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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

24 June 2022| Week 10

Upcoming Dates

  • 24th June: Last day Term 2
  • 24th June: Semester Reports emailed home
  • 19th July: Students Resume Term 3
  • SAVE THE DATE 8th September: St Mary's Art Show
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 10, Term 2, 2022

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Dear Parents and Caregivers,

And all too quickly Term 2 comes to an end. Thank you to our school community for your continued support during Term 2. As we go into the holiday period we do so with a renewed sense of the new normal, with many of the COVID restrictions now lifted or relaxed. I trust that many staff and school families will make the most of this upcoming 3 week break to travel interstate.

It is lovely to see our students wearing their uniform with pride. Thank you to our families for ensuring children are dressed in correct coloured shoes as well. A reminder that Sports Uniforms are to be worn only on your child’s designated days. Please ensure all school uniforms, lunch boxes and drink bottles are labelled clearly so that they can be returned to your child if found left around the school.
What we do know is that happiness, fulfillment and wellbeing don’t just fall upon us by accident - we actively have to do things to feel good about ourselves and others. We have to be ‘deliberate’ in doing things to feel a sense of wellbeing.

What we are seeing around the school at this time of term - almost at the end - is that a number of students are tired, suffering/recovering from illness and occasionally making poor choices.

It is definitely a time to be mindful and ‘deliberate’ about stress, anxiety, being ‘wound up’ and therefore not being able to be truly present and perform at our best. Maybe over the next week (and beyond hopefully) we all might spend time focusing on the following ten things.

10 tips to help you stay mentally healthy (crucial for this stage of the term, number 2 is my favourite)
  1. Spend time helping someone else with something - when you help others, it makes you feel good…. Volunteer for a cause, help a neighbour or simply do something nice for a friend or stranger.
  2. See the funny side of life and laugh often- laughter is a wonderful “medicine”. Watch/read/listen to something that will give you a belly laugh. Not only does laughter decrease stress hormones, it also triggers the release of endorphins that help improve your overall sense of wellness.
  3. Think about a new skill you can learn - learning something new gives the ‘grey matter’ a workout and builds neural pathways in the brain.
  4. Catch up with friends - spending time with our friends and loved ones is always a guaranteed way to lift our moods. Often just spending time chatting and laughing with someone is a great mood lifter.
  5. Go to bed early - make it your aim to get eight hours of solid sleep every night. Sleep will help restore your body and mind. To help you get a good night’s sleep put your phone/laptop away at least an hour before bed and do something soothing and relaxing such as reading a book to help you get a good night's rest.
  6. Focus on your organisation - Being disorganised can build stress and anxiety at this time. Try creating an early morning routine to get yourself into the habit of being ready for school on time and an afternoon routine to complete homework and be packed and ready for the next day’s activities.
  7. Ask someone for help - Everyone’s life journey is different, and sometimes we need help to overcome the bumpy bits. It’s OK to ask for help: speak to a work colleague, teachers, a friend or a family member.
  8. Stay active - keeping fit and staying active can help you to sleep better, manage stress and boost your mood. Take the dog for a walk or take the stairs when you can. Try riding your bike or find a sport or physical activity that you enjoy and plan to do it regularly.
  9. Take care of yourself - a healthy body is linked to a healthy mind. Eat plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole foods, and avoid processed foods.
  10. Be ‘present’ in the moment - be in the here and now. Enjoy the moment
As the last newsletter of Term 2, a big thank you to everyone who has supported the school this term. Wishing all a restful and safe holiday break and the opportunity to enjoy our beautiful dry season weather. For those families who are travelling, I look forward to seeing you back safe and well for Term 3.

Farewell to the following students and families who are leaving our school community this week - Vicky (Room 13), Jack (Room 13), Asha (Room 11), Olivia (Room 8) and Harvey (CoL).

We also sadly farewell Mrs Lianna Panasewycz and Miss Nikolah Kenny today. Both of these teachers will be greatly missed by our school community and we wish them the very best in their future journeys.

Staffing Update: This week we finalised the staffing arrangements for Room 14 for Semester Two. Mrs Shannon Feldtman will continue teaching in Room 14 Mondays to Wednesdays, and Miss Kathryn Fisher will be taking the class on Thursdays and Fridays. Both of these teachers are very well known to the students in Room 14 and they will plan and assess as a teaching team to ensure consistency for learning for the students of Room 14.

We are also very pleased to announce that Ms Siobhan Taylor will be taking on the role of Auslan teacher for Semester Two. Ms Taylor is very excited to be taking on this role and continue embedding Auslan into the daily life of St Mary's!

We welcome all students back on Tuesday, 19 July for the first day of Term 3.

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

Prayer for Refugee Week
Abi Benham-Bannon

God of peace,
Bring light to the dark corners of hearts,
To the violent shadows of our world,
Whose power crushes down, inflicting suffering,
Pushing so many out of their lives and out of their homes.

God of welcome,
Bring warmth to the hearts of the homes to which they flee,
May they find safety and comfort,
In open arms.

God of liberation,
Bring freedom for all people locked up by cruel policies,
From the bars which bear down on their souls,
Freedom to walk the land, to live a life.
Freedom of spirit.

God of justice,
Open our eyes and give us the courage to call for change,
For a country that rejects cruelty and violence,
That puts down its fear,
And chooses welcome.



Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
Today, June 24th, is the feast of Sacred Heart pf Jesus. The heart of Jesus is a symbol of his love for us. The feast is an opportunity to remember in a special way those who suffer because of lack of food, clothing or shelter.

Refugee Week
This week is World Refugee Week and the theme is Healing. We remember the millions of displaced people, refugees and asylum seekers around the world. We see their great courage and perseverance when they have lost everything. Often facing injustice, hardship and hostility, they show us how to stay strong and hopeful even when everything seems to go wrong. They can be a great blessing for us.

First communion

News from Room 11

Rm 11 22-6-22

Semester 1 Academic Reports

St Mary’s Catholic Primary School’s reporting processes reflect the requirements outlined in the Northern Territory Department of Education’s Assessment and Reporting policy.

The following information provides further background and details on the academic reporting process and how judgements are made in order to award the overall results seen in your child’s report.

What requirements are there for reporting to parents?
Schools are required to provide written reports, at least twice a year, on student achievement. A 5-point scale is used to outline student achievement against the year level achievement standard.

The approved 5-point scale used at St Mary’s is outlined below:
The grades awarded on this report are based on:
A = Evidence of learning demonstrates outstanding achievement at this year level.
B = Evidence of learning demonstrates high achievement at this year level.
C = Evidence of learning demonstrates sound achievement at this year level.
D = Evidence of learning demonstrates limited achievement at this year level.
E = Evidence of learning demonstrates very limited achievement at this year level.
N = Not Assessed

What does a ‘C’ Sound achievement standard mean?
For all Australian Curriculum subject areas, students are assessed against the relevant Achievement Standard for that year level. It is important to recognise that the Australian Curriculum achievement standards clearly outlines the expectations of a ‘C’ standard. If your child receives a ‘C’ or ‘Sound’ achievement, they are operating at the year level standard and expectation. This means that the student is achieving everything required for the subject at that stage in their corresponding year level at school. Therefore, attaining a ‘C’ or ‘Sound’ achievement means your child is on target for their age and year level.

What information will be in the report?
The contents of this report are based on what has been taught, learned and assessed within this semester. As this is a mid-year Academic Progress Report, only the subject strands that have been taught and assessed during this reporting period will be assessed. Any strands not assessed this semester will be assessed and reported in the end of year report.

When will I receive my child’s report?
Semester One reports are emailed to parents during the last week of Term 2 on Friday 24th June. If you would like to request a printed report, please email the front office. Reports are generated and sent via our data management software so please look out from an email addressed from CENT Gradexpert . Please do not reply to this email address.

If you do not receive your child's report by Monday 27th of June, first please check your spam folder. If you have still not received it please contact the school front office.

If you have any queries regarding the contents of your child's report, please contact your child's classroom teacher directly.

2022 Census Collection Notice

Census 1
Census 2
Census 3

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

Family Photos

Parents and Friends News

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Is it time to update your precious family photos?

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.

You will receive an 8x12” 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.

Get in early to book your ideal time and pay via this link: www.trybooking.com/912311

Please invite your local friends along to our lovely fundraising event, they do not need to attend our school.

Kind Regards,

St Mary's P&F
Laura Jean
Laura Jean Photos

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
Our students had so much fun at the Colour Run last week. 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 we reach our goal of $10,000 we get to soak Ms Harrison!!!!
colour run
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.

Pastoral Care and Wellbeing News

Positive Partnerships is a national project funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment through the Helping Children with Autism program. They are delivered by Autism Spectrum Australia (Aspect).Their website is full of valuable information and resources relevant to al student learning and they regularly run free webinars and workshops.

This week, Ms Walsh and Ms Zufferey attended the Positive Partnerships professional learning workshop. The workshop focused on supporting students on the Autism spectrum, however many of the strategies and information apply to supporting all students.

At St Mary’s we have wonderful teachers and inclusion support assistants that work hard to create inclusive classrooms that meet all of the students learning needs. In order to this effectively, our staff continue to educate themselves and our students around the wonderful diversity of our community.

One element of the workshop focused on executive functioning. Executive functioning plays a very important role in our learning and behaviour from childhood through to adulthood. Executive functions are skills performed by our brain that help us to control and manage our thoughts and actions. Having the skills to organise and plan, shift attention, be flexible with thinking and self-regulate can all have an impact on how a young person copes with daily tasks. Evidence shows that individuals on the autism spectrum may have difficulties with some or all areas of executive functioning. Please see below executive functioning information sheet.

Positive Partnerships have a free webinar on executive functioning if you would like to learn more. The webinar can give you lots of ideas to support and develop executive functioning skills: https://www.positivepartnerships.com.au/resources/practical-tools-information-sheets/executive-functioning

Positive partnership

Spirit of St Mary's Update

Today we celebrated our Spirit Cup Fun Day. The students had a fun day at our disco and enjoyed their extra play time, lollies and fun classroom activities. It was just what everyone needed after a busy term. Spirit Cup Fun Day is an opportunity for the school to gather and have the efforts in showing the Four RS and ‘making Jesus real’ each day.

Next Term we will set a new goal for our students to work towards for Term Three’s Spirit Cup Fun Day.
spirit

Spirit of St Mary's Disco Fun Today!

Disco 3
Disco 1
Disco 2
Thank you
Thank you everyone for supporting the year 6 students to raise money for their Big Day Out later in the year. A special thank you to all the families that donated lollies to make this fundraising possible.
Year 6

Year 7 - 2023

OCC 13-5-22

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Canteen Online Orders & Update

download
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

Less salt
label reading 1
Fun day
spineroo 22-6-22
Spindroo 2
Arafura
Library open day 20-6-22
Library 1
library 2
Tennis
Netball 14-6-22
Trash magic 20-6-22
music
Aerial play 10-6-22
Cupcakes 1
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