Mary Immaculate Primary Newsletter

Dear Parents/Carers,

Today’s ‘Advent Adventure’ went very well considering lots of our students were doing something very different. This is a testament to their resilience and capability as well as the great work of their teachers! Thanks also to the parents I spoke to this morning who all thought it was a great experience for the students to do something different.

As we lead up to Christmas through Advent this experience will be a useful element for teachers to draw on in reference to Mary and Joseph’s journey themselves to prepare for the birth of Christ. I will be travelling during the new year period to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage around the early life of Christ.

Not only did we relocate over half the school in a day but we also managed to complete some incredibly important and ground-breaking work around learning in the morning. One of our highly valued collaborators is Michael McDowell, Superintendent of the Ross School District, San Francisco, Author of Rigorous PBL, Lead Learner and Developing Expert Learners.

We met with Michael on Thursday and outlined to him our work for Friday. He was wildly impressed with our direction and what we already have in place for student learning. He actually wants us to continue to inform him of our progress as he is developing his new book for publication.

This is a tremendous place for our school to be in moving into 2020.

We take this opportunity to farewell some of our staff who will not be with us in 2020. Mrs Narelle Boatfield, Ms Monica Dann and Ms Loren Jackson will be moving on to new chapters in their professional lives. We thank them for their many years of service and the love and care they have shown our students. We wish them all the best.

Congratulations to Sr Marie on her retirement from Catholic Education in which she has held several positions over many years of service.

And last but not least, after a long history of serving schools in the Parramatta Diocese in roles such as Senior Finance Officer, Mrs Lorraine Ewer has decided to retire in 2020 and have a much deserved break!

With appreciation of your ongoing support,

Stephen Dowd, Principal

It has been a wonderful busy time in the library this term. Congratulations to all the students who returned their books on time and were able to borrow each week. Congratulations to KP who had everyone in the class bring their books back just about every week.

I would like to ask students now to have a look at home and see if there are any overdue books to return. Even if books are from earlier in the year it is important for them to be returned to the shelf so other students are able to borrow them.

Year 6 students are reminded that their Mary Immaculate library record is carried over to high school records so any overdue returns will remain on the system.

Thank you to everyone for your ongoing support.

Mrs Belcastro

Library

All school fees for 2019 should have been finalised by Wednesday, 20th November 2019 unless you are on an extended payment plan. If you are not on a payment plan, please make payment ASAP to avoid escalation to CEDP.

If you have any queries please contact Liz Padlan in the school office on 02 9933 7800 or via email: imac-qkhlfees@parra.catholic.edu.au.

Payments can be made via the internet using your BPay reference code or over the phone.

Thank you to all the families who have finalised their accounts.

PLEASE NOTE: Any outstanding amount in school fee accounts WILL NOT RECEIVE the Bpay or Direct Debit plans for 2020 fees.

Last day of trading for Term 4 will be Friday, 13th December 2019, 8:30am to 10:00am.

First day of trading for Term 1 will be Friday, 31st January 2020, 8:30am to 10:00am. 

Wednesday, 8th January 2020, 3:00pm to 4:30pm

Saturday, 18th January 2020, 12:00pm to 1:30pm

The Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday, 11th December 2019. An invitation is extended to all of the MIPS Parent Community to join the P&F Association and partake in this important meeting for the planning of 2020.

Clause 8.5.3: At each Annual General Meeting all positions shall be declared vacant. The members of the Association shall elect an Executive Committee as required by 5.1. The positions available will be:

The Parish Priest, the Principal or the Assistant Principal shall conduct each election and declare the result.

Regards, Maria Petridou - P&F Association President

Catherine McAuley Westmead is now accepting enrolments for Year 7 2021. The closing date for Year 7 2021 applications 1st round offers is Friday, 27th March 2020.

Parents and their daughters have the opportunity to tour the school campus at one of our upcoming school tours specifically for Year 7 2021 applicants, but open to any year group. 

Tuesday 12th November and Thursday 5th December 2019, 9:15am – 11:00am

These mornings will provide parents and students with the opportunity to tour our school on a normal school day. You will be able to view our school grounds and facilities, go into classrooms and meet our students and teachers. Enrolment packs will be available on the day.

Contact our School Reception on 9849 9100 to book a place on a school tour.

Please note that following these tours there will be no other school tours held until our Open Afternoon in early March 2020 (date still to be confirmed).

We are very lucky to have a playgroup right here at Mary Immaculate Primary School! Our playgroup caters for children from 0-6 years of age.

Playgroup is a FUN way for you and your children to meet others, share and learn through play in an ideal environment through spontaneous unstructured play.

Playgroup NSW Community Playgroups are run by families for families, which means that they reflect the needs of the families in the community hence there are no paid workers, allowing the Playgroups to represent the needs and philosophies of the attending families.

Spontaneous unstructured play is a very important part of a child’s development. It allows them to increase their problem solving skills, develop their language and social skills by modelling other children and adults, develop an understanding of size, shape and texture, develop their imagination which is very important for healthy brain development, and master skills that will help develop self-confidence and the ability to recover quickly from setbacks.

If you would like to come for a visit please see our contact details below. 

Information about Mary Immaculate Playgroup