Term 4 /Week 4 | 25th October 2023

Principal - Mrs Katrina Dunne

Welcome to Week 4 everyone! We are on the downhill run for 2023 with an exciting 6 weeks ahead. Please be sure to check your Term 4 calendar and our weekly Portal posts to support your engagement with the exciting end to our year.

School Fees – Fee Relief and 2023 accounts

The school has been granted Choice and Affordability funding from the Australian Government through Toowoomba Catholic Schools Office. These funds will be used to offer families with up-to-date fee accounts a $200 fee relief for each child enrolled at the school. This relief credit will be applied on Monday next week. Term 4 fees are due on Tuesday 31^st October.  

Courtney Witts (School Support Accountant) and I are drafting our 2024 budget this week. Part of this process is projecting our income generated through school fees. This income is relied upon to not only ensure we can pay our bills, but to fund much needed resources to accompany student learning and to keep abreast of ongoing maintenance throughout the school. If you have outstanding fees, or have not paid any money recently, I urgently request that you attend to this at your earliest convenience.

Dress and Appearance

Students have been reminded of our school expectations in relation to uniform and appearance at St Mary’s School. The school uniform is important to us and there is a need for it to be worn well. It is a symbol of who we are as a school and of the values we hold dear. For students, we ask that they respect the uniform, wear it correctly and with pride. We ask for the cooperation of all families in this endeavour. Please ensure that your child has tidy hair that is also combed/brushed daily. Girls are required to have their hair pulled back with natural-coloured (or navy) hair ties/scrunchies and boys to have tidy haircuts (conservative style - no mullets or mohawks).

School Hats

Students require a navy school hat each day. If you require a new school hat, please contact our uniform coordinator, Melissa Jones 0427 547 101 to arrange a new hat. St Mary’s hats are $15 each.

Student Leadership 2024

This week, I will meet with the Year 5 students to discuss the criteria for their leadership speeches as they look to become school leaders in 2024. The speeches are an important part of the selection process; however, students have been developing a resume for quite some time. This resume can be seen in how they conduct themselves in and out of school. This term, Year 5 students will participate in a leadership program and are required to attend all sessions with Ms Halliday and myself with the conclusion of the program consisting of speeches and a voting process. The 2024 Student Leaders will be announced at the End of Year Liturgy on 30^th November. 

Mini Mary’s for 2024 Prep Students

On Thursday there will be much excitement coming from the Prep classroom as our pre-prep transition program, ‘Mini Mary’s’, commences. The pre-prep children and their families will be provided with opportunities to become familiar with the prep classroom and school surroundings. The program runs for the next three weeks on Thursday mornings from 9:00 – 10:30am with Mrs McPhee and Mrs Csatlos. A parent information session will be held in the library this Thursday 26^th October commencing at 9:15am. All 2024 Prep parents are encouraged to attend this informative session.

Twilight Swimming Carnival

Once again this year, we are holding our annual swimming carnival as a twilight event. This will be held on Friday, 24^th November. On this day students are to be collected from school at 12noon to meet back at the pool at 3:45pm for a 4:00pm start. The carnival is scheduled to finish at 7:00pm. This twilight event allows us to escape the heat of the day and is a great opportunity for the whole family to come along. Dinner will be available to purchase at this event. This will be co-ordinated by the P & F and parent volunteers.

2024 Enrolment and Class Planning

Class arrangements and planning for 2024 is underway. If you know that you will not be returning to St Mary’s in 2024, please let Loretta or Deidre (at the school office) know at your earliest convenience. The number of class teachers and the year level class model is directly linked to the number of students in the school. The class structure and teaching staff will be announced, once finalised, closer to the end of term.

Your ongoing support of our school is greatly appreciated and should you know of friends, relatives or work colleagues who are considering schooling options for 2024, I ask you to encourage them to consider St Mary’s School. Should you or they require any further information regarding enrolment at St Mary’s, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I am always happy to meet with people to talk about what St Mary’s has to offer. At any stage, prospective families are more than welcome to come along, tour the school and see firsthand the calm classroom environments conducive to learning.

Upcoming dates and events

Student Free Day and Modified School Days for Term 4

We have three days that are impacted for students this term. Please take note of these days and mark them on your calendar.

• Tuesday 7^th November is a half day holiday for the Melbourne Cup Shire/Bank Holiday. St Mary’s School will close at midday.
• Friday 24^th November is a split school day for the twilight swimming carnival. St Mary’s School will close at midday and recommence from 3:45pm for a 4:00pm start at the local pool.
• Friday 1^st December is a pupil free day (travel day).

World Teachers’ Day – Friday 27^th October

World Teachers’ Day provides us with an opportunity to thank our teachers for the significant contribution they have had in the life of our students this year. I take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge the passion and dedication given each day at St Mary’s School and thank all our teachers for the work they do each and every day.  

Have a fabulous fortnight.

Cheers

Katrina

APRE - Mrs Kirsty Lines

Grandparents Liturgy

Thank you to all who made our Grandparents liturgy and visit so special.  It was so exciting for the students to sit with the special people in their families and show them our beautiful school.  Thank you to Fr Peter for leading us in prayer and our wonderful Yr 5 students for helping to lead the liturgy with Fr Peter.  Please enjoy photos below.

Official Blessing and Opening of refurbished buildings

We are so excited to welcome Bishop Ken, Dr Pat Coughlan and the Coorey family to St Mary’s on Friday for our official blessing and opening of our refurbished buildings.  Everyone is welcome at 9am, at the Cobb n Co, for the blessing, opening and morning tea afterwards.  Mr Michael Ward, our former Principal, will also make a special visit back to St Mary’s.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year

I will take long service leave from Friday, November 3^rd.  A big thank you for all the support in 2023 & looking forward an even better 2024!  Special thanks goes to Katrina, our leadership team of Ness and Belinda, and our amazing teaching staff, all of whom live out the Mercy Values here at St Mary’s everyday and make it the special place it is!  Have a blessed and happy Christmas and New Year. 

Curriculum - Mrs Vanessa Alexander

This year’s swimming lessons and annual swimming carnival will be held at the Charleville Swimming Pool. All students will have the opportunity to compete in the events at the pool on 24^th November 2023 (Twilight Carnival 4pm – 7pm). To ensure students are successful for the carnival, water safety lessons will be occurring on Tuesday and Wednesday from Week 4 (24/25 October to Week 8 (21/22 November). This will be a total of 5 lessons for each class.

Swimming Lesson Activity Details:

Students will travel on the school bus to the pool, where they will participate in a swimming lesson once a week during their timetabled Physical Education class, as per the table below.  To utilise the full swimming session time allocation, students will change into their swimming attire at school, prior to leaving to the pool. Students will change back into their uniform upon their return from the pool. For your child to participate in both activities, permission must be provided via Sentral. Please complete the permission no later than October 20^th, 2023.

*Tuesday 7^th November

Students swimming on Tuesday 7^th November (Charleville Cup Half Day Holiday) will complete their lessons at the following times:

Year 2: 8:30am (come dressed in swimmers)

Prep: 9:30am (come dressed in swimmers)

Year 1: 11:00am – 12:00pm.

Parent Volunteers

We would love to have parents support our students both in and out of the pool. Please indicate if you can help at our lessons this term by returning the form at the bottom to the school office or sending a photo message to your class teacher.

Swimming Carnival Activity Details:

Further details relating to the swimming carnival will be sent out in Term 4 via Sentral.

For more information on the carnival or swimming lessons, please contact Vanessa Alexander at the school on 4654 1638.

Kind regards,

Vanessa Alexander

ML: Curriculum

Library - Mrs Michelle Sheehan

Some lunch time in the library snaps.

Students in Year 1 have been spending their library lessons checking, writing, and testing algorithms with the Bee Bots.

This term our Year 3 students have been busy learning and completing problem solving activities with the Ozobots.

Students in Year 4, 5 and 6 enjoyed listening and interacting with our virtual author Sami Bayly and were also lucky enough to complete two fun drawing tasks under her guidance.

A big thank you to Ange Stirton, Ash Pezet, Sally Gordon, Row Winks, Jo Mahony and Aimee Thompson for being part of our Book Fair sales team.

Book Fair sales totalled $4752.00. With the revenue raised we purchased books for the library, transferred dollars into rewards points for future purchases, and retained some cash to utilise on library improvements.

Thank you to all families who supported Book Fair.

Prep News - Miss Imogen Hunt

WOW!! What a massive start to term 4!

As we embark on our last 6 weeks of Prep we are faced with lots of fun learning challenges, and I am excited to see the growth over this time.

To kick off our term, Prep started off with a bang. Students were keen to get back into learning and especially daily writing. It was fabulous to see students engage independently and give their learning a go. For this amazing effort students earned a whole class student of the week.

In week 2, we began our deadly choices lesson where we looked at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags and the meaning of the colours. I am excited to see who won the colouring competition. Additionally we got a visit from ‘Life Ed’ which focused on the values we should look for in friends. We got to help ‘Healthy Harold’ make some good choices with food and friends as well.

Week 3 was filled with lots of fun things as well. We started off our week with flipside circus and students came back to class beaming with excitement. They got to learn all different tricks and skills and it was wonderful to see students try something for the first time.

We have been busy learning about measurement of different objects as well as 3D shapes in maths over the past few weeks. Students have enjoyed playing with the playdough and building different shapes.

In week 3 we engaged in Day for Daniel – walk around the school, learning a big safety lesson and to finish off the day participated in a splash and dash event.

Another big event that happened was our Grandparents Day which was a huge success. It was so fabulous to see families come and acknowledge the hard work of our grandparents. I know it was a highlight for kids to be able to have their special person come and visit their classroom.

Please see an overview of what students will be learning this term

There are still many fun and exciting events to come for this term. Here are some key dates to keep in mind

• Swimming lesson commence this week
• World Teacher’s Day – Friday 27^th October
• Opening Mass – Friday 27^th October
• Melbourne Cup: school finishes at 12 – Tuesday 7^th November
• Awards night – Wednesday 15^th November
• Swimming Carnival – Friday 24^th November

Year 1 News - Mrs Bernie McPhee

The year has gone so fast! I can’t believe we have only 6 weeks left. This term is already proving to be a busy one. Just a quick photo drop of some of the groups from St Mary’s Got Talent, from last term. I was so proud of all the Year 1 students who were confident enough to get up and have a go!

In week 2 we had a visit from the Life Education program and Healthy Harrold. Students learnt about making healthy food choices and how these choices help our bodies. They explored the way we feel when we are nervous about doing new things and what we can do to help ourselves feel better.

This term we are very fortunate to have the Deadly Choices team in every week. This program aims at encouraging students to embrace Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and develop an understanding of their culture. The students are loving the team that visits them each week.

How exciting to have the Flipside Circus come and visit our school. Students were very excited to be learning different circus skills. Unfortunately, Mrs McPhee didn’t get to go, so there were no photos.

The heat has really picked up over the last few weeks, so Day for Daniel Splash and Dash was a great way to have some fun and cool off. Students got to try out a slip and slide, run through the sprinklers, play water games and use water guns to create pictures. Lots of fun was had by all.

What a wonderful way to end week 3, with the Grandparents Day. So many lovely grandparents, parents, relatives and special friends came along. In Year 1 we got to decorate cupcakes and colour in special pictures with our special guests. Thank you for coming and making our day so special.

Year Two News - Miss Holly Price

What a busy start to the last term of the year! Students have engaged in a variety of extra-curricular activities – Thank you Ms Dunne for organising this!
We have been loving our weekly Deadly Choices lessons and our Life Education visit. I have attached some photos below of our gymnastics lessons with Flipside Circus – learning new skills!

We recognised Day for Daniel early due to a very busy term; the proper day of awareness is Friday 27^th October. At school, we will continue to do some child safety activities in association with this.

Term 4 Overview

I have outlined the topics for each learning area below:

English: Fact vs Fiction – generating information reports about St. Mary’s. 

Math: revision

• 2D shapes
• 3D shapes
• Patterns (repeated and growing)
• Mass and capacity
• Slides and turns

Religion: Catherine McAuley – Justice.
Jesus’ covenant with the Jewish people.

HASS: History – our town and significant sites.

Science: forces of push and pull in our everyday lives. We will be working towards making a Rube Goldberg machine.

Technology: Microsoft word – creating brochures.

PE:

Week 3 – gymnastics.

Week 4-8 – swimming.

Date Claimers

OSHC News

Outside School Hours Care service will close on Wednesday 20 December 2023 and reopen on Tuesday 23 January 2024. Parents wanting to enrol their children for 2024, to start on Tuesday 23 January, will need to enrol prior to 15 January. 

For enrolment enquiries email enquiries@tckc.qld.edu.au

Enrolment phone contact details: 0436 381 304

Website: www.tckc.qld.edu.au

October Birthdays

P & F News

Term 4 P & F Meeting | Monday at 3:00 pm | Week 4 and Week 8

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