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Upcoming Dates
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- 15th August: Andrew Chinn visit & whole school Mass Feast of the Assumption
- 15th to 18th August: National Science Week
- 18th August: P&F Gathering
- 19th August: Assembly led by Room 9 Year 4/5, P&F Movie Night
- 21st August: P&F Family Portrait Fundraiser
- 22nd to 26th August: Book Week, Book Fair & Book Character Parade
- 8th September: St Mary's Feast Day & Art Show
- 9th September: Pupil Free Day
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Event details will be updated on School Stream closer to the event date.
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Please check the EVENTS tab regurarly and add event details directly to your calendar!
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Principal's News
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Week 4, Term 3, 2022
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Dear Parents and Caregivers,
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Emotional Children, Emotional Parents
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At St Mary’s we strive to create an environment which empowers staff and students to make the best of their learning and life opportunities by establishing a calm classroom culture that recognises learning anxiety and how to manage stress. One of the best tools we can give students to help manage how they feel and react to stress is by helping them learn to self-regulate. What is self-regulation? It is the skill of understanding how you are feeling and being able to manage those feelings/emotions and responding appropriately.
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Why is this important? For our students it is necessary for them to guide their thinking to ultimately engage in effective learning. If a student is dysregulated, they can’t control their emotions or apply strategies to self-regulate and ultimately, engage in effective learning. Have you ever tried to ask your child to do something when they are having a meltdown? What type of response did you get? From my experience as a parent, when one of my children were having a meltdown if I tried to engage with them in a conversation this made it worse. As a parent I always wanted to fix the problem for my child, but I began to wonder if this is inhibiting their own development in solving problems and self-regulation?
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One of my biggest learnings as an educator and a parent is that every child is unique and needs different approaches and skills to help them regulate their emotions. What works well for one student will not necessarily work for another. For us at St Mary’s we encounter the same issues and that is why it is so important for us to continually develop our skills and understanding within this space so that our students can be ready to learn because they are emotionally regulated. “How do I stop my children from upsetting me?” is a question Wilson McCaskill founder of the Play Is the Way program for social emotional learning talks about the importance of emotional security from parents – how children need security and rational thought over emotional parenting. Bottom line: be the adult in the relationship between your child and you. Be rational with your decisions and parenting. Don’t let irrational emotions drive you as a parent.
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Congratulations to our year 5 and 6 students on your wonderful spirit of St Mary’s displayed throughout your time at Camp this week. You are all a credit to our school, and we are extremely proud of the way in which you conducted to yourselves whilst at camp this week. A massive shout out to our wonderful St Mary's staff members who supported the students whilst on camp at Batchelor Outdoor Education Centre. Your thorough organisation, care and support attributed to the overall success of the camp.
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Thank you, parents, for keeping your child/ren home if sick. We really appreciate this as we acknowledge it can be stressful for families; please know you are helping us all stay safe. At St Mary's we continue to be diligent in ensuring social distancing where possible and follow COVID safe practices.
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Religious Education News
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Andrew Chinn Concert: On Monday 15th August, Australian religious songwriter and singer, Andrew Chinn, will be visiting our school to share his songs with our children. Andrew’s songs, such as “These Hands”, “Rainbow”, “An African Blessing” and “Rise Up!” are used in classrooms and liturgies around Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada. You will know many of these songs from our school bell music. The concert will take place in the MacKillop Hall, at 1.30pm. Families are encouraged to come along and join in the fun - We look forward to seeing you there!
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Summary points if doing an introduction:
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- Was a teacher for 20 years in Catholic schools in Sydney, taught all grades from kindergarten to Year 6 (was a kindergarten/prep teacher for two years)
- Song writing since 1993
- Has released 11 albums, 6 picture books, and 5 DVDs and a new online resource for teachers: www.butterflyhouse.online
- His music is used in schools across Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada and he has visited more than 1000 different schools around those countries.
- His best-known songs are These Hands, Together As One, Rainbow, In the Beginning, Shine Among Them, An African Blessing, God Made Them All, and Rise Up!
- Lives in Wollongong with his wife, Bernadette and a couple of Shetland Sheepdogs called Mollee and Elbee, who love going to the beach.
- He has four daughters and TEN grandchildren!!
- He is a proud Sydney Swans supporter.
- Has his own website: www.butterflymusic.com.au, where you can listen to some songs, watch some video clips, and find out a bit more about his music.
- Andrew’s music is available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music.
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Feast of the Assumption Mass on Monday, 15th August at 8:30am
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Andrew Chinn School visit and performance Monday, 15th August
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School Feast day Mass on Thursday, 8th September at 8:30am
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School Catholic Identity Day Friday 9th September
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On this day, our school staff will be taking part in a professional development day with Holy Spirit CPS.
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The day will be led by Marty Ogle and will focus on the Making Jesus Real (MJR) philosophy. MJR has a simple message - Jesus is part of our lives and can change the way we live and we can make Jesus live through our actions and words.
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Pupil Free Day
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Friday 9th of September 2022 is a Pupil Free Day.
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Vacation Care will be open from 7:30am -5:30pm, if your child/ren requires care, please complete the booking form in School Stream.
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P&F Movie Night
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Join us for a movie under the stars on our school oval!
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The Bad Guys: PG 100 minutes running time
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The P&F are looking forward to hosting this FREE event for our school families. Wacky Wings and Rigney's Kitchen food vans will be on site selling delicious dinner options! Popcorn, snacks and drinks will be available for purchase from the school canteen. Please also bring a picnic blanket or chairs to sit on.
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Donations: On the night, we will be running our super fun Lob-a-Choc game! We would love some donations of 180-200g chocolate blocks of any brand. If you are able to help please drop your donations into the front office - thank you!!
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To help with catering purposes, we would appreciate it if families could please RSVP using the "RSVP P&F Movie Night" FORM on School Stream.
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Or click the button below to RSVP now!
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Parents and Friends' Family Portrait Fundraiser
Extra bookings now available!
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Is it time to update your precious family photos?
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The St Mary's P&F have organised a Family Portrait fundraiser. Bede from Laura Jean Photography will be taking family portraits (with a crème backdrop) at St Mary’s CPS on Sunday 21st August.
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You will receive an 8"x12” family photo plus keyring for just $20.00 (available once per family). This year, these funds will go towards technology upgrades across our school. Additional images or package options are also available on the day, at great prices.
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Canteen Survey
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The St Mary’s P&F is committed to supporting our school community to have their voices heard on a range of matters. We are currently conducting a review of the St Mary’s School Canteen to determine if it is meeting the needs of students and families. We would really appreciate it if you could please spare a few minutes to fill out our survey in the link below. The information gathered in the survey will be reviewed by the School Board and will help support the school in planning for the future direction of our school canteen.
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For every family that completes the survey your child/ren will receive a complimentary icey-pole from the canteen as a thank you!
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St Mary's Art Show!
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Art Show Sponsorship
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An exciting opportunity exists for businesses to sponsor our Art Show!
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You can sponsor by making a monetary donation or alternatively a donation of art supplies that our students can use to help support the creation of their art pieces. If you or someone who know own a business who would like to take up this opportunity, please contact our school front office at 8981 9796 or admin.stmarys@nt.catholic.edu.au. All businesses who sponsor our Art Show will have their business logo promoted in our Art Show Digital Flyer.
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Art Smocks
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As the students work on their amazing works of Art they will be using a variety of materials such as paint, clay or glue - which can be quite messy!! We strongly encourage all students to bring into school an art smock or oversized large old shirt which can be worn to protect their school uniform.
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Chief Minister's Reading Challenge
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Many St. Mary's students started The Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge back in Term 1! The challenge closes on Friday 19 August 2022 (Term 3 Week 5).
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Students who complete the Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge will receive a personal certificate from the Chief Minister recognising their achievement. As they complete reading challenges in future years, they will be recognised with medals correlating with the number of reading challenges they have completed.
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Please send in your child's reading record to the school library!
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This is a great lead into Book Week, which we will be celebrating from 20th to 26th August (Week 6). During this week, Ms. Brenda will have the Larrakin Book Fair running in the library where students and families can purchase some special books to add their personal library. We will end the week with our annual Book Character Parade at our Friday assembly. This week's Book Week theme is Dreaming with eyes open...! This is a wonderful theme that encourages creativity and endless possibilities. We cannot wait to see the students' costumes. Information about the Book Fair and opening times has been sent home and is on School Stream.
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Pastoral Care and Wellbeing News
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At St Mary’s we want our sensory garden to be a community space for students and families to enjoy. We want to embed the principles of Laudato ‘Si by caring for our common home with a space where students can learn to care for nature. We plan to sustainably source materials for the garden and grow herbs to be used in our canteen and shared with families. We are lucky to live in such a multicultural community and we plan to celebrate that in our garden by exploring native plants, bush tucker and visually represent our diverse community.
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Our student took part in a design competition and created some amazing designs for our sensory garden. Winners will be announced next week.
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See some of the amazing designs below:
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If you or someone you know would like to be involved in this community project we ask that you please contact Ms Walsh. You may have a particular skill, be a keen gardener, and have some spare time to give or know a local business that may wish to be involved. We hope to form a committee with family, staff and student representatives to help with the planning and building of our garden.
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We will have our first committee meeting on Monday, 15th of August at 3pm.
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We are excited to see this space unfold!
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Altruistic August
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Spirit of St Mary's
Our Spirit of St Mary’s goal for this term is: 25,000 points!
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Week 4 point check: 8,120 points!
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Shout out this week goes to Ms Julie and Mrs Louise for their fantastic resilience in managing internet and server issues and keeping our school running smoothly.
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St Mary's Playgroup
We are so excited to be running our very own playgroup sessions at St Mary’s!
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When: Wednesday 9.30 – 11.30 am (Term weeks)
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Where: Mary MacKillop Hall
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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!
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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.
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Year 7 - 2023
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Year 7 enrolments for 2023 close on the 26th August 2022.
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If you know of students and families who are thinking of attending O’Loughlin in 2023 a gentle reminder to send their enrolment forms and all supporting documents in before the 26th August.
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Download School Stream
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Why download the App?
- Receive instant notifications for important news and classroom updates.
- Complete permission and absentee forms.
- Keep up to date with events and save event details directly to your own calendar.
- Order from our school canteen.
Don’t forget to turn your notifications on – so you don’t miss any important notices!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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What is happening in Darwin
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