Term 3, Week 5
Welcome
On 8th August we celebrated the feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop; at school, we held a liturgy on Monday 9th August to commemorate this special feast day.
Mary MacKillop was an Australian Catholic nun who founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart and a number of schools throughout Australasia with an emphasis on education for the poor. Our Stage 3 Learning Community is named in her honour, as is one of our House Teams: MacKillop House (Blue).
Mary’s examples of generosity and kindness remind us that we should “Never see a need without doing something about it”, which through our discipleship and religious education program we accomplish within our school and the wider community.
We pray to Mary of the Cross MacKillop that we too may live with courage, trust and openness and be fired afresh by the Holy Spirit.
Cans & Coins Day
A huge thank you for the wonderful support from students and families in responding to the needs of others and to support homelessness. We also know that St James' life work was to look out for the vulnerable and marginalised - putting faith in action! St James and St Mary of the Cross are smiling on our school for their generosity and desire to make a difference. These cans and $191.80 cash will be shared between local charities, You Have a Friend and Fred's Place.
Book Week
Book Week will be celebrated from Friday 20th August with our annual Book Week Dress-Up Day followed by our Book Fair from Monday 23rd August; we thank Mrs Anderson for organising this event and our staff who will help make it a success for all students. Our Book Week Dress-Up Parade will be at 8:40 am, linked with our normal Friday assembly and I am sure it'll be wonderful to see the myriad of costumes that will be linked to literature, which supports students’ engagement in reading as a lifelong adventure. Unfortunately, due to the current circumstances (Covid-19), we cannot have parents witness the parade, but we will live stream this on our Facebook page. In anticipation, we thank our parents for providing the children’s costumes.
The Book Fair will be open to students from Tuesday 24th August to lunch on Friday 27th August. Students will be able to bring in cash or they can fill out their 'wish list' form when they visit the fair with their class and parents can then pay online from home. The Book Fair will be open for students to visit before school, recess and at lunchtime.
Parent Teacher Student Conferences
Parent Teacher Student Conferences are scheduled for Week 8 (Tuesday 31st August & Wednesday, 1st September). They will take the same format as Term 2, but will be zoomed for this term due to the Covid-19 restrictions. Bookings via Operoo are now open and will close Thursday 19th August. Please ensure your zoom software is up to date in preparation of your meeting. Once a booking has been made, a zoom link will then be sent via email. In anticipation, we thank everyone for their understanding of this matter.
Art Enrichment
We have 2 major prize winners in The Les Peterkin Art Prize this year. Their artwork will be framed and hung in the gallery during the children's exhibition at The Tweed Regional Gallery from 2nd September to 28th November. 2 winners out of 40 framed portraits is amazing. Congratulations to:
- Cormac, Year 4 (The Derivan Art Award 8-10 years)
- Xavier, Year 1 (Co-Ordinator's Award 5-7 years)
We also have a number of students whose artworks are on display in big display books in the gallery during the exhibition. The following students will receive an invitation to the exhibition along with a certificate which will come to our school for presentation:
- Sophia and Anna, Year 1
- Malika, Grade 3
- Ally, Grade 4
- Connor, Year 5 (2 artworks displayed)
- Archie, Year 6
In total we have 7 displayed entries out of 200! This is a credit to these students and all the students whose art was entered as there were well over 3000 entries.
Today, a number of students participated in the David Ogg Art Enrichment program, where their interests and skills in this area were explored and developed. They created some terrific pieces of work that demonstrates their passion! Well done kids!
Budding artists!
Consent and respectful relationships education
Respectful Relationships Parent/Carer Survey
Thank you to the 168 parents/carers who completed the Respectful Relationships Survey in Term 2 of this year. Parents/carers were asked two questions:
1. Respectful relationships and consent education are being taught in school. How can our Catholic schools better support our children and young people in this area?
2. Our children and young people need both their families and schools to help support them in their understanding of consent and respectful relationships. How can our families and Catholic schools work together to better develop their understanding in this area?
The key themes to emerge from survey responses included:
• The need for explicit teaching across the curriculum and a whole school approach that focused on developing a culture of respect within the school community.
• Improved communication with parents about consent and relationship education curriculum content to allow parents to effectively support children’s learning and development at home.
• The use of high-quality external providers for students and parents.
Key actions that the Lismore Catholic Schools Office will undertake include:
• Developing a set of guiding principles that will provide an effective and consistent framework for consent and respectful relationships education in the Diocese of Lismore. This will include the importance of student and parent voice.
• To improve communication to parents and carers and explore parent and community respectful relationship and consent education opportunities.
• To investigate priority areas for curriculum resource development and teacher education.
COVID Updates
Currently, the COVID-19 situation continues to put parameters in place for our school and community but also enables us to continue educating our students at school, which we are very grateful for! Please note these will continue to be in place until at least August 28th, and we appreciate and thank families for their ongoing support.
Please remember these important parental requirements:
- Parents/visitors can not enter the school unless given prior permission.
- Parents/visitors can not attend assembly, but we are live streaming this via our Facebook Page.
- When entering the office or school grounds parents/visitors are required to wear masks, sign in with the Service NSW App and maintain the 1.5-metre social distancing requirements.
We have developed learning continuity plans should the situation change; let's hope it's like carrying an umbrella when you're out for a walk......it only rains when you don't have your umbrella!
Thumbs-up
- To Mrs Scott and our Mini Vinnies students who assisted with the Cans & Coins initiative.
- Mrs Anderson for organising the Book Fair.
- Everyone in our community for supporting each other through the Covid-19 situation.
To conclude
Each Friday afternoon through Play is the Way games, our students are continuing to enjoy and learn more about how to be capable, resilient people, who come to school to better themselves, rather than being better than others. It is tremendous to see them laughing and playing, whilst developing and strengthening their life skills. Well done kids!
With blessings,
Nic.
Play is the Way
