St Mary's Newsletter

We value others, their property, the environment and ourselves.

In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus says: ‘My sheep listen to my voice.  I know them and they follow me.  I have given them life forever and they will never be lost.’  The image of the shepherd was a powerful one for the Jewish people.  The shepherd in Jesus’ time knew each sheep and when the sheep needed to be moved, he would lead them from in front and they would follow.  The shepherd would even sleep with them to protect them during the night.  God's love, like a mother's love - knows no bounds.

Traditionally the Church each month has a special devotional focus. May and October are thought of as Marian months, where we spend extra time in prayer and strengthening our relationship with Jesus through Our Lady. One of our most beloved and often recited devotional prayers is the Hail Mary.

Hail Mary, full of grace.

The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

The Hail Mary is the most familiar of all the prayers used by the Catholic Church in honour of our Blessed Lady. It is commonly described as consisting of three parts.

The first, "Hail (Mary) full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women", embodies the words used by the Angel Gabriel in saluting the Blessed Virgin (Luke, I, 28).

The second, "and blessed is the fruit of thy womb (Jesus)", is borrowed from the Divinely inspired greeting of St. Elizabeth (Luke 1:42).

Finally, the petition "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen

Mother’s Day is a special day for all our mothers, grandmothers and mother figures in our community. Each year we pause to think about our mothers and those who have shaped our lives.  This morning we celebrated all the mothers, grandmothers and mother figures in the St Mary's School community with a Liturgy and morning tea.  It was fantastic to see so many of our special ladies in attendance.  Thank you to our Year Six leaders who led the Liturgy, to Mrs O'Malley and Mrs Riethmuller for all their organisation and to Fr Andrew for coming to give the ladies a special blessing ahead of the weekend.  We wish all our mums a fabulous day on Sunday and hope that you get treated like royalty - as you deserve.

The children in Years Three and Five will participate in the NAPLAN Assessments next week. Whilst these are important assessments, it is prudent to remember that they are each only one test on one particular day and they need to be considered in the context of all of the assessments that the teachers are regularly conducting throughout the year.  At St Mary's, the assessments will be held on the following days (for both Year Three and Year Five):

Tuesday, 10 May:  Writing

Wednesday, 11 May: Reading

Thursday, 12 May: Conventions of Language

Monday, 16 May:  Numeracy

Catch up:  Friday, 13 May and Thursday, 19 May

Please find attached an outline from CEWA in relation to the new Baseline Settings.  If you have any questions or require clarification in relation to these settings please contact me directly via email.

I received a lovely letter from two of our Year Four students, Greta and Caitlyn, prior to the end of Term One in regard to fundraising to save the koalas.  The girls were moved to take action after watching a video in a HASS lesson.   In the letter, the girls proposed to have a free dress day to help with fundraising.  This day will be on Wednesday, 25 May.  The girls have shared a short presentation, with each class, outlining the reasons for the free dress day and have created posters for each classroom.  I am sure that you will join me in applauding Greta and Caitlyn's sense of the stewardship and initiative.  

We offer our condolences to the Davis Family (Oscar - 6, Celia - 3 and Isabel - K) on the passing of their great-grandmother and grandmother Ellen Caulfield.  We also offer our sympathies to the Crees Family (Zac - 4, Mia - 3, Halle - PP and Kate - PE) on the passing of their nana and great-nana Ethel Roberts.

As a community, we also offer our sincerest condolences to the Kerse family on the death of their son, Elijah.  Elijah was a past student of St Mary's School and is fondly remembered by all those who knew him.  May Elijah rest in peace.

God Bless and have a lovely weekend with your families.

Ms Adriana Coniglio

Principal

Our Pre-Kindy class is getting bigger!  It is so exciting to see the children settling into the routines and transitions of school. We are making great friendships and love exploring the new resources set up in the Kindy room. 

Each week we have the opportunity to engage in arts and crafts, play outside in the big yard, learn new songs and dance like no one is watching! 

We are very happy to invite parents back into our room to complete morning activities with the children and see for themselves how much they have grown up over the last term.

After spending two weeks with family and friends over the Easter holidays the Kindy children were very eager to get back to school and start learning! 

In Maths, we have been exploring numbers to 5 and 2D shapes. The children are loving the opportunity to practise their number tracing using the Ipads. Our shape pizza's were also a huge hit, it was great to get our hands dirty and explore different arts and crafts.

The children have made excellent progress in Literacy. We are confidently able to recognise syllables in words and we are starting to introduce letter sounds. Everyone has been loving the felt boards, we create our own stories from the pictures which has been fantastic for our oral language development.

In Religious Education we are learning all about families, the family tree in our classroom has been a great starting point. We have learnt that every family is unique and different! 

At the beginning of term we spoke about Anzac Day, we made our very own Anzac biscuits after reading the story 'Lest we forget' - they were delicious.

Merredin: Saturday 6.30pm & Sunday 10.30am

Kellerberrin: Sunday 8.00am

Round 8 sponsors are 2 Dogs Merredin. Don’t forget to get your tips in before bouncedown Friday 5.30pm!