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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

10 June 2022| Week 8

Upcoming Dates

  • 10th June: School Colour Fun Run!!
  • 13th June: Queen's Birthday Public Holiday
  • 17th June: Assembly led by Year 3/4 Rm 14
  • 19th June: Sacrament of Holy Communion
  • 24th June: Assembly led by Year 1/2 Rm 6
  • 24th June: Last day Term 2
  • 24th June: Semester Reports emailed home
Please refer to School Stream for full event details. Please check the EVENTS tab to add event details directly to your calendar!

Principal's News

Week 8, Term 2, 2022

Photo
Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Colour Run - Cultivating a Growth Mindset: There is an excited buzz around the school today with our Colour Run fundraiser. The students and staff look forward to this day with much excitement. Using the many colours in this fundraiser is a timely reminder of being our own selves and to be all we can possibly be. I have always liked the mantra: ‘Be All You Can Be’. It does not mean you want to be the best or that you have to come first at whatever you do. It means that you are reaching your potential whenever and wherever you can by activating a growth mindset. It is vital that our learners see learning success through this frame. We cannot all be the smartest, we cannot all be first and we cannot all be the best.

What we can be is the very best version of ‘me’.

Significantly, this attitude may be most important for those who are the smartest or best in their small sphere. If they are content to just be the best in a small pond then they are not reaching to be all they can be, nor are they reaching their absolute potential.
In class, there are some basic principles for students that can help them with a growth mindset. It includes recognising that:
  1. We all have the right to be safe and able to learn at all times.
  2. We have responsibilities that correspond with those rights. In particular, the need to maximise attendance and come organised with our laptop and other learning materials and a ‘ready to learn’ attitude.
  3. Comparing yourself to someone else in your class is not as powerful as comparing yourself to your own development of knowledge and skills. The real question is: are you improving?
As our learners learn how to be the best version of themselves, they are sure to hit roadblocks and obstacles. Instead of getting discouraged, we need to redirect them and help them cultivate positive emotions like passion, curiosity, and flexibility. Teaching them and ourselves for that matter to look at obstacles as opportunities instead of defeats. By staying positive, they will find creative solutions that would be missed if they had remained bogged down in self-defeating thoughts.
Our challenge as parents and teachers is to make sure each learner in our care does focus on being all they can be. Whenever my own children let me know they don’t need my help or advice, I think of the following quote from Anthony Hopkins, smile, and persist:

When I was a young guy, I knew everything. Now, I know very little. I know less and less as the time goes on.

End of Term Assessment and Reporting: As we approach the last two weeks of Term 2, our students in Transition to Year 6 are encountering various forms of assessment in readiness for end of semester Reports. It is important to note that there is much less end of term, or end of semester, assessment as teachers are making ongoing judgements about student progress throughout this period of time. Assessment creates a powerful motivator for some students as well as an undue pressure for others. Where you have worries for your child at this time, please encourage them to seek out their teachers for assistance or contact their teachers yourself, if necessary.

Out of School Hours Supervision: There are to be no students on the school grounds before 8:00am each morning unless they are attending a school organised activity or Before School Care. There is no supervision of students until after 8:00am and for their safety it is imperative that this is adhered to by all parents and caregivers.

Staffing Update: Sadly Mrs Lianna Panasewycz - 'Mrs P' will be leaving us at the end of Term 2. Lianna has accepted a fulltime Teaching contract at school community closer to where she lives near Palmerston. Lianna has been such a valuable asset to the St Mary’s community with her teaching of AUSLAN since 2020, and I know the students have really enjoyed learning AUSLAN under her gentle guidance and expertise. She will be surely missed by our entire community for the wonderful way she has imparted her love of learning and teaching AUSLAN.

I am pleased to announce that Mrs Melanie Bolwell will be teaching Room 5 replacing Miss Nikolah Kenny for the remainder of the year. We are very fortunate to have Mel join our staff as the Year 1/2 teacher and we look forward to welcoming her to our school community after the mid-year break.

We farewell Luca and Liam today as their family relocate to Dubai. We wish the family safe travels and blessings for the journey ahead. We look forward to hearing of their experiences living and going to school in Dubai.

Welcome to Kenzie and family who joined Room 8 and our school community this week.

Enrolments for 2023 Transition: Enrolments from families outside of our existing families are now open for 2023. Existing families of St Mary’s are encouraged to return enrolment forms as soon as possible to ensure places are kept for our existing families.

An enrolment pack is available on line from our website or alternatively from the front office in Lindsay Street. Children who are born between 1st July 2017 to 30th June 2018, are eligible for entry into the 2023 Transition class.

In faith and love,
Rosie Harrison

Shoes

Religious Education News

Confirmation
Sacarments

Key Dates:
First Communion Rehearsal - Thursday, 16th June 6 pm at the Cathedral
First Communion Celebration - Sunday, 19th June 9.30 am Mass at the Cathedral



Clare Nolan
Religious Education Co-ordinator

News from Room 6

Room 6

School Road Safety

crossing
St Mary's Catholic Primary School is committed and passionate about raising awareness regarding road safety around our school. The safety of children and families travelling to and from our school – either walking or cycling, by bus or in a private vehicle - is of the upmost importance!

We are pleased to announce that as a road safety initiative, City of Darwin will soon install speed check signs near schools in the Darwin municipality. St Mary's Catholic Primary School is one of 14 schools selected to have two Speed Check signs installed. Speed check signs are electronic traffic calming devices which record and display vehicle speeds and a flashing a ‘slow down’ message when a set speed is exceeded. The signs will be programmed to display this messaging when the 40km/h speed limit is exceeded during school hours. The signs will be installed on Cavenagh Street near the intersection of Lindsay Street. Preliminary work has begun in May and the signs are due to be operational by the end of June 2022. This is a positive step forward to improving the safety of our roads around our school.

Although there is still more that can be done! As the only primary school located in the CBD, St Mary's is bound by four main busy roads - Cavenagh, Lindsay, McLachlan and Smith Streets - none of which have a school crossing! For the past two years our St Mary's School Board have been petitioning to Darwin City Council in regards to a school crossing for our school on Lindsay Street. If you pick your child up from the Lindsay Street gate, you have by no doubt witnessed, what can at times be, chaotic and wreckless driving that can occur in the mornings and afternoons along this street! Our hope is that school crossing will ensure the safety of our students,families and teachers while crossing to and from school. We have been advised from council that a crossing is planned for Lindsay Street, however at the moment they are still deliberating an appropriate location for this to occur. We thank our School Board for their commitment and dedication to this appeal and look forward to sharing further progress with you.

In the meantime, we strongly urge our school community to take the time to review our 'Kiss and Go' video linked below, which outlines safe drop off and pick up procedures around our school.

Remember choose safety over convenience!
speed check sign

School Fee Invoices

School Fee Invoices have been emailed to families this week.
If you have not received your invoice for School Fees, please contact Finance at finance.stmarys@nt.catholic.edu.au
Thank you to all those who have already paid or have a payment plan in place.
When paying fees please ensure you include a reference for what the payment is for, either 'School Fees', 'OSHC' or 'ELC' in the description along with your family name.
finance.stmarys@nt.catholic.edu.au
School fees

Parents and Friends News

P&F 10-6
St Mary's P&F are seeking a food truck or two to attend an upcoming event. If you own or know someone who does please make contact via email on parentsandfriends@stmarysnt.net or contact the office and leave a message and a P&F representative will be in contact.
Thank you!
Food truck

CathCroc

Caathcroc

St Mary's Playgroup

We are so excited to be running our very own Playgroup sessions at St Mary’s!

When: Wednesday 9.30 – 11.30 am (Term weeks)

Where: Mary MacKillop Hall

Cost: $2 per family

St Mary’s playgroup is the only playgroup in the Darwin CBD registered with Playgroup Northern Territory. Our playgroup sessions allow children to explore through play, enjoy story time, morning tea and create a masterpiece too!

These sessions are open to families outside of the school and cater for babies and toddlers of all ages. You can find us every Wednesday (school terms only) in the Mary MacKillop Hall, please enter via the Parish entrance from Smith Street.


Playgroup

Joyful June

Joful June

Colour Run

Colour run
Today we had our Colour Run. The students and staff had an amazing time. Thank you to those who have supported the event. Together we have raised $8721.55. Well done St Mary’s. We are almost at our goal of $10,000 and there is still some time to fundraise.

If you wish to support this event and project, please go to the School Fun Run website to create an online fundraising profile: https://app.schoolfundraising.com.au/users/sign_up or collect cash donations and fill in your booklet. The students also have an opportunity to win prizes based on the amount of money they raise.

This year, St Mary’s Catholic Primary School is raising funds for much needed literacy resources for all classes across the school! Our teachers have been taking part in professional development, learning about the latest research and evidence-based practise around effective instruction and the systematic teaching of reading. So to support the teaching and learning of reading, we plan on purchasing a wide range of new reading resources, including take home readers, guided reading texts, shareable big books, reading intervention resources, as well as teacher resource books.

A special mention to Paul Kirby, Member for Port Darwin who kindly donated this year’s special edition Dunk Tank to soak our wonderful teachers. Thank you for your ongoing support. Thank you to all staff for your efforts this afternoon in ensuring that the students had a wonderful time! A HUGE shout out and thank you to Mrs Walsh for her planning and preparation behind the scenes! Thank you to families who came and joined in the fun as well - we really appreciated your presence and most of all support in our fundraising efforts this year!

St Mary’s was a sea of colour and laughter this afternoon... Keep an eye out for more pics coming soon!
colour run

Spirit of St Mary's Update

Our Spirit Cup token Goal for this Term is 50,000 Dojo points! This week our total is: 39,340 points!! We are getting closer to our target for our Spirit Cup Fun Day!

Shout out this week goes to all Mrs Paula for continuously showing MJR across the school each day.
spirit
spirit points

Year 7 - 2023

SJC 1
OCC 13-5-22

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Canteen Online Orders & Update

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To streamline processes across the school, in 2022 we are now only accepting online orders for lunches.
All families need to set up an account for online ordering through Flexischools, which is linked directly in the School Stream App. Details on how to set up an account can be found in the “CANTEEN” tab of School Stream. There is no need to download the Flexischools App, it can all be accessed from the School Stream App.

For those with an existing account, you will need to update your child's class and room number for 2022 before placing your first order. Please refer to the instructions in School Stream.

You can find the updated 2022 Canteen menu in School Stream. Please note daily orders close at 8.40am. Any orders received after this time, will be fulfilled subject to availability of stock and may be substituted for a basic sandwich.

Please note that at this time our school canteen has been impacted by supplier shortages. Some items may be temporarily unavailable and will be marked as 'out of stock' when ordering. Thank you for your understanding.

What is happening in Darwin

Invigilation Work

What we are offering:
  • Paid invigilation work in Darwin starting on the 5th of July at Vibe Hotel Darwin on the Waterfront.
  • Ongoing working opportunities according to exam scheduling.
Requirements:
  • Confidence monitoring small groups (1-2 students) while they complete an examination.
  • Ability to follow instructions and read aloud announcements (e.g. you have 10 minutes left).
  • Takes initiative.
  • Can work well in a team.
  • Reliability.
How to express interest:
  • Send in your full name, email address and contact number to jexams@janison.com by 16th June. We will contact you or a quick phone interview and answer any questions.
  • Optional: Send in current resume as well.
About Janison
Janison runs online and in-person exams all over Australia and internationally. Please have a look at our website for more information https://www.janison.com/.

You must be available on the 5th of July to be considered.
Warratha 2-6-22
music
Aerial play 10-6-22
Cupcakes 1
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