Newsletter, week 2, term 1, No 1

Principal's Report

Dear Parents & Carers,

Welcome to our first 2022 newsletter! A special welcome to all our new students and their families. I’d also like to welcome our newest staff member, Maryanne Leslie. We hope you are all enjoying being a part of our St Mary’s School community and we look forward to working with you and seeing you around the school.

I’m very pleased to say that the year has started well, with all our students and staff settling in quickly and most of our usual routines and learning being established. The first few weeks of the school year are always busy and this year has been no exception.

Thank you to the parents who came to our Meet & Greet meetings last week. We hope you found meeting your child/ren’s teachers beneficial. I know the staff appreciated the opportunity to touch base with you and begin the process of building strong communication channels between home and school. If you made an appointment and your child/ren’s teacher was unavailable last week they will contact you soon to reschedule.

We started our annual swimming program last Friday. The program will continue with all Year 3/4  students and some Year 5-8 students having swimming lessons on Thursday 17th of Feb & 3rd and 17th of March 2022. Water Safety  is a mandated component of our curriculum and swimming is a critical life skill so it is a little disappointing when parents choose not to have their child/ren join the program. I strongly urge you to consider this before making the decision to withdraw your child/ren from the lessons. A reminder that lessons for students in Foundation-Year 2 will take place towards the end of the year.

Although we have returned to an almost normal school routine we have had to make a few changes. These are listed below for your information:

• School photos have been rescheduled to May 24th
• Our Beginning of the Year & Staff Commissioning Mass has been postponed
• School Assemblies will be via video conferencing from classrooms for the time being
• School Closure Days are yet to be confirmed and you will be notified of these asap

This weekend our Year 5 students will begin their preparation to receive the Sacrament of First Eucharist by attending Mass to enroll in the program and get the information they need to participate in this important event in their faith journey. Please keep our Year 5 First Eucharist candidates and their families in your thoughts and prayers over the coming weeks.

Finally, thank you to all our families for cooperating with our latest COVID requirements, most notably twice weekly Rapid Antigen Testing. Your willingness to support this initiative is very much appreciated and is undoubtedly helping us to keep our case numbers at a manageable level. A friendly reminder to notify us of any students who return positive cases, in addition to the original case, while your household is in isolation. 

Kind regards,

Andrea Welsh

Religious Education

Welcome to all our returning and new families who will be attending St Mary’s School, we hope that you find St Mary’s School a welcoming place where you can be nurtured by the Catholic and Mercy Values as well as being encouraged to share your own belief systems. 

This year we are exploring the new planning format that was created by the CEB Religious Education Consultants. These planners will be rolled out in the primary areas of our school. 

First terms topics cover the concepts of: 

Prep - Belonging: Welcoming to a new school community and reasons for gathering as a community.

Year 1-2 - Relationships: How a call to justice, love and peace form 'right relationships

Year 3-4 - Choices: That the choices we make reflect the dignity of self, others and creation

Year 5-6 - Commitment: Commitment and what this means through the perspective of the catholic christian faith 

Our Secondary students will focus on the similarities between different world religions and explore Catholic Social Teachings. 

Unfortunately our whole school/ staff commissioning mass was postpointed to a later date. We will confirm a new date in the near future.

Let’s finish this news with our school prayer…

Dear Jesus

Help us now and always to follow the 

Values given to us by the Mercy sisters, the first teachers at St Mary’s.

Guide and encourage us to be of service to all, to respect everyone and treat them with hospitality, justice and compassion. 

Give us the courage to always stand up for what is right and to follow your ways.

Patron Saint of our School,

Mary Help of Christians, 

Pray for Us, 

Amen

Wellbeing

At St Mary's school uses School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) Framework to support positive behaviour within our school and community. Last year teachers reviewed our set of expectations for all students across all settings of the school to simplify our behaviour
matrix.

This matrix is based around our three pillars; We are Respectful, We are Safe and We are Learners and outlines the behaviours which we will be explicitly teaching and expecting our students to display.

As a school we will be focusing on weekly behaviour blitz areas of expected behaviours. Teachers have already been incorporating our latest focus area. Over the past two weeks our blitz focus has been on establishing school routines. This is important at the beginning of the school year to ensure all students are aware of our school expectations and routines within the classroom and wilder school environment.

Next week our behaviour blitz focus will be:

SUNSMART
Students will learn about the importance of being sunsmart and we will be looking for students displaying simple sunsmart strategies such as wearing their hats during play times, playing in the shade when possible and wearing sunscreen. This is particularly important as our Yr 3-8 students begin their swimming lessons at the pool.

At St Mary's we have a number of ways of recognising students displaying positive behaviour at school. Each week students can be nominated for a SWPBS award, students can receive a positive behaviour in the yard token or through recognition with the classroom.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Elders Insurance and Irribiz Robinvale who have sponsored our SWPBS program for the past two years. We appreciate their support and would like to thank them for their sponsorship.

We are pleased to announce that Irribiz Robinvale will again be one of
our valued sponsors of the SWPBS framework and would like to welcome
our new Sponsor Manang Handyman & Cleaning Services.

Primary School

Foundation

Well done to all Foundation students on a fantastic transition to starting school. We have been busy learning how school works; settling into our classroom, getting to know all of our teachers, buddies and making lots of new friends. Just a friendly reminder if parents can please ensure your child is in the full correct school uniform including the St Mary’s school hat. If you still need to purchase any items please contact the office for uniform shop hours. Your child’s school bag must be big enough to fit a lunch box, water bottle, library bag and other work inside. Library bags will be given out soon so please check your child’s school bag regularly along with any important notes or work. Thank-you for taking the time to make an appointment with your child’s teacher for the Meet and Greet sessions. If you do have any questions/concerns at any time please feel free to contact your child’s teacher. Thanks and we look forward to a great year in Foundation.          

Year 1/2

Our Year 1/2 students have had a very settled and friendly start to the year. We have started our learning very quickly, and are now in as normal a routine as possible. We have been learning about each student and their interests and talents and forming new friendships. In Maths we have been collecting data and doing picture graphs to represent this. Sport has been about learning rules,    co-operating and having fun. We have been writing sentences that make sense and have the correct punctuation. In reading we are using picture cues to help predict and support the meaning of the text. 
It was great to see so many parents at the Meet and Greet sessions. Please make a time to catch up with your teacher if you have not had the opportunity so far. The team is looking forward to a fun, learning year.

Year 3/4

WELCOME BACK TO THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR!

We are all so excited to have the students back. It is a pleasure to see their happy and excited faces around the school.

We have been busy focussing upon teaching students to be organised and being ready to learn. We collaborated and formalised our class rules and behaviour expectations in the classroom and out of the classroom at school. Students also played interesting games with the intent of getting to know each other and for developing team spirit. They learnt about strategies to improve their handwriting and used picture prompts to write interesting sentences. 

We would like to request you to kindly ensure that the students wear their correct uniform.

Summer School Uniform             Summer PE Uniform

 St Mary’s T shirt                               House T shirt

St Mary’s shorts                                 Navy Blue Mesh Shorts

St Mary’s dress                                    White Socks       

St Mary’s hat                                          Runners

White socks

Black shoes

We, the team 3/4  teachers would  be happy to get your feedback and answer any queries. Please feel free to get in touch with us through class dojo or school phone.

We look forward to working with each child to foster their creativity, and all aspects of their development.

Year 5/6

It is wonderful to be back at school for the 2022 school year. Everybody is excited to have new classrooms, new teachers and new classmates. In the ⅚ unit we have been busy practising our classroom procedures such as how to line up correctly and interacting respectfully in the classroom. We have been completing a lot of literacy and math activities about the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. We have been writing paragraphs, proofreading and editing them. We have been revising place value, addition, subtraction and times tables in preparation for starting the Stepping Stones maths program. All students have begun specialist classes such as Italian, PE and Art. Some classes have even begun researching for their first project of the year. 

We have certainly hit the ground running for the start of the 2022 school year. Students and teachers alike are excited about the possibilities this year holds.

Secondary School

Year 7/8

Welcome Year 7 and 8 students and families to Term 1 2022. All students should now have all of  their stationary and equipment organized for each of their subjects. All ICT forms will need to have been signed and returned for their student to be able to take their devices home. 

Students need to supply their own headphones, they can also bring a mouse if they prefer to use one.

English

Students have been placed in their reading groups. They have been assigned weekly homework about their group book. All students need to read 10-15 mins each day and record the title and pages read in their diaries.

Maths

In mathematics students have had a week of inspirational maths and have started their first topic on Integers. The Maths Mate Homework  program has started and Year 7 Maths Mates are due in on Tuesdays and Year 8’s are  due on Friday’s. Each student has their own Maths Mate folder.

Students will continue their work on the Maths Pathways program, this is new for Year 7’s which Mrs Pike has introduced. Year 7 students have begun their first diagnostic test using Maths Pathways. The aim of this test is to establish the areas of mathematics students already know to enable us to begin work at the correct level.

 Students have their own calculator please ensure that all students have their items clearly labeled.

Science

In science students are learning safety in the lab and how to write up scientific reports. They have made a Newton’s Cradle and a lava lamp and learnt the science behind how these work.

Religion

In Religion the year 7’s have been discussing the 10 commandments and how they are followed in today's society and why we should follow these. They have been writing them in their own words to make a stronger understanding behind them.  In Religion the Year 8’s have been learning about the “Catholic Social Teachings” and discussing how these 8 teachings are very important to follow in their own lives.

PE

During PE the students have begun working on their Basketball skills and the benefits of exercising with their peers. They have played a variety of mini games focussing on a variety of skills needed to become better Basketball players.

Health

Year 7’s have begun learning about how to value diversity and also how to use the Jacaranda Plus website correctly and where to find all the information.  Year 8’s are beginning to learn about how to live a healthy lifestyle and they are starting to see the benefits of doing this in their own lives.

Humanities

During Humanities both 7’s & 8’s have been learning about the Australian Government and all the different aspects of this topic in Civics and Citizenships.

Outdoor Education

The Year 8’s will be learning a variety of topics in Outdoor Ed this Semester and they have started with first aid and how to correctly call for help if they or someone else is in trouble/injured.

Technology

Year 7 students will be studying Food technology this term. Last week we covered the safety and hygiene requirements of cooking. This week students will begin to develop their skills in the kitchen. We will be making chocolate coconut balls. Students will need to bring an empty container from home on Thursday to bring home chocolate coconut balls.

The Arts

The students have been learning about how magazine covers are designed to attract different audiences.

Family Fee Assistance

Family Fee Scheme applies to families who hold a current Health Care Card.

Please bring your Health Care Card into the School office before the end of Term 1 to receive the discount off your School Fees.