Newsletter, week 6, term 2, No 2
Principal's Report
Dear Parents & Carers,
Please accept our apologies for not delivering a newsletter to you last fortnight. Over the last few weeks we have seen an increase in the number of unwell staff and students in our school community and this impacted our ability to gather all the reports and details needed to put the last newsletter together for you. We hope we make up for it with this edition.
Although there seem to be a number of illnesses circulating, COVID is still present so please remember that we strongly recommend all our students take twice weekly Rapid Antigen Tests and to keep students home if they are unwell.
Despite this, it has been fantastic to see students being able to return to excursions and extra curricular activities. Over the last few weeks, our Year 1/2 students headed to Mildura for The Alphabet of Awesome Science show at the Mildura Arts Centre. Four of our students attended the inter school cross country in Ouyen and our Year 7 & 8 students recently attended the Mildura Field Days. Most recently the Supporting and Linking Tradeswomen (SALT) workshop came to St Mary’s. It is wonderful to be able to offer these very important learning opportunities to our students and something that we intend to continue as we know they are of great benefit to their education and social development.
On Wednesday 25th May, we celebrated the Feast of Our Lady Mary Help of Christians, the Patron Saint of our school. The day began with a whole school Mass followed by multi age activities after recess. A great day was had by all. Special thanks goes to Leanne Chirchiglia who organised the day for us, to the team who cooked an amazing BBQ lunch and of course to all the parents who baked cupcakes for morning tea. They were delicious!
Last Friday the Student Leadership Team, along with myself, Fiona Pike, Nicole Zappia and Maryanne Leslie had the privilege of attending the Sunraysia Combined School’s Mass at St Joseph’s College Stadium. The Mass celebrated Catholic Education Week and was attended by over 1000 staff and students from all Sunraysia Catholic schools. It was a wonderful event and a very fitting way to celebrate our schools and the unique educational opportunities Catholic Education offers the students in our area. My thanks goes to the Student Leadership Team who represented our school so well and with obvious pride. A particular mention needs to go to those students who had a part in the Mass. Processing and reading in front of a crowd that size is never easy but our students did an outstanding job and are to be commended for their contribution.
I’d like to take this opportunity to offer a couple of friendly reminders about what is expected of our students here at St Mary’s. Of late we have noticed an increasing number of students out of school uniform. The main concerns we have are wearing incorrect socks and wearing jewellery. While wearing black socks instead of white or putting on a bracelet may seem of little importance, being aware of and wearing the correct school uniform is actually very important as it is one of the simplest and most obvious ways that students can demonstrate respect for their school community. Therefore it is our expectation that it is worn correctly each day and we would appreciate your support in this matter.
We are also aware that many students have mobile phones and other personal devices in their possession during school time. The Victorian Government banned the use of mobile phones by students while at school in 2020. The reasoning behind this was to act as a measure to limit student distraction from learning and to avoid the complications caused by the use of social media and possible cyber bullying while students are at school. It is school policy that all phones and internet enabled devices (such as smart watches) are handed in to the school office when the student arrives at school and are collected at the end of the day. There are two main reasons for this, first to comply with Government regulation and secondly these devices are often expensive and, unless they are locked securely in the office, we cannot guarantee their safety and cannot accept any liability if they are lost, stolen or damaged. It would be helpful if you could also speak to your children about this and remind them that phones etc. must be handed in each day.
Once again, thank you for your ongoing cooperation and support as we all strive together to make St Mary’s a school that we can all be proud of.
Kind regards,
Andrea Welsh
Religious Education
School captains as well as our school SRC members were invited to participate in a combined Catholic school’s Mass last Friday at St Joseph's Stadium, Mildura. Our students represented St Mary’s with pride and showed respect throughout the Mass.
Thank you to Fr Anthony for leading our whole school mass for our celebration for the Feast Day of Mary Help of Christian’s. As a school we celebrated our Feast Day with cupcakes kindly donated by our families. The students were then placed into groups and enjoyed a few hours of games and craft activities. Before finishing off the activities with a sausage sizzle.
Next week is a special day in the Catholic faith as it is Pentesost. Pentecost is a time in which Christians remember how the Holy Spirit fills our lives. In the 50 days after Jesus’death, his disciples gather in a room in Jerusalem. They are frightened and don’t know what to do. So they decide to pray together, and reflect on Jesus as they are filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus promised that he would not leave us orphans, so when he left our world he breathed his own life into us through the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who lives in us, guides us and helps us live the gospel from age to age. We can be confident that the church will always be guided in the spirit of Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
Dear Jesus,
Send us your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
You know our longing for love and community.
Make us instruments of unity and service.
Amen
SWPBS
Primary
Foundation
Wow, it’s hard to believe that we are already in Week 6 of a short 9 week term. We have currently learnt 17 letter sounds and letter names which is supporting our amazing reading and writing efforts. Please continue to support your child’s reading at home and revision of the tricky words learnt. We will soon send home another handwriting pack with the most recent set of letters (e, n, g, l) taught and tricky words. This is not compulsory however it is good revision particularly the tricky words which can be displayed around the house or be used as flashcards before bed time.
In Mathematics, we have been using a five-frame to show how many counters ‘less than’ and ‘more than’ 5. We have also started looking at creating our own patterns based on different colours and shapes. Our school nurse (Denise Pragt) visited us this week, to check that our hearing and vision Parents/carers will receive a letter outlining if a referral is required. Denise is more than happy to chat to you further about any concerns that you may have.
Digi Tech
The prep classes have been learning how to collect and display data. They have helped to create picture graphs and tallies. Do you know that one prep class has a total of 15 pet fish!
Year 1/2
The Year 1/2s have had another exciting two weeks of learning. We are starting to learn about the features of imaginative texts, especially looking at the characters and setting.
Last Friday we participated in a workshop by visiting author Phillip Gwynne. Students enjoyed asking questions about how he became an author and what his favourite book was to write. Students also had the opportunity to purchase some of his books after the session.
On Tuesday this week, students completed a Science Day looking at how light and sound is produced. We had so much fun doing cool experiments using touches, balloons and cup telephones. Mrs Gregus’ class enjoyed completing their assembly at the end of Week 4 and performing a dance to ‘Count on Me’ by Bruno Mars looking at friendship and love.
Students are reminded to bring their library books and readers to school regularly to change them.
Year 3/4
Our year 3-4’s were treated to a mini lesson on creative writing by visiting author Phillip Gwynne last Friday. Phillip shared some of his new books with us as well as demonstrating to the students on how to select a character and to then develop its feelings/emotions. In a short period of time, some of our students wrote short stories on their character and its feelings.
Miss O’Loughlin’s class held their assembly last week. Their focus was sharing photos and what they enjoyed about the Swan Hill camp. The students were excited to share their adventures from camp, and for the school to view the many happy snaps that were taken.
The Year 3-4 classes are currently learning about verbs. There are many different types of these, for example there are thinking, saying and relating verbs. We like the opportunity to look at the meaning of these more unusual verbs, and then write these into detailed sentences.
Please remember to bring homework books back by the end of the week. Some books are getting tatty so be mindful of keeping these safe. Don’t forget nightly reading and having an adult sign your diary.
Year 5/6
Once again it’s been go, go, go in the year 5/6 unit! In Maths, over the last 2 weeks the year 5s have been studying the formal multiplication algorithm, factors and multiples, early division strategies and different units of measurement such as mms, cms, metres and kilometres. Year 6 have been looking into subtracting whole numbers, fractions and decimals as well as mass.
In both Reading and Writing we are looking at information texts. Science lessons are about the Solar System this term and our Humanities lessons are about Australia’s colonial past.
Students are enjoying the basketball tournament and clubs at lunchtimes and to balance all this we are practising yoga during PE. Reports and being written and it’s nearly the end of term 2! We are all working hard and earning that looming 2 week break!
Specialist
PE
This week we are starting to look at netball skills. It is good to see so many boys and girls with so many skills in this sport already! F-2 are learning the fundamentals of catching, throwing and shooting. 3-6 are practising and learning the rules in order to participate in a game.
Art
The foundation students are using shapes to make monsters. They have had a lot of fun being creative to make their artworks. The following are some of the completed Keith Haring inspired, ‘Dancing figures,’ that the Foundation students completed.
The year 1/2 students have completed their underwater scenes and are busy designing new landscapes. They have to use their imaginations and come up with a landscape they would love to visit. For example: Lollipop Land.
Below are some of the seascapes that the students designed.
The year 3/4 students are completing their collage work and they are looking incredible. These students have put so much effort into their work, they are really beautiful.
The 5/6 students are continuing to collect and gather images that help describe who they are for their Rene Magritte inspired self portrait.
5-8 Basketball Tournament Report, Round 4
We are halfway through the season now and we have seen some unbelievable talent from the students in our tournament. This week we saw from the boys Team 2 def Team 4 by 2 points, Jordan Natale scoring 6 points and passing incredibly through the key to his teammates. A face paced game saw boys Team 1 def Team 3 by 5 points, Jack Healy using his height to his teams advantage and stealing all the rebounds. The girls also have been putting up some big scores this week, Team 1 def Team 4 by 10 points Ava Marson and Lucy O’Bryan scoring a total of 8 points and lots of defensive steals throughout the game. Finally a close game however, Team 2 defeated Team 3 by a goal, Sienna Costantino scoring the winning goal towards the end of the game.
Round 5 has some good match ups:
Girls:
Team 4 v Team 2 at recess.
Team 3 v Team 1 at start of lunch.
Boys:
Team 1 v Team 2
Team 4 v Team 5
Secondary
Maths
This week year 7 students are beginning their Algebra topic. Students will be exploring patterns and how these can be represented using letters to form equations.
A reminder that students are expected to complete their weekly Maths Mate homework sheet. These are given to students on Tuesdays and due back the following Tuesday.
Technology
Students have been continuing to develop their technical skills in cooking. This week we made homemade pasta and next week we will be exploring taste through a brand comparison.
Science
In year 7 Science we are studying Ecosystems and students have made their own terrarium in a bottle where they will record their observations over the next 4 weeks.
In year 8 Science we are studying living systems. One of the systems students learnt was the Digestive System where students role played the motion of food entering and leaving the body which was very interesting.
Students are also about to research a topic of interest for the Science Fair which is to be held in Term 3 Week 5. This will be an exciting week for students.
SALT (Supporting and Linking Tradeswomen)
On Monday the 30th May the Year 7 & 8 girls and boys were able to take part in an exciting program called SALT which stands for Supporting and Linking Tradeswomen.
This is a program designed for engaging girls into the trade world, however we were able to allow the boys to join which was a great experience for them as well. It was a fantastic opportunity for our students who were able to make a tool tray. They travel all over Australia so we were very fortunate to have them visit our school.
