St Mary's Primary School Swan Hill eNewsletter

Principal's Message

Dear Parents and Families,

Welcome back one and all! We hope you all enjoyed the holidays and are back rested and ready for another exciting term of learning. New to our school this term are Matilda Quigley, Joann and Henco Van Der Westhuizen and Nilakshi Ratnayaka. We hope these students quickly settle into life at St Mary's and we look forward to getting to know them and their families.

There's been lots of work behind the scenes with new storage built in the gym foyer for our OSHC program, technology upgrades, water pipes being moved and outdoor clean ups all occurring while it was nice and quiet on site.

School Review Preparations
The preparations for our External School Review scheduled from August 16-17 are almost complete.
We began the groundwork for the review in Term 3 last year with members of staff, students and parents completing the School Improvement Survey that measured the organisational health of the school. Since then we have worked with different groups of staff, the SAC and gained student input about many aspects of life at the school. The collated and analysed data from these surveys and workshops, along with other data collections form the basis for our School Reflection report and St Mary’s Data Profile. A panel of external reviewers will spend two days at St Mary’s and use these reports, plus their visits to the school and interviews with members of the school community, to complete the review process.
The Review validates the school’s achievements and challenges in the areas of Catholic School Culture, Learning and Teaching, Student Wellbeing, Leadership and Stewardship and School Community. This week as part of our final preparation we will share the review journey with our School Council (SAC) members. This review process takes place every 5 years and forms the basis of goal setting for future school improvement.

Flying Start and 2023 Enrolments
We are really looking forward to the commencement of the 2022 Flying Start program which starts next Thursday and getting to know many of our 2023 Foundation students and their families before they commence school next year. Numbers have built up slowly but steadily for Flying Start. Thank you to our parent community who have been talking about Flying Start to their school mates, mothers group or friends made through preschool, as your recommendation and positive talk about our school has encouraged many prospective families to enquire about enrolling in the school in

Places are filling steadily, especially in the 9.30am session, so don’t forget to contact the school to confirm a place for your preschooler. Flying Start runs in Term 3 on Thursday and Friday mornings from (1) 9:00 to 10:30 and (2) 11:30 – 1:00 for all interested families. Ring the office for more information and don't forget to watch our series of videos that showcase our school in action on the St Mary’s Facebook page.

Parent Helpers Workshop
Back by popular demand! We had a very good turnout from parents at our first parent helpers workshop and steady enquiries since so Mrs Hall is running a repeat of the first workshop on Wednesday June 20th from 9.15am-10:00am. Please ring the office to let us know you are planning to attend.

Sensory Garden Update
After gaining input from the P&F, staff and students we have had some sensory garden plans drafted and are on track for this landscaping to commence in the next school holidays. Here are some of the concept design ideas:

Child Safe Standards
On July 1st, updated Child Safe Standards came into place. This means Ministerial Order 870 will be replaced by Ministerial Order 1359 - Implementing Child Safe Standards. As St Mary’s is now under the governance of the Diocesan of Ballarat Catholic Education Limited (DOBCEL), new policies and procedures have been approved and ratified by Bishop Paul for implementation in our school. The new Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy is available to parents, guardians and carers on the school website (https://smswanhill.catholic.edu.au).

School Disco - Friday July 22nd
Our P&F have been working hard to organise our next school fundraising event. By popular request, the St Mary's School Disco has returned and takes place next Friday July 2nd at Jubilee Centre at St Mary MacKillop College with Disco Joe Doigo onboard, we are looking forward to seeing some amazing dance moves from the kids! If your child is attending, please return the permission slip by Wednesday, 20th July.
Times:
Foundation - Year 2: 4.45pm-5.30pm
Year 3 - Year 6: 6pm-7pm

Parent Teacher Interviews
Our second round of Parent Teacher Interviews will be conducted in Weeks 7 & 8 of this term. Online bookings will be advertised via PAM, the newsletter and on our Facebook page closer to the date.

St Vinnies Winter Appeal
We had a wonderful response to the St Vinnies Winter appeal and thank Belinda , Arren and the SRC team for their organisation with this event. It took two trips in a ute packed to the hilt to transport this all to the St Vinnies centre over the holidays with 156 bags of groceries holding almost nearly 1800 items being donated to distribute to families in need in our local community.

Have a terrific week and I look forward to seeing many of you in the yard, out in the car park or at assembly hosted by Foundation T this week,

Kate

Key Dates

Monday July 11th
Start of Term 3

Friday July 15th
De La Salle College Band Performance
Assembly 12.25pm Foundation T

Saturday July 16th & Sunday July 17th
Eucharist & Confirmation

Monday July 18th
Gen Bryant School Performance

Thursday July 21st & Friday July 22nd
Flying Start commences (session 1)

Friday July 22nd
P&F School Disco (more information to follow)
Assembly 12.25pm 5 Yellow

Saturday July 23rd & Sunday July 24th
Eucharist & Confirmation

Wellbeing with Mrs Gook

The Resilience Project
This is well worth watching as it sums up all that Hugh from ‘The Resilience Project’ is promoting to build children's resilience.

In the final part of The Resilience Project's digital series, Hugh shares an important message about allowing our children to experience adversity.

The key to building resilience in our children is allowing them to experience failure, hardship, disappointment etc. As parents, we can be too quick to resolve our children's challenges which can deprive our children of enormous growth opportunities. These typically happen when we experience failure and uncertainty. As parents we should be there for our children when they fail, but not fight their battles for them.

View Part 5 of the series here - Summary https://theresilienceproject.com.au/parent-and-carer-hub-hugh/

Thank you for participating in this Parent and Carer Digital Presentation series. You can re-watch the videos and access activities and resources anytime via the Parent & Carer Hub.

Curriculum News with Mrs Hall

Classroom, Literacy Support Helpers Workshop
After such a positive response to our Literacy Support workshop last term, we have decided to run it again next week, Wednesday 20th July. If you are interested in supporting Literacy in our Junior rooms or learning more about supporting your child at home with their home reading, please feel free to come along. Our session will run from
9.15-10.00 in the staff workroom and we ask you to call the office to register your attendance. Please see attached flyer below.

Religious Education with Mrs Davies

Sacraments of Confirmation & Eucharist
Over the next two weekends we are really looking forward to our sacramental children celebrating their Confirmation and/or First Eucharist over the weekends 16/17th and 23/24th July. If you haven’t yet confirmed a date for this can you please contact me asap bdavies@smswanhill.catholic.edu.au to let us know what date suits your family best.

St Vinnies Winter Appeal Donations
It was absolutely amazing to see the large amounts of donations that had been brought in towards the end of last term. This culminated in a whole school tally of over 1500 items. The SRC worked very hard on the last day of school to collect these items from classrooms and put them into bags ready to transport down to our St Vinnies store. A very big thankyou to all families who sent in different items to be donated to help our families in need this Winter. This was all part of reaching out and helping others just as Jesus teaches us to do.

Physical Education with Miss Clark

Division Winter Sports
The weather was kind to us on Tuesday the 21st of June for Division Winter Sports. The day was a success for all of the
Year 5 and 6 children who represented St Mary’s and they should all be proud of their efforts.

We had some great results across the sports that St Mary’s competed in:

Football: Winners in Division 1 Boys
Winners in Division 2 Boys
Netball: Winners in Division 1 Girls
Runners Up in Division 2 Girls
Teeball: Runners up in Girls
Soccer: Winners in Division 1 Boys
Runners Up Division 2 Boys
Runners Up in Girls

The Winning teams for Division 1 sports will progress through to the Regional level later in the term. Soccer and Netball is on Thursday 28th of July and Football is Tuesday 2nd of August. Many thanks to the Year 5/6 teachers and the St. Mary MacKillop students for their support on the day.

State Cross Country
We wish our students competing at the State Cross Country on Thursday the 14th of July the best of luck! The students have done very well in the School, Division and Regional Cross Country competitions to make it to this level. St Mary’s are very proud that we have students representing our school at the State level.

Sustainability with Mrs Ward

Plastic Free July

https://www.plasticfreejuly.org

Plastic Free July® is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution.

We know so many of our families at St. Mary’s make a conscious effort to reduce the amount of plastic their child brings to school.

It’s important for us to be mindful of this, as research has found the average packed lunch of a child produces three pieces of rubbish every day- amounting to approximately 30kg of waste per child each year.

Some small and simple ideas you can do with your child’s lunchbox are:

Buy snacks in bulk and then place them in reusable containers- saves a lot of money too!
Invest in a non-toxic and durable sandwich box/ bento box
Swap plastic wrap for beeswax wraps

@2 Murlong Before & After School Care

The Out of School Hours Care program, @ 2 Murlong, is operating out of the gym hub and provides before and after school care for school age children in the Swan Hill area. Please express your interest via the following link;

https://prodadmin.myxplor.com/enrollment/index/dHdBOThsSW9JeHUxYTEwaHNxZlMrdz0

News from the Office

School Beanies
The days are freezing...........jump on to CDF Pay and order your child a beanie ($15 each).

Book Club - Issue 5
Scholastic Book Club Issue 5 has been sent home. We will not be accepting cash payments for orders. Please order online following the instructions below.

Issue 5 orders are due by Thursday July 28th
This is the link for LOOP, which will allow you to make an online order and payment; https://mybookclubs.scholastic.com.au/Parent/Login.aspx

If you are not registered for LOOP, click on the link above and create a new account. You will need to enter your details, add children and select our school (typed as is here); St. Mary's SWAN HILL
If you have any questions or are having trouble with the LOOP ordering system, please contact the office via email - office@smswanhill.catholic.edu.au

Rapid Antigen Test Collection - Weeks 1-4
You can collect your test kits from the office window for Weeks 1-4 (2 boxes per student) between 8.30am and 4pm. Please notify the office via email if someone else will be collecting them on your behalf.

Second Hand Jumpers
We have plenty of second hand school jumpers available for a gold coin donation. Please call in to the office if you would like to have a look in the second hand cupboard.

News from the Canteen

Warm Chicken Wraps are available through the 'Daily Specials" menu every Monday.

Our cut off time for CDF Pay orders is 9.30am

If you are able to assit in the canteen in Term 3, please email your availability to office@smswanhill.catholic.edu.au

CANTEEN ROSTER:

Newsletter Term 3 Week 1