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Newsletter, W6, T4, 2024

Principal's Report

Dear Parents & Carers,

Welcome to this week’s newsletter. It’s hard to believe that there are only 5 school weeks left of the year and even less for our secondary cohort!

Included in this newsletter is an outline of our 2025 School Fees. We have done our best to keep our fees at a minimum but a slight overall increase of $20 was unavoidable. As always, if paying school fees is difficult for your family please feel free to contact me or the administration staff so we can discuss your options. It is never our intention to deny a child a place in our school due to financial reasons.

Also included are two important, updated documents; Parent Code of Conduct & Enrolement Policy. These policies have been distributed by DOBCEL and all schools in our Diocese must adopt them. As parents and carers in a DOBCEL school you are required to agree to the policies so, early in 2025, we will provide families with copies of the Code of Conduct & Enrolement Policy to sign and return to school. Please take the time to read through the policies now and if you have any questions or concerns about their content feel free to let me know.

It’s the time of the year when we invite any parents or carers in our community who are interested in joining our School Advisory Committee (SAC) to come forward. The SAC is a parent group which meets once a term to support and advise me, as the principal of the school, from a parent and community perspective. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, or you’d like more information please contact me. The names and email addresses of the current SAC members are listed in each newsletter and I’m sure they would be happy to chat with you about the SAC also. Our next SAC meeting is scheduled for 11th December and I need the name of anyone who is interested in joining the Committee by then, please.

This week our 2025 Prep students and their parents joined us for their first transition day. It was lovely to meet each of them, along with their parents, and we warmly welcome them into the St Mary’s community. It's always an exciting time of the year and we look forward to the next two Thursdays when our 2025 Prep students will come back to school to continue the transition process. Please keep Tuesday 3rd December in mind as this is the date when all our students spend the day in their 2025 year level.

As always, St Mary’s students have been out and about participating in various learning experiences, competing in sporting competitions and representing our school in the wider community. Recent events include the Year 5/6 Cricket Competition, Year 3/4 library excursion, Year 4-7 Burn Bright leadership workshops, Year 7/8 excursion to La Trobe University & SuniTAFE and Remembrance Day. A huge thank you to all the staff and students who have organised and participated in these events. As we know, a variety of experiences is critical to ensure we offer an education to all our students that is as robust and comprehensive as we can make it.

Another important process is currently underway. Our current Year 6 & 7 students are preparing their 2025 Student Leadership Team applications. We always look forward to this as it is an opportunity for our future leaders to demonstrate their ability to lead their fellow students and contribute to their school community. I strongly encourage all students in these year levels to apply for a position and wish all of them the very best of luck.

Kind regards,

Andrea Welsh

Wellbeing

The SWPBS focus for this week is to allow others to learn.

The SWPBS focus for next week is to work cooperatively.

Primary News

Foundation

Foundation students have been hard at work this past fortnight!

In Math, we have been focusing on naming 2D shapes such as triangles, circles, non-square rectangles, and square rectangles. We have also been learning about teen numbers and how they have one group of ten and then some more.

In English, we have been learning the final sounds for the InitiaLit program. We look forward to learning the final Tricky Words next week for the InitiaLit program also.

Miss Pepping and Mrs Simpson have set a challenge for the Foundation students. We have been collecting our fruit boxes and other 10c recyclables at school to help fund some new equipment. Foundation students have been challenged to try and fill the big box before the end of the year! The big box is located at the end of the divider in the Foundation room, and we look forward to seeing how many cans, bottles and cartons we can collect! Students are encouraged to bring some from home.

There is not long left of the year, and it is going to become quite busy! A friendly reminder to check your child's reader bag for notes so you can keep up to date!

Year 1/2

Wow! It's week 6 already! We have completed our review of narrative writing and have started a unit on Procedural text, which should be a lot of fun. Our phonic focus continues, with the sounds OY/ OI and EAR/ EER over the last fortnight. Moving forward, we have the Colour Run to look forward to on Friday the 22nd of November.

We are still encouraging good reading habits at home and appreciate the support provided by those signing diaries regularly.

Year 3/4

We’ve been busy bees over the past two weeks in 3/4; even with the shortened week last week! The students have been fine tuning their narrative writing skills; looking for ways they can entertain their audience with interesting vocabulary and improving their use of apostrophes. What a budding bunch of authors we have!

In Reading, we have been focusing on making connections to the texts we read, to help us better understand their meaning. The students have enjoyed sharing experiences that they have shared with the characters and looking into real-world experiences that these stories are influenced by. We’ve also been learning about Remembrance Day, looking at texts that help us to reflect on the meaning of the day.

In Science, we have been learning about all things seeds - last week investigating the different seeds found in a variety of fruits. This week we will be planning an investigation for next week, posing the question ‘How do ants help with seed dispersal?’.

Thank you to those who have kept up with homework and daily reading; please encourage your child to continue with this right up until the end of the year.

Year 5/6

Congratulations to our Year 5/6 students who represented St Mary’s at the T20 Cricket in Red Cliffs last week. They all play well and it was great to see positive sportsmanship. Our Boys Team A and Girls team were successful in progressing to the next stage in Swan Hill on Friday. We wish good luck and hope they continue to represent St Mary’s with pride.

In English, we have been focusing on narrative texts. Students have started developing characters and to write their own short narrative picture story book, that they will publish both on paper and digitally. We cannot wait to see their final products.

This week, we commemorated Remembrance Day with our class captains leading our school ceremony. In our classrooms, we made a beautiful display using an image of hands and some three dimensional poppies. Each door display looks pretty impressive!

Secondary News

Year 7/8

The term is rolling by quickly, and our Year 7 & 8 students are working hard to complete their assessment tasks and meet important deadlines before reports are written. Please be sure to check and sign any notes that come home in school bags and return them as soon as possible.

This past week has been filled with exciting learning opportunities. The oral assessments in French have been fantastic to listen to, with students showcasing their language skills confidently. Additionally, the STEM major project on Renewable Community Resources has officially begun, and we’re eager to see the creative ideas our students develop.

Students had a memorable day visiting La Trobe University and SuniTAFE, gaining valuable insights into future pathways.

On Monday, our Student Leadership Team represented St. Mary’s with pride during the Remembrance Day service, honoring those who have served with dignity and respect. We are incredibly proud of their dedication and commitment.

Lastly, all Leadership applications have now closed, and speeches for these roles will take place next Tuesday, the 19th of November. We look forward to hearing from our aspiring leaders and seeing the passion they bring to their presentations.

Keep up the great work, Year 7 & 8, and let’s finish the term strong!

English

Year 7: Students have been diving into the famous “Sherlock Holmes” stories written by Arthur Doyle. They have been making predictions on who he is and learning about why it was a popular and admired literature in the Victorian Era.

Year 8: Students have presented their poems about their experiences here in Robinvale to the class. They all did a fantastic job and should be proud of their efforts. They are now learning about a famous American author: Edga Allan Poe and the literature such as short stories and poems he came up with.

Maths

Year 7s have been introduced to some basic Algebraic concepts, involving calculations with variables and expanding brackets.

Health

Year 7: Understanding the Social & Emotional Changes during puberty and the factors that influence these things.

Year 8: Teamwork. Students identified the elements of high-performing teams and put these into practice through team challenges.

Humanities

Year 7s have completed and received feedback on their assignment on the tragic events of Black Saturday. They will continue to look at Natural disasters in the next topic: Cyclones, Hurricanes and Tornadoes.

Year 8s have completed and received feedback on their assignment on Deserts around the world and Australia. They will continue to look at natural landforms in the next topic: Mountains

Languages

Year 7/8s have completed and received their marks for their Language Speaking assignments. The preparation and effort that went into their work was very impressive. The students will continue their French lessons, with the next topic: Food and Drink.

STEM

Y7/8s have been working in groups over the last couple of weeks on their Renewable Community Project. This week and next, they will create prototype models of their ideas to help the local communities using renewable resources.

This week, we celebrated World Kindness Day at St Mary's.

World Kindness Day is celebrated every year on Nov. 13. It was launched by the World Kindness Movement in 1998, and it's about "celebrating good deeds in our communities because kindness is what unites us all

Our Secondary students created a Kindness Tree outside the library and eveeryone was invited to add a love heart to the tree, outling how we can show kindness.