening to Mrs Patterson read us the book. We had lots of questions and loved trying to find the objects in the pages.

In HASS we have been looking at the story of ‘Are we There Yet’. Over the last few weeks we have been looking at national landmarks and the types of artwork that Indigenous people created. In our lesson we have learnt about the types of x-ray paintings and dot paints. We created our paintings in these ways. We have also been looking at different types of maps and created our own nature maps of how we get to school.

In Religion we have been looking at a variety of stories of Jesus and how he made an impact. We've had the opportunity of Mrs Lines sharing a story, and explored a bible passage in groups to work out our own meaning.

There has been a lot happening in our classroom and we are looking forward to completing and showing our learning through our assessments.

Let's finish off the term strong!

Thanks,

Imogen

HPE/Sport

Tuckshop - Mrs Alice Short

Updated Tuckshop Menu & Price List. Available from last week. Remember, orders are due in on Wednesdays for Tuckshop on Fridays. If your child/children are away for whatever reason on the Friday, please message Alice on 0429 041 872 by 8:30am to let her know so that the order can be held over. Failure to do this will result in the order being forfeited.