St Mary's School Robinvale eNewsletter

Principal's Report

Dear Parents & Carers,

Thanks to everyone for your patience as we transitioned to our updated newsletter format. I hope you’ll agree it was worth the wait! A special thank you needs to go to Lisa Zappia for the huge amount of time and effort she put into setting up our Schoolzine template and, of course, her ongoing dedication to presenting us with an incredibly informative newsletter each fortnight!

Last Friday we celebrated Mothers Day. It was wonderful to see so many mothers, grandmothers and other special people in our student’s lives at school. We hope you all enjoyed the special morning tea and small gift you received. We also hope you were suitably spoilt on Sunday! Thank you for your support and we look forward to celebrating many more community events throughout the course of the year.

Our next community event will be during Catholic Education Week (23rd - 30th May). We will come together to celebrate with a whole school Mass in our gym at 9.30am on Thursday May 27th. We hope to see you there. We will share more information about Catholic Education Week as the date draws closer.

Please keep an eye out in the Robinvale Sentinel for information about our school and details about enrolments for next year. If you have been watching television lately you may also have noticed an advertisement showcasing the Catholic Schools in the Sunraysia area including our very own St Mary’s!

This week our Year 3, 5 and 7 students have undertaken NAPLAN tests after a break from them last year. Congratulations to all students and teachers involved, not only during the tests themselves but also the preparation and planning that needs to go into making them a success. Parents should be aware that we will not have access to results until much later this year, at least towards the end of term 3 and possibly not until term 4. While an important snapshot of your child’s learning please also remember that NAPLAN results are only one piece of information and cannot possibly represent everything your child can do. If you have any concerns about your child’s progress classroom teachers are always best placed to give you a clear picture of their strengths and challenges as learners.

This year’s candidates for the Sacrament of Confirmation continue their preparations for this important step in their faith journey. Please keep the candidates, their parents and those supporting them in your thoughts and prayers.

Kind regards,

Andrea Welsh - Principal

Religious Education

This week we began preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation in our Parish. We have many students participating in this sacrament with lessons commencing this week. Confirmation is about renewing your Baptisimal vows and becoming members of the Catholic Church.

This month we will celebrate Catholic Education Week. The theme is ‘Faith in the Future - Celebrating 200 years of Catholic Education’ from 23rd May. During this time we will celebrate our school’s Feast Day for Mary Help of Christians, on Thursday May 27th at 9:30am in the school gym, family and community members are welcome to attend.

Wellbeing

SWPBS Focus Week 4

Our SWPBS focus for week 4 is playing fairly in the yard. This means we follow the rules of the games we are playing, we take turns, share equipment and ensure there is no rough play.

SWPBS Focus Week 5

Next week our SWPBS behaviour blitz will focus on listening respectfully to those presenting.

Week_3_Term_2_SWPBS_winners.pdf

Primary School

Prep

In Reading, we have learnt the letter sounds ‘c’, ‘d’ and ‘h’ and how to correctly form each letter. We always love to meet a new friend for each letter we learn. Over the past two weeks we have met ‘Cody Camel’, ‘Danny Dingo’ and ‘Hannah Hippo’. The students are working really hard each day to read a variety of different three letter words. In Maths, we have been learning about what quantity is more or less and determining the order of lengths using different things around the classroom. Last Wednesday, we had a guest speaker along with his dog ‘Daisy Chain’ come to school to talk to the Prep students about what to do if an angry dog approaches them and how to ask an owner to pat their friendly dog.

Year 1/2

In Reading we have been looking at information texts. Students have worked hard on identifying parts of an information text such as titles, headings, photographs, contents and glossary pages. In Writing we have started using simple sentences to write our own information reports. Last week we wrote about our Mums for Mothers Day, this week we are creating information reports about ourselves.

We have also had great fun in our other subjects. We have visited the Church as a 1/2 unit where Mr Brouwers showed us what all the important things in there are. In Science we have continued exploring how we can bend and stretch different things. We had a visit from Daisy-Chain last week and learned about being a responsible pet owner.

We hope all our Mothers had a great Mothers Day last weekend!

Year 3/4

We ahve been focusing on both narrative and persvasive texts in Literacy this term. Our science topic this term is Forces and Motion and we are about to learn amazing facts from this unit. History is having us look at the First Fleet which has created some very interesting discussions of life in England during the 1700’s. Year 4’s have been looking at multiplication facts for 4 and 8, whilst Year 3’s have been focusing on addition and are now learning about units of time.

We are so very proud of all our Year 3’s as they sat their Naplan tests this week, with the Year 4’s cheering them on each day.

Year 5/6

In Reading and Writing this week, the 5/6 students have been learning about persuasive techniques for advertising. Students have enjoyed watching a number of television advertisements and viewing posters and analysing the various techniques that have been used. Students enjoyed the opportunity to create their own advertisement posters and apply these persuasive techniques. In Science, students have continued to learn more about earthquakes and what causes them. This week, the focus was on tectonic plates and students were able to create their own ‘plates’ with plasticine. In Humanities, students have enjoyed learning about early Australian history. The Year 5 students are to be commended for their efforts and application to NAPLAN this week, well done!

Art

The Art room is busy as usual with some excellent work being created. The 1/2 students have been understanding about realism in art and what that means. They have been drawing trees as their realistic topic. They are finishing up their landscapes with their beautiful trees in the foreground.

The 3/4 students are looking at ways to use symbols to help tell a story. Their story focus is around celebrating multicultural Robinvale. They will use patterns and different ideas in a silhouette style (black and white) to design a panel for a light cube that is going to become a feature of the Community Centre at the river. This is a very exciting project.

The 5/6 students have begun to explore different joining techniques using cardboard. They were very successful last week joining cardboard to make an animal. This week their challenge will be to make a treehouse using new joining techniques.

Secondary School

Year 7/8

The students are looking forward to their excursion to Kings Billabong next Tuesday May 18th. Stuents will need to be at school by 7.45am and will returned at 4.00pm.

English

The year 7 students completed NAPLAN testing this week. They have worked hard to hone their knowledge, skills and strategies so they could complete the tests to the best of their ability.

Year 8 students have been challenged by having to use persuasive writing techniques in either a news report or a narrative. There have been some interesting narratives and news reports written.

Maths

Students are continuing to work on their Maths Pathways modules and will be undertaking some online testing over the next week. The focus of Maths this term is Algebra so we will be working through our online modules related to this topic as well as in class activities.

Technology

Students will begin designing their virtual house using Google slides over the next two weeks. They will be focusing on using the different editing and drawing tools as part of this task.

Art

Students have begun working on a paper mache sculpture. They will be making a model of an ANZAC soldier.

Community Liaison Officer

Hi everyone,

I would like to take the time to introduce myself.

My name is Tee. I have been appointed to the new and exciting role of the Community Liaison Officer based across both sites of St Mary’s School and Robinvale College.

I was born and raised in Mildura before moving to Melbourne to complete my Degree in Youth Work. For the past 9 years I have worked in a Flexible Learning Centre as a Senior Wellbeing officer, working with young people from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds who are disengaged from mainstream education.

In the role as the Community Liaison Officer I will be a link between school and EAL families, specifically Pacific Islander families within the Robinvale, Euston and broader community. It is my aim this year to improve communication and relationships between school and families.

I will plan and facilitate community and school based activities, including during lunch and after school time. I consider myself flexible, adaptable and open to any suggestions you may have.

You will find me at St Mary’s on Monday and Tuesday’s and at Robinvale College Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Feel free to come say hi!

I look forward to meeting everyone.

Tehan Kelleher (Tee)
Community Liaison Officer

Book Fair

The Book Fair will be running next week in the Library from Monday 17th - Wednesday 19th May.

Classes will visit the Library on Monday to write their wish lists.

Library will be open for purchases Tuesday and Wednesday - before school, recess, lunch and after school until 4.00pm.

Parents are welcome to come in the selected times above.

Yard Supervision

Morning

Yard supervision starts at 8.22am (no student should be at school before this time)
Classrooms open at 8.32am
Classes start at 8.42am (any student who arrival after this time must sign in at the office)

Afternoon