St Mary's Newsletter

Term 3 - Week 10 (20th September, 2024)

Dear St Mary's School Community,

Focus Value: Sportsmanship

We play fairly for the enjoyment of all and encourage each other to do our best

First Holy Communion

On Sunday, Kai Wahlsten and Mac Johnston along with their families and the parish community gathered in the church to celebrate their First Holly Communion. Special thanks to Father Philip for celebrating the Mass, Miss Della Bosca for preparing the students and to Zac, Mia and Lucas, our wonderful altar servers. Congratulations to both Mac and Kai on this special occasion.

First Holy Communion is the first time that a child accepts the bread and wine (although since COVID times only the bread is accepted). Catholics believe that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ (through the miracle of transubstantiation). After this special occasion, the child is able to accept the bread and wine at Mass and is more deeply initiated into the Catholic Church.

Assembly

Thank you to the Year One and Two class, Mrs Grant and Ms Scotland for their very entertaining performance of ‘I Love My White Shoes’ with the moral to the story being, "No matter what you step in, keep walking along and singing your song because it's all good."

Congratulations to all the award winners. 

Staffing

Miss Emily Ferraro will be leaving us at the end of the 2024 school year to take up a position at Emmaus Catholic Primary School in Dayton. We thank Emily for her time at St Mary's and wish her all the best. 

Colour Run

Thank you to the P&F, Mrs Bartlett and her band of merry helper for all their work in providing our students, staff and parents with a fantastic finish to Term Three. The funds raised by the P&F go towards providing greatly appreciated resources for your child/ren and the school. 

Canteen

Please note there will be NO CANTEEN  in week one of Term Four. Canteen will resume in week two with all their usual delicious meals and snacks!! 

School Holidays

Wishing everyone a safe, happy and enjoyable holiday. Take care and we look forward to seeing you back for what will undoubtedly be a busy Term Four. 

Q: What did one plate whisper to the other plate?

A: Dinner is on me.

God Bless

Mrs Riethmuller


Class News

Year Five/Six

This term has flown by, and we can’t believe we are at the end of term 3! Recently we’ve had our Athletics carnivals, both the Faction and the Interschool, and we saw plenty of good competition. Unfortunately, we were unable to take the victory at the Interschool, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. Especially as it was the Year 6’s last carnival as primary school students.

We spent some time preparing an interactive learning journey for our parents where we learnt how to use a range of Office365 apps, such as Sway and Forms to display and share a range of work samples. We embedded video links of our book talks and Canva adverts which made them very eye catching. We’ve also been making puppets in class and we hope to perform a play, written by some of our students, to classes sometime next term.

As the last day of term arrives, we are excited to enjoy the colour run organised by the P&F. Even though our class didn’t raise the most funds for the pizza lunch, we still thought it was really funny to watch Mrs Mac get slimed by the winner of the draw.

We hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday and we look forward to term 4 and everything it involves for us – school leader speeches (which we have started), concert preparation and graduation. :D

Special Events

Interschool Athletics Carnival

Last Friday 61 of our students represented St Mary’s at the Interschool Athletics Carnival hosted by Merredin College. It was a lovely warm spring day, perfect for an athletics carnival. As always it was a great display of our students’ sporting talents, determination, and sportsmanship.

We scored 662 points for the day but unfortunately, we came up short against a very strong Merredin College team who won the day on 818 points.

Congratulations to the following individual winners.

Junior Runner-Up Girl – Annabel Johnston

Intermediate Champion Girl – Ava Webb

Senior Runner-Up Boy – Patrick O’Neill

Senior Runner-up Girls – Ruby Smith and Michayla Maiolo

Thank you to Merredin College for hosting the day and to all our wonderful parent helpers who assisted on the day and enabled the carnival to happen.

 

Assembly Merit Awards

Pre-Primary                                                  Year One/Two

Oliver Rode                                                   Mason Carr 

Bree O’Malley                                               Harrison Ransom-Haines

Mia Wadsworth                                           Sam Giles

                                                                       Isabel Davis

                                                                       Miles Crook


Year Three/Four                                          Year Four/Five

Mackenzie Munro                                        Celia Davis

Leo Purssell                                                  Jacob Robartson

Jack Harris                                                     Norah Swarts

                                                                        Lucas Bartlett 

 

Year Five/Six                                                Physical Education

Emily Kermode                                            Baden Avery   

Seth Parkin                                                   Willow Munro  

Kate Growden                                              Jake Mills  

Sterling Roberts                                           Norah Swarts                                                 

                                                                        Greta Gethin

Colour Run

Here is a snapshot of the colour run. Keep a look out on Facebook for more photos soon!!

Other News & Important Dates

Viterra & St Mary’s Primary School Merredin P&F

Viterra and the St. Mary’s Primary School Merredin P & F have agreed to a sponsorship program for the coming season and into the future. The Viterra Sponsorship Program commenced in 2010 as a way of helping WA grain growing communities. Since its inception, Viterra has donated over $1 million to WA grain growing sporting clubs & community groups. Viterra is very proud of what the program has achieved over this period. We are very pleased to be able to contribute to WA grain growing communities that support us, knowing that our sponsorship goes some way towards the viability of rural WA clubs and their communities – it also gives growers a sense that they too have assisted with their club’s finances. We appreciate any support you can offer Viterra by spreading the word amongst your members and the community.

Here is how it works:

Viterra will donate $0.20 per tonne to the St Mary’s Primary School Merredin P & F for every tonne of grain delivered against contracts sold to Viterra.

At the time of contracting, the grower or their consultant MUST identify that they wish the contract to be a part of the sponsorship agreement with the St Mary’s Primary School Merredin P & F. Every 12 months we will forward your club the funds accumulated against the contracts covered by the agreement.

For contract pricing of any grain, or if you wish to subscribe to the Viterra ‘sms’ or ‘email’ pricing service, contact Rob Haddrill, Tim Giumelli or Matt Stenhouse in the Viterra WA office.

1300 453 626

Rob Haddrill 0407 191 633

Tim Giumelli 0427 017 047

Matt Stenhouse 0419 040 786

Containers for Change

St Mary's School is part of the "Containers for Change" program. Please see the poster below for all the details. If you require a green bag to collect your cans, these are available from Mrs Riethmuller at the school.

Please find the link for the 2024 National Parent Survey link above.

Community Notices

Junior Cricket

Register for Blasters: PP- Yr 3

https://www.playhq.com/cricket-australia/register/243e77

 

Register for Juniors Yr 4-8

https://www.playhq.com/cricket-australia/register/e5a593

 

Scorchers Bus coming to Merredin Sunday 6th October, see details on poster

 

Enrol in VacSwim

VacSwim enrolments are now open for our Country early start and January programs. This years program are FREE, so it's a great time to enrol your children!! Please click on the link below to enrol:

Enrol in VacSwim - Department of Education

2024 ADHD WA Conference -Saturday October 19 2024

The 2024 ADHD WA Conference being held in just over a month at Optus Stadium on Saturday October 19 2024. It is available to all parents/carers who may be interested. 

Shane Langsford will be chairing the Parent/Carer Stream, which includes presentations on “ADHD + Parent and School Partnership” (presented by Ms Chantelle Chapman; Senior School Psychologist) and “ADHD + Anxiety in Children” (presented by Associate Professor Emma Sciberras Deakin University VIC and practising Clinical Psychologist). Both presentations will be informative and practical with implementable suggestions and strategies.

We are expecting 400+ in-person attendees and there is also an Online Registration option enabling registrants to log in and watch the whole day live (Adult and Parent/Carer Streams only).

CPD Certificates will be provided to all in-person and online attendees.

Please see the attached PDF for the full day’s program. To register please go to here:

https://www.adhdwa.org/services/2024-conference

 

 

Shire of Merredin Australia Day Nominations

The Shire of Merredin Australia day nominations are now open.

The awards seek to recognise outstanding individuals and organisations that have made significant contributions to their local communities during the past year, or those who have given exceptional service over a sustained period. These contributions can take many forms, including but not limited to education, health, fundraising, voluntary services, business, employment, sport, arts, environment, social inclusion, or any other area that contributes to the betterment of the community.

There are four award categories: 1. Community Citizen of the Year (for individuals over 16 years) 2. Young Community Citizen of the Year (for individuals aged 16-30 years) 3. Senior Community Citizen of the Year (for individuals aged 65 years or over) 4. Active Citizenship Award (for community groups or events).

We strongly encourage individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds to consider submitting a nomination.

 

St Mary's Parish Merredin- Mass Times

Merredin: Saturday 6.30pm & Sunday 10.30am

Kellerberrin: Sunday 8.00am

St Mary's P&F Uniform Shop

Open Wednesday 8.30am-9.10am

Online Orders: www.quickcliq.com.au