School Newsletter

Two of our three teams are through to the finals of CESA STEM MAD which is sensational for our first year of involvement. Finals will occur at the STEM MAD Showcase Day on August 17 and successful teams have an opportunity to progress to the National Finals in November. Particular thanks goes to Bianca for working with our three teams and to Maria A for capturing the design thinking process to create the video submissions.

STEM MAD is designed to acknowledge STEM learning initiatives that address real-world problems and demonstrate how students in Catholic schools take action that matters, by designing a service, product, or innovation to Make A Difference (MAD) to others or the environment.

Congratulations to all our STEM MAD participants who utilised the design thinking process to create a solution to a problem identified in our school.  Please take a few minutes to watch the videos which capture the process and showcase each teams’ solutions! These students are definitely living out our school vision as A Faith Community, Inspired by Love, Empowered by Learning to Make a Difference.

We have been informed by the Charles Sturt Council that significant roadworks will begin on Albermarle Street in the coming weeks.  This project will span 6 months, beginning at the Port Road end of the street and eventually impacting the road and footpath adjacent our school.  Jo Puccetti and I met with the contractors recently to provide information to help them design the project to ensure the least impact as possible for our school families and visitors.  The most significant work will occur during the October and January school holidays, however there will be impact at other times.

We appreciate that the council and contractors have reached out to work with us to achieve as minimal disruption as possible, however, please note that this is council scheduled work and we have little to no control over this process.

Further information to come.

Teachers on duty in the morning and afternoon at our drop off and pick up points are in place to manage the movement, behaviour and safety of our students. They are NOT responsible for the movement, behaviour and safety of adults whom we expect to be showing courtesy to others, demonstrating patience and to be following the road rules at all times. Thankfully, the majority of our parents/grandparents do use the road respectfully and safely. A few however, do not, impacting the flow of traffic and safety of other road users and students. Our children learn a great deal from what they see and hear.  As a reminder, the following is against the law in our school zones:

• Exceeding the 25 KM/hr speed limit
• Stopping on the yellow line to allow children to disembark, particular outside our Albermarle Street gate
• Crossing the road without using the designated crossing on Albermarle Street
• Doing a u-turn across the solid white line after exiting the Kiss and Drop Zone or anywhere else that impacts oncoming traffic
• Blocking oncoming traffic whilst waiting to enter the Kiss and Drop Zone in Albermarle Street
• Stopping for more than two minutes in the pick up zone in Bertie Street
  
  

Our school pick up and drop off spaces are really only congested for 10 minutes at the beginning and end of the day.  Please consider parking in nearby streets and walking with your children. Families should only be using the Kiss and Drop zone if their children are able to get out of the car independently with their belongings.  If you need to assist your child, please park elsewhere and walk with them instead.  Lastly, we ask that you be respectful of our staff carparks on Albermarle and Bertie Street.  These are not available for those picking up/dropping off students with the exception of parents with an access parking permit and this is limited to the Albermarle Street staff parking area. Thank you for ensuring we can all use the roads around our school safely.

Did you know that events such as the recent Sports Colours Day, the Mother’s and upcoming Father’s Day stalls, School Disco and Kytons Easter Fundraiser are all initiatives of our Parents and Friends group?  Food and refreshments offered at our Come and Play Day earlier this year, our Sports Day each year and our Art Show late last year, were all provided by the same Parents and Friends group.  I know many of our students and our families look forward to and enjoy these special events.

These events and services do not occur without our community members volunteering their time to undergo the planning, purchasing, organising and facilitating. Our Parents and Friends group is chaired by Rebekah Walton and generally meet for 45 minutes a couple of times per term to plan for upcoming events. Currently, these meetings are attended by only two parents who, therefore, are doing the bulk of the planning and coordinating of these events.   

This year, we invited our school families to consider helping at just one event and therefore, attendance would only be required at one meeting for the year as well as the event itself.  This model allows the load and time commitment to be spread across many rather than just the same few.  I acknowledge the assistance at events of several our parents and grandparents who have already lent a hand to support these initiatives.

Upcoming initiatives requiring volunteers are:

• Grandfriends Day (just the morning tea set up/pack up)
• Father’s Day Stall (selling only – items are already purchased)
• Sports Day catering
• School Disco

Our students who will be celebrating their Sacraments at the end of August continue to meet and prepare. They have completed the preparation for Confirmation and have one more session left to prepare them for Holy Communion. After a long period of preparation, the students are getting excited for the day to come where they will complete the Sacrament of Initiation. We continue to keep these students and their families in our prayers as they go along this journey.

Last Wednesday St Joseph’s came together to celebrate the Feast Day of St Mary MacKillop. Mary MacKillop is very important to our school, St Joseph’s, as she founded, along with Father Tenison Woods, the first St Joseph’s School in 1866 in a stable in the South Australian town, Penola. This marked the beginning of the Sisters of St Joseph’s and established the charism that we as a school is built on today.

Our day started with a whole school Mass celebrated by Fr Santhosh and hosted by the SRCs. At this Mass every year two children from each class are recognised for demonstrating similar values to Mary MacKillop and are presented with the Mary MacKillop Award.  Recipients are chosen because they display the following qualities:

• Care and respect for others and our environment
• Respect and prayerful participation during Masses and times of prayer
• Seeing a need and doing something about it without being asked
• Putting the needs of others before their own

We congratulate the following students who were awarded the 2022 Mary MacKillop Award –

On Tuesday, 15th August we came together again in Liturgy to celebrate the Assumption of Mary. Our Year 1/2s hosted this Liturgy. It was a beautiful celebration of when Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken up to heaven, body and soul, to be with her son Jesus. Mary reminds and teaches us that we should live our life just like God in everything we do.

Last term, some of our Year 3/4 students were invited to participate in a photo shoot with Archbishop O’Regan and Bishop Karol from the Diocese of Port Pire. The photos are to be used to launch Catholic Mission’s Socktober Challenge in the Southern Cross. The students had a lot of fun participating in different photos and these can be viewed here. Socktober is a challenge held by Catholic Missions every year to raise money for those more marginalised.  Later this term, our 3/4 classes will be meeting with Tony Johnston, Catholic Mission Diocesan Director to participate in the Socktober Challenge. The iconic symbol of Socktober is a tattered, recycled ball made of socks, t-shirts and plastic bags tied with strong, representing the essence of the event.  Our 3/4 students will spend some time making these sockballs and then later hold a Socktober Shoot out where every student will pay a gold coin donation to have a go at kicking a sockball into the goals.  The money raised will be sent to Timor-Leste to support families facing health and wellness challenges.

Today we presented our Semester 2 SRC Reps with their badges. This was a special moment for these students and the community and we look forward to the leadership they will show in our community. 

Next week we will be celebrating Book Week with some fun events across the week to encourage our students to developing a love of books and reading.

👉 Families are invited to join us for our annual Book Week Parade on Friday 25 August at 9:15am. 

Come along to celebrate and support South Australia’s talented youth on one of four evenings presented by the Catholic Schools Music Festival. 

In September 2023, the annual Catholic Schools Music Festival will showcase 2000 extraordinary students from the ages of 10-18 years on the stage of the Festival Theatre. 

👉 Our school choir will be performing on Friday 29 September at the Festival Theatre. Book online through Ticketek here

Girls blossom as members of the AGC, both on and off the stage. Your daughter will develop confidence, public speaking and presentation skills resilience and friendships that will last a lifetime.

🎶 The AGC will be visiting our school to hold an Assessment Workshop with interested girls. Open to girls in Reception to Year 6.

The group assessment workshop includes singing and movement activities and is designed to be a fun and positive experience. Following our visit, we will post a personalised report and further information about 2023 classes to you.

👉 Register online here or see Mrs Arthur for more information.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNING TRIVIA TEAMS Pokémon and The Big Brainiacs. 

On Wednesday afternoon, we had a Mary MacKillop trivia quiz, as part of our Feast Day celebrations. We watched a video about Mary MacKillop and then had two rounds of questions to answer. The winning team, Pokémon (Jaswant, Krithik, Leo and Angus) won the Quiz with a perfect 18/18. They were closely followed by The Big Brainiacs (Lupo, Michael, Sebastian and Callan) on 17/18. Everyone did a great job answering questions and we had lots of fun.

Throughout the Term, we have been sharing The Very Hungry Caterpillar in class. In Week 3, the Gold Group had a visitor to Preschool, a caterpillar moving through the yard. This caused much excitement amongst the children, who shared their ideas and knowledge with one another.

What do caterpillars eat? Do you think he’s hungry?

🌿🍦 Leaves and ice cream - Georgia

🙅 Don’t touch him, he might be poisonous - Judd

🐛💨 He’s really fast, caterpillars are supposed to be slow - Dimi

😋 He looks like the hungry caterpillar - Vivien

😯 He’s moving to me - Lukas

😨 He was coming for me! - Max

👃 He’s sniffing for food, that’s what caterpillars do. - Dimi

👟 He’s trying to untie your shoelace. - Xavier

🐛🐛🐛 I have 3 caterpillars in my garden. - Gracie

The visit by the caterpillar sparked an interest in creating craft to represent what we had seen. The children used round paper to create caterpillars, drawing and cutting out legs to add. Outside, children used balloons to create painted caterpillars, drawing on faces, legs and antennae. Later in the week, children created butterflies, experimenting with symmetry, by only painting one side of the paper and folding it together. They also used cellophane to create colourful wings, working together to create one big butterfly.

This week is National Science Week. The theme this year is Innovation: Powering Future Industries.

To acknowledge National Science Week, we are taking a look at some of the Science learning happening in our classes!

The year 5/6's learning in science this term is around Physical Sciences. The students will be learning all about how to make electrical circuits. As part of their learning inquiry, the students are building board games. Each of their board game designs will need with a light function (incorporating their electrical circuit).

The year 3/4 team have been looking at chemical sciences. We have been experimenting with solids and liquids and how heat changes a state of matter. We explored what a reversible and non-reversible change is and wrote scientific reports for our experiments. We have so far conducted a beeswax wrap experiment and a melting crayons experiment.

The fizzy heart activity is an example of a chemical reaction including states of matter! That is a solid (baking soda) and a liquid (vinegar) reacting together to form a new substance. When they combine together, they form a gas called carbon dioxide which is all the fizzing bubbling action you see! 

The year 1/2  classes have been learning about Earth and Space Sciences this term. On Wednesday, 2nd of August, the year 1/2 classes visited the Planetarium as part of their Science Curriculum.

Blending the worlds of fun and education, the program included understanding the basic motions of the sun, earth and moon and their effect on everyday life; components of the solar system; and understanding the universe and the nature of space exploration. The students had an amazing experience.

🚀 My favourite thing on our excursion was watching a movie about space. It was called ‘Tycho going to Mars’. - Makuei  

🪐 I really liked learning about the planets.  We learnt that the planets spin. - Monique 

🚌 I really like going on the bus to the Planetarium.  It was a really long ride. - Krithik  

✨ We got to look at constellations, which are groups of stars. - Dhaksh 

During Inquiry the students were given a provocation about the constellations, and they were asked to record any wondering they had around stars, constellations and space. These were their thoughts.

1/2RM have been working on their Constellation artwork. The students are designing their own constellations. We have the rainbow, netball, the love heart, the horse and more.

What is a constellation? It is a group of visible stars that form a pattern when viewed from Earth. The pattern they form may take the shape of an animal, a mythological creature, a man, a woman, or an inanimate object such as a microscope, a compass, or a crown.

The year 1/2 classes also had the opportunity to talk to a real life female Australian astronaut in training. The students posed questions to ask Katherine and were super excited to find out more about Space. Katherine spoke about her career journey and her advice to others who dare to follow their dreams.

In the Reception unit, the students have been learning all about the features of plants and animals in Biological Sciences. To help us learn about the parts of seeds and plants we planted our own seeds and observed them closely each day as they grew. We documented how our seeds grew and changed over 3 weeks in our seed diary. Some of our seeds are still growing very strong at home!