St Mary's Newsletter

Term 1 - Week 8 (29 March, 2019)

Principal's Message

Dear St Mary's School Community

Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32

In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the Prodigal Son.  The Prodigal Son is about two vices – greed and envy.  The younger son greedily uses his inheritance while the older son rejects his brother out of envy.  During Lent, we are called to treat greed with generosity and envy with love.  We can do this by serving ourselves last, blessing those we envy and letting go of self-envy.

Year Six Camp

The Year Six students headed off to camp at Fairbridge bright and early on Tuesday morning.  On camp, the students participate in a range of activities that build leadership capacity, teamwork skills and encourage the children to step out of their comfort zones.  Immense thanks to Mrs Jillian McDonald for organising a wonderful camp and to Mr Doug McGinniss and Mr Dan Barnett for being parent helpers on the camp.  

Merredin Show

Please take time to visit the St Mary’s display at the Merredin Show on Saturday.  The students and teachers have all put a great amount of time and effort into the display.  

Code of Conduct

Conduct Statement 4: You conduct yourself in accordance with laws, agreements, policies and standards relevant to your relationship with the school community.  

For STAFF this includes but is not limited to: 

Notifying the Principal when socialising with students and families within the school community outside of school events 

Notifying the Principal when aware of a breach within school and ensure an appropriate response occurs 

Not allowing one-on one with children in enclosed environments 

Staff get authorisation for any spending over $50 for the school 

Notifying the Principal of any inappropriate use of school property  

For PARENTS this includes but is not limited to: 

Social media communication that is inappropriate about the school/teachers/students 

Inappropriate behaviour with children 

Notifying the Principal of any inappropriate use of school property 

Not sharing Apps for parents only (See Saw, Class DOJO) with other family members ie grandparents  

For STUDENTS this includes but is not limited to: 

No social media communication with staff members 

Inappropriate behaviour with other children including physical contact 

Notifying the Principal of any inappropriate use of school property  

For VISITORS/VOLUNTEERS this includes but is not limited to: 

Inappropriate behaviour with children 

Not being in one-on-one situations or on their own with children 

Healthy Food and Drink Policy

The St Mary’s Healthy Food and Drink Policy includes: 

Whole School Celebrations/Events and Religious Celebrations  

St Mary’s celebrates Easter, Christmas and Sacraments as special events on the religious calendar through assemblies, school masses and classroom lessons.  

Should children wish to share treats such as Easter eggs and candy canes with their friends, we ask that you support the Healthy Food and Drink Choice Policy and therefore share out of school time. Any whole school celebration which may involve a special treat will be limited and consumption carefully monitored by the staff.  

Literacy Collective PD

On Monday and Tuesday of next week, myself, Mrs Riethmuller, Mrs McDonald, Miss Walsh and Mrs Cooper will be attending the first two days of the Literacy Collective PD at CEWA.  Mrs Craine will be responsible for the school in our absence.

Pastoral Care

Congratulations to the Dean Family - Baillie (Y6), Savannah (Y4)  and Maya (Y2) on the arrival of a new baby daughter and sister Tully.

God Bless and have a lovely weekend with your families. 

Ms Adriana Coniglio

Principal

Other News & Important Dates

Tuckshop Menu

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Religious News

Mrs Hannah Herbert 

Religious Education Coordinator 

Class News

Year Three RE Corner

In Religious Education the Year Three class have been investigating communities. We are so lucky to live in such a wonderful community with so many great examples of people working together to help each other. We thought about our own school and church community and how Jesus is a part of these communities. 

Year Two Class News

This has been a busy term for the Year Two's with multiple special days and activities organised and celebrated. 

-Global Play Day which was a day of complete freedom for the children with very little intervention from the adults.  According to the children, we should be doing this all the time, it was the best day of school ever! 

-Chinese New Year and what the meaning behind the lion and dragon dances are.  We wrote down our wishes for the coming year and we even got to have a fortune cookie. 

-Valentine’s Day, we found out about St Valentine and we also looked at the LOVE sculpture made by Robert Indiana that stands in New York city.  We created our own 2D pieces using a similar format. 

-Water Play Day which was organised by Miss Piazzola for the Early Years classes.  We were lucky that the weather held out for this as we worked on our team building skills while getting wet. 

-Shrove Tuesday, we made pancakes together in preparation for the start of Lent. 

-Harmony Day which is the celebration of cultural diversity in Australia and we made a paper chain of people all wearing different cultural costumes and holding hands. 

Right now we are busy in class finalizing our art pieces that are for the Merredin Show.  Don’t forget to make time to check out our show board.

Music

This term in Music we have been busy getting to know the basics!

We are exploring Beat and Rhythm using our bodies, voices and instruments.

In all classes we always start off by warming up our voices by singing some favourite songs and then get moving with our movement songs. This not only helps warm us up but teaches us important musical and performance skills. 

So far we have focused on:

Pre-Primary- We have been learning about Pitch (high and low) and Dynamics (loud and soft). We have been doing lots of listening to stories and songs and involving ourselves with movement as well as body and instrument percussion.

Year One and Two- We have been learning about Beat and Rhythm patterns and have enjoyed learning through lots of songs and body percussion. We have also enjoyed exploring our rhythm patterns using instruments.

Year Three - Six - We have been learning about Beat and Rhythm patterns. We have explored this using songs, chants and instruments. We have been working in groups to create performances using instruments and body movement

Digital Technologies

We have new i-pads in the classrooms and a number of new Apps to try! 

The Year One and Two classes are learning about Scratch Junior and creating different scenes from Farming to Space. 

The Year Three class are exploring ways to represent data by using the Minecraft Education app to create a ‘space scenario’ with a number of different objects. 

The Year Four class are learning about how to collect and organise data by creating a Power-Point presentation about Erosion.  

The Year Five class are designing and creating digital information that incorporates a data visualisation by creating a game for another class using Hopscotch. 

The Year Six class have been researching about information systems and will look to investigate what is included in an ‘energy saving’ app.  

St Mary's Football Tipping

Round One - Sponsored by Sports Power Merredin

The 2018 St Mary's Football tipping is underway!  Thank you to everyone in the school community and beyond who has helped to sell or buy a registration. 

To the wonderful businesses in our community for your sponsorship for weekly round prizes we thank you. We are forever grateful for your loyalty towards our football tipping competition. 

Congratulations to Judy Jefferys and Mindarie Magpies for topping the round with six correct tips and a margin of 8pts.  

P & F News

St Mary's P&F Picture Plate Order Form

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Other News

Water Wise

Recycling water is very important for sustainable developments in the future.  

We produce Rhodes Grass hay at our Broome North Wastewater Treatment Plant as an environmentally friendly means of disposing of recycled water.  About 306 million liters of recycled water is used to irrigate Rhodes Grass each year, which is then processed into hay and sold for stock feed to local cattle stations. 

Proceeds made from the sale of the hay is being used to run the West Kimberley Community Grants Scheme.  The grants scheme is being delivered by Water Corporation and the Lions Club of Broome to support and empower people and communities in the West Kimberley.


Let Us Pray

Lord God,

teach us to turn greed to

generosity and envy to love. 

Amen.

St Mary's Parish Roster

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Community Notices