Term 4 Week 4 | 29 October 2025

A Prayer of Gratitude for Teachers

Principal - Ms Megan Pearce

Dear St Mary’s families and friends,

This Friday we celebrate World Teachers’ Day. This is a special chance to recognise the incredible work of our teachers here at St Mary’s Charleville.

Each day, our teachers bring our motto “Learning through Loving and Living” to life. They do so much more than teach lessons. They nurture hearts, build confidence, spark curiosity, and guide our children to be their best selves.

In a small community like ours, teaching takes real dedication. Our staff know every child by name, go the extra mile to help families, and create classrooms filled with kindness, structure, and high expectations.

To our wonderful teachers, thank you! Thank you for your care, your creativity, your patience, and the countless unseen moments that make a difference every single day. You are the heart of St Mary’s.

I invite families to join me in saying a simple thank you this week. A note, a smile, or a few kind words. Together, let’s celebrate the people who make learning such a joyful, hope-filled experience for our children.

With gratitude,

Megan Pearce

APMI - Miss Imogen Hunt

Celebrating Excellence with a Mercy Mindset

In Week 2, our Year 6 students led a beautiful and reflective prayer celebration centred on the theme of excellence. Drawing inspiration from our Mercy mindsets, they challenged us with the powerful idea of ‘doing ordinary things extraordinarily well’. Their leadership and thoughtful preparation reminded us that excellence isn’t always about grand gestures—it’s often found in the quiet commitment to kindness, service, and doing our best in everyday moments.

Year 5 & 6 Camp: Leadership in Action

Last week, our Year 5 and 6 students attended camp, and it was truly heartwarming to witness their leadership shine. Whether it was through teamwork, encouragement, or stepping up to support one another, our students embodied the values we nurture every day. Their actions reflected the spirit of Catherine McAuley and the strength of character we strive to cultivate in our community.

Looking Ahead: Year 4 Prayer Celebration

This week, we look forward to our Year 4 Prayer Celebration, which will focus on the theme of gratitude for our wonderful teachers. It’s a special opportunity to honour the dedication, care, and inspiration our teachers bring to our school community each day. We’re keen to seen how our Year 4 students lead us in prayer.

Prayer for our Teachers – World Teachers' Day

                                                                       Almighty God,                                                                                                                              We come to you today and give thanks for all our teachers.                                                                      Thank you for the way in which they give of themselves each day in the classroom,                                                  serving and instructing the next generation of this land.                                                                                                                  We thank you for them all now.                                                                                                      God, please fill their hearts with courage now by your mighty Spirit.                                                   Fill them with your strength, so they may rise to every challenge and not grow weary.                                                                             Fill them with your wisdom,                                                                                         so that they may be able to make good judgment when guiding and helping others.                                          Fill them with your peace, so that when stress and anxiety comes it would not overwhelm them.                                                                        Fill them with your joy,                                                                                            so that the passion they have for their subject may become an infectious passion that spreads. Amen

Learning Support - Mrs Majella Lynch-Harlow

ST MARY’S AHEAD OF THE CURVE: SUPPORTING LITERACY WITH DIBELS

This week, I thought that I would share what is happening with DIBELS at our school and soon across other Toowoomba Catholic Schools.

At St Mary’s School, we want every child to become a confident and capable reader. That’s why we’ve embraced DIBELS—a research-based literacy screening tool—throughout 2025, ahead of its official rollout across all Toowoomba Catholic Schools in 2026. This screening tool will also be rolled out across Queensland State Schools.  

What is DIBELS?

DIBELS stands for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. It’s a set of short, simple checks that help teachers understand how students are developing key reading skills. These include:

• Hearing and working with sounds in words (phonemic awareness)
• Matching sounds to letters (phonics)
• Reading smoothly and accurately (fluency)
• Understanding what they read (comprehension)

Each check takes about one minute, so students spend very little time away from learning.

Why do we use DIBELS?

DIBELS acts like a quick health check for reading. It helps teachers spot early signs that a child might be at risk for reading difficulties and needs extra support. This means we can respond quickly and give the right help at the right time. We use the results to plan teaching adjustments and intervention strategies. When we repeat the DIBELS screener during the year, we can check progress and monitor whether teaching strategies are working.

How does it affect your child?

DIBELS is done three times a year—at the beginning, middle, and end—to track growth. If a child needs extra help, teachers may check progress more often to make sure interventions are working. These checks are short and don’t take away from classroom learning.

Does this affect report card grades?

No. DIBELS does not count toward your child’s A–E grade in English. It is a universal screener used to guide teaching and support learning. Academic grades come from summative assessments.  These are tasks completed at the end of a unit or term that measure how well students meet the Achievement Standard for their year level. These tasks are marked using clear criteria.

Moving forward into 2026

While DIBELS will be introduced across the Toowoomba Diocese next year, St Mary’s has already been using it to identify student needs, monitor progress, and celebrate growth. It has been my absolute pleasure to listen to every student’s reading this year and I look forward to supporting our teachers as they learn to conduct the screeners themselves next year. All teachers will have comprehensive training and will be supported in how to interpret the data.

Please let me know if you would like to know more about DIBELS and how it tracks your child’s reading progress.

God bless,

Majella

Mini Mary's Prep Transition Program

Our Mini Mary's friends have had lots of fun learning at big school over the last two Fridays! They are enjoying the introduction to our school and are experiencing both explicit teaching and playful learning.

For their first visit, we read “Going on a Bear Hunt”, learned about the sounds b and m, counted syllables and described the position of our bodies (over, under, through).  We explored our obstacle course – there was water, swishy grass, mud and a cave just like the book! We went on a bear hunt around the school with our parents and Year 6 friends – finding tiny teddies and a cuddly bear for us each to keep on the way. At the end of the scavenger hunt we celebrated with a delicious picnic.

For the second morning, we read "Wombat Stew", acted out the story, found the rhyming words and counted the syllables in animal names.  Our letters of the day were Ss (stew), Mm (mud) and Bb (bugs). We then made our own wombat stew - carefully counting the ingredients. We played with our cloud dough "mud", went on a bug hunt through the obstacle course and made mixtures in our mud kitchen.  

We look forward to our next Mini-Mary's morning next Friday at 8:30am for more fun!

Life Education

Thank You, Life Education!
A big thank you to the Life Education team for visiting St Mary’s last week. Our Prep to Year 4 students loved meeting Ms Jay-Jay and her friend Healthy Harold the giraffe! They learned so much about staying healthy and safe in fun and interactive ways. We appreciate the important messages you shared and the joy you brought to our classrooms.

Library - Mrs Vanessa Alexander

Library News – Getting ready for the end of the year!

As we approach the end of the school year, it’s time to start searching for any school library books that might be lurking somewhere in your house. We’d love to have as many books back as possible before the holidays begin in a months’ time, so please check bags, bookshelves, and under beds for any titles that need to come home to the library!

Book Fair This Week!

Don’t miss our exciting Book Fair happening this week! We’re open:

• Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday
  8:00am – 9:00am and 2:30pm – 3:30pm
• Late Night Shopping Thursday
  5:00pm – 6:00pm

It’s a great chance to stock up on holiday reads or find the perfect gift for a book lover.

Cooking Craze!

Cooking books have been flying off the shelves lately! If you’ve been whipping up delicious creations with your kids at home, we’d love to see them. Send us a photo of your culinary adventures and we’ll proudly display them in the library to help promote these popular titles. Email to Vanessa.Alexander@twb.catholic.edu.au.

Thank you for your support throughout the year – happy reading (and happy cooking)!

Vanessa & Alice

St Mary’s Library

HPE - Ms Susan McInnes

Hi St Mary’s Families,

Wow—Term 4 is flying by! In PE, our students have been exploring how they can manipulate their body movements through a variety of exciting activities.

To kick off the term, we were lucky to welcome a special guest, my talented niece who generously gave up some of her holiday time to run a gymnastics and acrobatics workshop. Students were thrilled to spring across the acro mat, stretch in all directions, and even try backwards barrel rolls! It was wonderful to see everyone giving it a go and enjoying something new in PE.

We’ve also been focusing on volleyball skills, using a range of different balls to help students learn and refine their techniques. If only we had some beach sand to complete the experience!

Coming up this term, we’ll be diving into our 7-day swimming block. Information notes have already gone home—please check your child’s swimming schedule and make sure they bring everything they need for a fun and safe time in the pool.

Enjoy the rest of Term 4!

Yours in PE,
Ms Mac

Blue Card Update

New Blue Card rules for parent volunteers – an important update

From 20 September 2025, some parent volunteers will now need a Blue Card depending on the type of activity they’re helping with at school. In cases where a Blue Card is required, you will need to show your Blue Card to us prior to volunteering so that we can link it to the school.

When a Blue Card is NOT needed.

• If you're helping only in your own child’s classroom e.g. reading groups, you don’t need a Blue Card.

When a Blue Card IS needed.

1.  Helping with children other than your own e.g. assisting in the library or other classrooms.
2.  Attending overnight camps or excursions, even if your own child is going, you must have a Blue Card.
3.  Activities involving close personal contact with other children e.g. helping with toileting, assisting young children to change clothing at swimming lessons, volunteering in the uniform shop where close contact may occur.
4.  If you are a restricted person. A restricted person is a person who either

•  has been issued a negative notice
•  has a suspended Blue Card
•  is a disqualified person
•  has been charged with a disqualifying offence that has not been finalised, or
•  is the subject of an adverse interstate Working with Children Check decision that is in effect.

If you have any questions, please contact Ms Megan Pearce, our school principal.

Year 3 - Miss Katherine Spalding

Term 4! Off to a busy start.

I would like to take a moment to say a huge thank you for our local council members who volunteered their time to hear our persuasive presentations at the end of last term. The students formally presented their ideas on a new tourist attraction.

Last week, we welcomed Healthy Harold from the Life Education van. With Harold’s help, we explored what it means to be a good friend. We learnt that sometimes our friends may be upset due to other reasons, and it’s important to have supportive conversations to help them feel heard and understood.

Thank you to everyone who attended and supported our Prayer Assembly. We hope you enjoyed our presentation on how the Prophets of the Old Testament foretold that Jesus would be the Messiah.

It has been lovely watching all the students prepare for St Mary’s Got Talent. The finals will be on Friday 31^st October at 2:00pm in the Performing Arts Hall. All are welcome to come and watch the fabulous show.

On a personal note, I have shared with the students that next year I will be travelling and working. While I am very sad to be missing out on all the fun that happens at St Mary’s next year, I am looking forward to the adventures ahead.

 Busy term ahead! Please see the Year 3 Term 4 outline with all our learning and events that are to come! 😊

Year 4 - Mrs Madison Flaherty

Hello to our Year Four families,

Welcome to Term 4!! My oh my those first three terms have flown by. Time flies when you’re having fun!!

So far this term in English, students have continued to develop their skills in narrative writing. They have explored the structure, audience, and language features of narrative texts in depth.
In Mathematics, students have completed their unit on Time and have now moved on to Area and Perimeter. They have also used ICT tools to consolidate their understanding of these concepts.

In Science, students have investigated weathering and erosion, while in HASS they have conducted experiments to explore the vital role soil plays in our lives.
In Religion, students have focused on the Mercy Value of Excellence, reflecting on how it relates to their own lives and the work of Catherine McAuley. They have also engaged in prayer using mandalas.

We’re looking forward to a fantastic rest of the term, continuing to strengthen our learning and build on our skills. Wishing you all a wonderful remainder of the term!

Warmest regards,

Mrs Madisen Flaherty

Year 5 - Mrs Kirsty Lines

Year 5 – Camp Highlights!!!

Rowdy – body boarding

Ada – body boarding

Clara – mid ropes

Mitch - body boarding

She’Neil – body boarding

Ari – body boarding

Rosie – body boarding

Mariah - body boarding

Lacy - body boarding

Grace - body boarding

Josh – rock climbing

Remi - body boarding

Ava - body boarding

Lucas – rock climbing

Hope - body boarding

Sophie – pool games

Mia – mud pit

Monty - body boarding

Sllim – rock climbing

Georgia - body boarding

Elliott – archery tag

Patty - body boarding

Lane – cattle chasing at home!

Year 6 - Miss Toni Lamb

Year 6 have once again been flat out like a lizard drinking water! Whether it be leadership jobs, setting up for events or getting ready for school camp; it really has all been happening for year 6 this term!

The first Friday back we were lucky enough to celebrate grandparents for the morning and perform a poem just for them! The kids spoke beautifully and made me, and many others, proud as they always do! Year 6 also had their fabulous prayer assembly where their light truly did shine and also helped parents and new little Mini Mary’s around the school on their first visit!

Students attended the first High School Transition Day and thoroughly enjoyed all of the new activities, learnings and teachers.

In the lead up to camp there was lots of excitement and discussions being had, and after the week away, I can well and truly say it was a fun, exciting, jam packed and tiring week to say the least. All the students were wonderful and gave new and different activities their best go. I couldn’t have been prouder of their teamwork, efforts, behaviour and respect that all students showcased throughout the week.

As we dive back into learning we are looking at creative writing in English and the language and devices we can use to improve our work to add more description to our writing. In maths we are looking at the ‘number’ strand. Science is all about Earth and Space Sciences and in HASS we are looking at all things Australian Government and Policies.

The next exciting thing on our year 6 calendar is GRADUATION!!! How fast the year has flown, it blows my mind! The kids are so excited about designing and working together to create a magical and wonderful Graduation!

Wishing you all a fabulous rest of term 4,

Year 6 & Miss Lamb 😊

Year 6 Graduation Fundraising

Zooper Doopers will be available to purchase at 2nd break this Friday 31 October. No need to pre-order. Just rock up to the tuckshop with your $1 coin.

Uniform Shop

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