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Upcoming Dates
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- 5th September: R U ok Day?
- 7th September: Early Childhood Educators Day
- 8th September: St Mary's Feast Day & Art Show
- 9th September: Pupil Free Day
- 12th - 14th September: Life Education Van Visit
- 15th September: P&F Gathering
- 16th September: Year 6 Public Speaking Competition
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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 7, Term 3, 2022
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Dear Parents and Caregivers,
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As Father’s Day approaches this weekend the students and staff wish to thank the very generous band of P & F volunteers for making our fabulous Father’s Day stall possible. Our Year 1/2 students from Rooms 5 and 6 led our school community in a beautiful Father's Day Liturgy this morning. We thank Dean from the Cathedral Parish for supporting the children in their Liturgy. Special mention must also go to Miss Bree for her coordination of a wonderful array of gifts and goodies for the children to purchase from our Father's Day stall – the efforts of all make this day memorable for our dads.
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“Fathers are wonderful people too little understood, and we do not sing their praises as often as we should...” (Helen Steiner Rice)
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Unfortunately, society tends to consider the bond a child has with its mother to be more important than that with the father. Also, the manner in which society is structured sometimes makes it easier for dads to use their career to perhaps mismanage time and be absent from home during important times. However, eliminating society’s barriers begins in the home, with a father’s choice to be a full and willing partner in all aspects of home life, especially contact time with children.
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Fathers can bring unique strengths to their relationships with children, and children with both a mother and father can benefit from caring, as well as a variety of caring styles. For example, dads have a more rough and tumble approach to physical interaction in which they challenge their children to explore their own strength and their ability to do new things. Their play introduces healthy competition and demands respect for limits and boundaries.
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There is an agreement amongst psychologists that children with a secure attachment to their father have an increased chance to be happy, successful, and well-adjusted as children, adolescents and during their progress into adulthood.
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- Dads are more likely than mothers to provide problem-solving competencies and independence in children.
- Father-involved children are more confident and successful in solving complex mathematical and logical puzzles.
- Dads help curb violence in boys by teaching and modelling to them socially acceptable ways to express their masculinity.
- Dads who have a warm involvement with their children in their early years, help raise children who become empathetic and compassionate adults.
- Girls with involved fathers are happier, more confident and willing to try new things than girls without that father’s involvement.
- Children who felt similar to, admired and wanted to resemble their dads are strong in personal moral judgement, moral values and respecting rules.
- Dads who live with their children and are actively involved with them, have high levels of good health and high levels of self-esteem.
There is no doubt that every child has a longing to be held and loved by a father-figure and to be mentored through to their adult life by a father who is there for them.
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“And like our Heavenly Father he’s a guardian and a guide, someone we can count on to be always on our side.” (Helen Steiner Rice)
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I have been granted approval from our Catholic Education Director, Greg O’Mullane to take four weeks of Long Service Leave at the beginning of Term 4. In my absence Mrs Christine Ferreira will be Acting Principal and Miss Clare Nolan will be Acting Deputy Principal. I congratulate Christine and Clare on their appointment to these acting positions at St Mary's for the first four weeks of Term 4.
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Happy Fathers’ Day to all our dads this coming Sunday. Every Blessing for a great week ahead,
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Prayer
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St Mary's School Feast Day
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Religious Education News
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School Feast Day Mass: Thursday September 8th at 9:00am
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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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Religious Education Co-ordinator
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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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News from Room 7
What a busy term it has been so far!
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Mathematics: We have worked hard in Mathematics to learn about Place Value, counting and identifying numbers to 100 as well as learning the days of the week and months of the year. We can skip count by 2s and 10s and learning to do so by 5s. We are also getting very good at solving simple addition and subtraction problems.
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Literacy: In Literacy we have continued to learn how to write independently using our growing knowledge of letters and sounds and ‘special friends’ such as ‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘th’ and ‘wh’. Some children are beginning to use punctuation marks. We have all made amazing progress with our reading and have been using decodable texts in class.
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HASS/Science: Our HASS Unit focuses on sustainability and the actions that we can take to sustain the environment. We have enjoyed learning about the conditions required to sustain living things and planted some bean seeds which are growing well.
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Visual Arts: As you know we have been working on some amazing art pieces which will be displayed at our whole school art show on Thursday 8th September. We look forward to showing off our creations. It will be a very exciting evening for the children to show off their hard work, so hope to see all families and friends come and support them.
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Library News
Book Fair:
Thank you to those families who supported our Book Fair, we sold over $1700 worth of books which allowed us to select new books to the value of $600 for our library.
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We would also like to acknowledge the families who donated a book from the Book Fair to the library.
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Pauline Tauschke (grandmother of Maya) kindly donated: Wan’Kurra The Golden Bandicoot and What do You Call Your Grandmother – we are very thankful for your donation.
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Book Parade:
What a great selection of costumes – thank you parents and carers for assisting your children in dressing up and participating in the parade. There were some very creative costumes.
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Teachers Miss K and Ms Zufferey
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Special mention to: Mia, Oscar and Esther (Room 6), Zoey H (Room 13), Lulu (Room 11) and Eliza, Keira and Ashlee (Room 9).
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Thank you to our judges - Ms Taylor and Miss Robyn and the MC Miss Fisher.
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Chief Ministers Reading Challenge:
The following students successfully completed the Chief Ministers Reading Challenge and their results have been sent through to the Chief Ministers Office.
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Transition: Isabelle, Aziah, Noah, Iliana, Keiji, Avnoor and Ada.
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Year 1: Samuel, Marly, Maddison, Jasmine, Kara, Harrison and Mia L.
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Year 2: Joel, Thanigaiyan, Jessica, Esther and Varshith.
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Year 3: Isabelle, Noah, Zoe, Amelia, Lachlan and Zoey.
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Year 4: Natalia, Eliza, Vicky, Santo, Jack, Maria, Ashlee, Oliver, Charlotte and Evelyn.
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Year 5: Vaishnavi and Samvit.
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St Mary's Art Show!
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The countdown is on for our Art Show!
Please click on the link below to view our Art Show Digital Brochure.
This contains all the information that you require for the evening including schedule of events.
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Pastoral Care and Wellbeing News
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Self-Care September
Why Is Self-Care Important?
Having an effective self-care routine has been shown to have a number of important health benefits. Some of these include:
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According to the World Health Organization (WHO), self-care is important because it can help promote health, prevent disease, and help people better cope with illness.10
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Specific forms of self-care have also been linked to different health and wellness benefits, including a longer life. Exercise, finding a sense of purpose in life, and sleep have all been connected to an increased lifespan.
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Develop Your Self-Care Plan
An effective self-care plan should be tailored to your life and your needs. It needs to be something created by you, for you. Customizing your own self-care plan can act as a preventative measure to make sure that you don't get overwhelmed, overstressed, and burned out.
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Assess which areas of your life need some more attention and self-care. Reassess your life often. As your situation changes, your self-care needs are likely to shift too.
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As you are building your self-care plan, the following steps can be helpful:
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- Assess your needs: Make a list of the different parts of your life and major activities that you engage in each day. Work, school, relationships, and family are some you might list.
- Consider your stressors: Think about the aspects of these areas that cause stress and consider some ways you might address that stress.
- Devise self-care strategies: Think about some activities that you can do that will help you feel better in each of these areas of your life. Spending time with friends or developing boundaries, for example, can be a way to build healthy social connections.
- Plan for challenges: When you discover that you're neglecting a certain aspect of your life, create a plan for change.
- Take small steps: You don't have to tackle everything all at once. Identify one small step you can take to begin caring for yourself better.
- Schedule time to focus on your needs: Even when you feel like you don't have time to squeeze in one more thing, make self-care a priority. When you're caring for all aspects of yourself, you'll find that you are able to operate more effectively and efficiently.
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Protecting children from internet safety risks: tips
Although your child is becoming an independent internet user, there are still some basic things you can do to protect your child from internet safety risks:
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- Create a family media plan. It’s best to create your plan with your child and ask them for suggestions. Your plan could cover things like screen-free areas in your house and what online behaviour is OK. If you follow the family media rules too, you’ll be role-modelling good online behaviour.
- Talk with your child about ways to restrict the content they can see, like using safe search settings on browsers. You might need to show your child how to do this.
- Check that games, websites and TV programs are appropriate for your child. You can do this by looking at reviews on Common Sense Media.
- If you use TV streaming services, set up profiles for different household members. This can make it less likely that your child will come across inappropriate programs.
- Encourage your child to use child-friendly messaging apps like Messenger Kids.
- Ask your child to ‘friend’ you on social media. Friending your child means you can follow what they’re interested in and who they’re connected to online.
- Find out how to make complaints about offensive or illegal online content.
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It’s best to avoid using surveillance apps that let you secretly monitor your child’s online activity because this sends the message that you don’t trust your child. It’s
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better to talk openly about your own internet use and encourage your child to do the same.
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Technical internet safety tools like internet filters don’t necessarily reduce online risk for children in this age group. Using filters at home might encourage some children to go online in unfiltered environments away from home. Also, children might feel they can’t talk to you about a negative online experience because they’re worried about getting into trouble for not using a filter.
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To be continued next week.
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Self-Care September
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Spirit of St Mary's
Our Spirit of St Mary’s goal for this term is: 25,000 points! We are almost at our goal for a super awesome Spirit Cup Fun Day. Well done St Mary’s students!
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Week 7 point check: 23,373 points!
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Shout out this week goes to our wonderful P&F team; Briony, Jacqui, Emma, Tracy and Doreen. Thank you for showing the Spirit of St Mary’s in organising a wonderful community movie night and some amazing gifts to celebrate all the fathers and father figures in our lives.
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St Mary's Playgroup
There will be no Playgroup running at St Mary's in Week 8 due to our Art Show. Playgroup will return in Week 9, Wednesday 14th September.
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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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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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