St Mary's School Robinvale eNewsletter

Principal's Report

Dear Parents & Carers,

Thank you once again to our parents and carers who have been so cooperative and understanding while we transition to our adjusted drop off and pick up routines. Things seem to be running reasonably well and, most importantly, it is helping to keep our students safely away from the busyness and heavy machinery coming and going from the building site, as much as possible. Attached to this newsletter are copies of the letter we sent home outlining the change in our procedures. I’d like to thank our EAL Coordinator Jacky Chuun who has worked extremely hard to have the letter translated into some of the languages that we know our families speak. We hope you find this is helpful and it is something that we intend to try to do more of in the future.

As mentioned above our building project is now well under way. It is exciting to see how much progress has been made in such a short period of time. We have a display in the office summarising the project. If you’d like to see what we hope the end result will look like please feel free to call in and have a look.

Over the last week or so we have had two teams from St Mary’s representing our school in Swan Hill at the Regional Lightning Premierships. Our Primary A Grade Netball Team and Primary Boys’ Football Team came up against some particularly tough opposition but both represented our school extremely well, competing admirably and displaying great sportsmanship. Congratulations to each and every one of the students in these teams, you should be proud of your efforts, I know we are! A special mention to Tina Zappia who coached the netballers and Des Lowry who coached the football team. A genuine thank you to all the parents who also went along to support and cheer on our students.

Last week we ran our first whole school Cross Country in quite a number of years. Despite the cold and windy weather a great day was had by all. Well done to Kieran Mays who planned and coordinated the event and thank you to all the staff, parents and other family members who helped make the event such a success. And of course, congratulations to the students who ran so well on the day!

This week we are celebrating Italian Day. Italian is the language that all our students study and this day gives them an opportunity to enjoy some of the food and activities that are prominent in this culture. Thank you and well done to Frank Zappia, our Languages teacher, for his organisation of this fun day.

As I was writing the last newsletter report our Year 5/6 students were on camp in Kyneton. They have since returned safe and sound and full of interesting stories about the camp. Well done to all participants and thank you to the staff who took such good care of them and ensured that a great time was had by all. Next week the Year 7/8 students head off to Rose’s Gap in the Grampians. We wish them a safe and enjoyable time and will look forward to hearing all about their adventures when they return.

This week our Foundation students reached the milestone of being at school for 100 days. They celebrated this event with dress ups and special activities. Congratulations to our Foundation students and their wonderful teachers on reaching this important stage of their education. Keep an eye out for some photos of the day a bit later in this newsletter.

On a staffing matter, I’d like to inform you Amanda Penington, Sharise McMonnies and Anita Kennedy have indicated to me that they will be leaving Robinvale, and therefore St Mary’s, at the end of this year. I have begun the process of organising staffing for 2023 and will keep you updated with any changes. There will be opportunities to farewell these valued staff members and recognise their contribution to our school closer to the end of the year.

As well as staffing, I am also currently looking at student enrolments for 2023. If you have a child in Year 8 this year we need to know which school your child is transitioning to. If you intend to enrol a child in Foundation (or any other year level) please come in and collect an enrolment pack from the office asap and if you have a child in any other year who is leaving St Mary’s please let us know. Your help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Andrea Welsh

Religious Education

This term each unit will attend a weekday Mass at St Mary’s Parish. The preps joined the parish mass on July 28th. The following units will join Fr Anthony and parishioners on the following dates:

Year 1-2: August 11th,

Secondary: August 25th,

Year 5-6: September 1st

Year 3-4: September 8th.

Mass begins at 9:30am. Classroom teachers will notify you if their mass times change.

Dear God

Thank you for our school.

We pray it would be a safe place of learning, fun and friendship.

Please watch over all our teachers, children and families.

Help us to learn new things, to explore the world together

and to play and be happy. Help us to have love for each

other, to have forgiveness at our heart, and to

build kindness into every day.

Amen.

SWPBS

This week our SWPBS focus is: Taking part in school activities

This is particularly relevant over the next couple of weeks with the Year 7 & 8 Camp, Athletics Carnival, Science Fair and Book Week all coming up. It is a great time to talk about what taking part looks like, feels like and sounds like. It is also an opportunity to talk about not putting others down for taking part or being negative about activities.

Primary

Foundation

On Wednesday 3rd of August, we celebrated 100 days of school and learning for our Foundation students. This is a lifetime milestone for our students and they celebrated by dressing up as 100 year olds, participating in fun 100 related activities and enjoyed some special treats. Foundation students and teachers did not disappoint with their outfits including white/grey hair, glasses, wrinkles, walking sticks, shirts, ties, long dresses etc..

We all tried our hardest with Cross Country last week, it was great to experience an event off-site, down at the football ovals. We enjoyed watching everyone race and cheering them along. Thank-you to the parents and families that came along to watch.

Please continue to check ClassDojo regularly for important messages, reminders and updates.

Year 1/2

Everyone did such a tremendous job at the cross country last week! What a super effort! Last week students wrote some great recounts about the run and included some of the feelings they had before the race.

In Year 1/2 we are beginning to create sequels to known stories. We have also been focusing on rereading if something does not sound right or make sense.

In humanities we looked at different buildings in Robinvale and found out when they were built. We are also very thankful to Mr Zappia who has created a fantastic display of different artifacts from the past from around here! It has definitely sparked a lot of curiosity and an eagerness to learn more about the changes in our community.

A reminder to keep changing those home readers and keep up with the fantastic reading!

Year 3/4

What an exciting time it has been lately! Our Cross Country event was so much fun! Everyone participated so well. We had Italian Day this week which was equally as enjoyable.

The Year 3/4's have been working hard on Information Reports in reading and writing and have completed a biography of a famous Australian sports person last week. We are currently continuing with this genre and are researching countries to create a travel brochure.

In maths Yr3's have been using number lines to compute adding and subtracting hundreds and tens. Yr 4 have been reviewing multiplication facts of 9.

Our students were also lucky enough to enjoy a Soccer clinic last week and learn skills related to this sport.

Year 5/6

Well done to the netball and football team for their efforts in Swan Hill last week for Regional Lightning Premierships! All students participated and represented our school well and enjoyed the day.
The 5/6 students have been busy creating written recounts and reliving their experiences from their trip away to Campaspe Downs in Kyenton! For a glimpse of our experiences on camp, keep your eyes open for the Robinvale Sentinel paper! In reading, students have begun determining the difference between subjective and objective language in their reading. In maths, the Year 5 students are looking at simple financial plans and are looking at scenarios and working within different budgets. The Year 6 students have been solving division problems and working with units of measurement.

Secondary

Year 7/8 Homeroom

The Year 8 students have spent some time with their foundation buddies this week to celebrate 100 days of learning. They assisted their buddies to make a celebratory crown and then shared some delicious cupcakes that they had made, which everyone enjoyed.

A reminder that all students should be reading each school night and filling in their diaries.

English

Year 7 have been exploring metalanguage; language about language. They have been enhancing their language skills to improve their writing.

Year 8 have been advancing their spelling and punctuation skills. They have been identifying the origins of the English language and enhancing their skills when spelling unknown words.

Maths

Year 7 students have been looking at measurement this term. This week they will be completing a practical project to demonstrate their knowledge of Area and Perimeter. A reminder Maths Mate homework is due every Tuesday. Homework helps students with their organisation and to consolidate learning of a range of topics.

Technology

Students are continuing to develop their cooking skills. We have been looking at chocolate dishes so far this term. Students are busy creating their own chocolate dessert to cook in week 6.

Week 6 is Science Week and throughout the students will enjoy different activities. The Secondary students will host their annual Science Fair on Tuesday August 16th in the Gym. Classes will be invited to visit and see the student’s work/experiments. Secondary parents will also be invited to attend.

On Friday August 19th, there will be a Science Performance incursion for students from Years 5-8. Students from Euston Public School and Robinvale College will be joining our students. The incursion will be held in the gym at these times.

9.30am - 10.30am: Years 5/6

11.30am - 12.30pm: Years 7/8/9

Our annual Athletics Carnival is coming up. As always, for the day to run smoothly we require parent helpers. A form was sent home with a list of jobs. If you can assist please fill in and return the form ASAP. Please be aware that you must have a current Working with Children Check to be a volunteer. If you misplaced the form please contact the school office.

Australian Dental Health

Australian Dental Health Victoria is providing school students with dental treament beyond the Medicare eligibility, meaning all students are able to participate.

The dental van is visiting our School from Monday 24th to Friday 28th October 2022.

If you wish your child to visit the Dental van, please return the form, sent home with your child by Monday 15th August.

If you require another form, please contact the School office