St Mary's Newsletter

We accept apologies and give others the opportunity to do the right thing and to have another chance.

On Monday we were fortunate enough to have Musica Viva visit St Mary's School. The band Mara came and presented "Music in My Suitcase". It's a show bringing music, songs, instruments and culture from around the world. The students have been learning about "Music in My Suitcase" prior to the visit and have used their music as inspiration to create dances, songs and body percussion. 

It was a week for all things musical, because following up from Mondays amazing performance, the Year Three - Six students were treated to a fantastic perfomance by the Guildford Grammar Symphony Orchestra and the Guildford Grammar Motown Band. The children were delighted to hear and sing a long to a medley from ABC Kids and also some classics! they even got the opportunity to show us some of their amazing dance moves!!

On Thursday the Kindy to Year Two students had a special free performance from the Australian Baroque presenting their award winning show "Space Music". The show, narrated by ex NASA scientist and planetary geologist Dr Anthony Brian, is full of incredible cinematic images and film from NASA and is accompanied by a live orchestra. 

It really inspires students to learn more about space and our place in the world and was really impactful. The students thoroughly enjoyed the show and were able to get up and get involved. They even got to play a violin that was 300 years old!!  

Don’t forget Parents to check your SEQTA sign in so you can access your child’s report. If you are a new parent, check your inbox and follow the prompts. If you have any issues please contact me on David.Hammersley@cewa.edu.au

Next Wednesday the Pre-Primary - Year Two students will travel to Nungarin for an excursion that will feature a wide range of Emergency Services AND the vehicles they use. Photos will follow after the event.

The lost property box is once again overflowing. if your child is missing any items please come and have a look in the lost property box situated in the unisex toilet. 

As I always remind people, we are so lucky to have the amazing Mrs Crees as our PE teacher. We extend our thanks to her for the fantastic job she did in running the Winter Carnival today. I would also like to extend a massive thank you to all the wonderful parents who gave up their time to help out today. As we all know days like this can't run without the help of many volunteers!! Thanks again!! See below for more details of the day and some great photos!!

All St Mary's students will be celebrating NAIDOC Day next Tuesday. The children will be involved in a variety of activities celebrating this occasion and highlighting the theme of 'Togetherness'.

We’re delighted to inform you that St Mary's School will be participating in ICAS again this year. Find out how your child’s academic abilities compare against their classmates and other students across the state and nation and get detailed reports on their strengths and weaknesses. The tests are fully online and sitting dates will commence in Term 3. Learn more:

ICAS - Leading Academic Competition - ICAS Assessments

I went to the aquarium last weekend, but didn’t like it.

There be something fishy about that place.

God Bless.

Mr H.

Term 2 has been super busy for the 5/6 class, with so many different events happening and keeping us on our toes. This week alone we have had two music events and one sport event.

Musica Viva come to school to perform, and we loved it. It was beautiful rhythmic music that used saxophones, lutes and beautiful voices to perform Turkish inspired songs (with the inclusion of Aslan sign language too!).

We went to Cummins Theatre to listen to the Guildford Grammar Symphony Orchestra which was amazing. Today the Years 3-6 had the Winter Carnival, playing Football, Hockey and Netball, which we have trained and practiced all term for.

Go Saints!!

During the term we have had five of our students receive the Sacrament of Confirmation with our new Parish Priest Father Philip and we’ve read at a Sunday Mass. We’ve raised funds through our Life Link P.J. Day, ran a cross country race, started creating puppets (we hope to produce a puppet show), written some very descriptive short stories and more…  

We’ve learnt some more concepts about fractions and what they are equivalent to. We’ve collected data from various classes about topics and then represented the information in a graph. We have tiptoed into the ‘Numbers’ App to show our research. We posed questions such as “How many immigrants do countries around the world take each year?” or “What is the percentage of a country’s population that have allergies?” and collected the data from researching our questions. The fun part was transferring that data into various graphs such as Pie, Circle, Doughnut or 2D bar. We really enjoyed it and almost forgot to go to recess! Maths is Awesome!

We are finishing the term off with our Country presentations that we have researched at home over the term.   

This term in Kindy we have been looking closely at our seasons.  To celebrate the winter solstice, we had our very own winter celebration.  The children were invited to wear their favourite cosy clothing and we set up the classroom with pillows, rugs, teepees and fairly lights. We had a toasty fire crackling on the TV to add to the ambience.

We made winter lanterns and sipped on warm milos with marshmallows. The Kindy children all agreed it was ‘The best day ever!!’

What a wonderful day we had today for our annual Winter Carnival against Merredin College. It was a huge day for all of our students with back-to-back games and some teams being down players, however, despite fatigue, they kept giving it their all in each of their games. The improvement in students’ skills and game understanding as the day progressed was a delight to watch and it was great to see all of our students enjoying themselves, working together well as a team and showing respect to the opposition and umpires.

We had some fantastic results across all three sports,

Hockey

SM2 – 1st

SM1 – 3rd

Senior Netball (Year 5&6)

SM1 – 2nd

SM2 – 3rd

Intermediate Netball (Year 3&4)

SM 1- 1st

SM 2 – 2nd

Football

SM2 – 1st

SM1 – 2nd

Thankyou to Ms Bryant from Merredin College for organising the day, and to the Merredin College Secondary students who stepped in to umpire games, it was greatly appreciated.

As always, a huge thankyou to all our amazing parent helpers who gave up their time to coach, umpire and score our games today! We are incredibly lucky to have such a supportive school community supporting our students on days like this. 

Mrs Crees

"The Premier’s Reading Challenge runs from the 6th of May to the 6th of September and the idea is that you try to read as many books as you can. It’s a competition right across the state and there’s some great prizes – including a Nintendo Switch. So, everyone get on board with the Premier’s Reading Challenge for 2024. Get to your books!"

Hon. Roger Cook MLA, Premier of Western Australia 

The Premier’s Reading Challenge is a literacy engagement program established in 2022 to: 

• encourage students to read more books
• enjoy reading
• improve literacy levels.

The mission is for students in kindergarten to Year 10 to read 12 books over 4 months from 6 May to 6 September. That’s right—just 12, students can read:

• books
• short stories
• graphic novels
• eBooks
• talking books
• audiobooks
• poems
• anything that sparks their interest and gets them reading.

Whether they’re a curious kindergartener or a high-schooler, there is something of interest for readers at any and every level.

Adventures await. Books take us to places we only dream about and even further. Where else can we experience a mutiny on a pirate ship or jump on a time-traveling bicycle.

Students will expand their vocabulary, learn new facts, and impress their friends with fancy new words that they have learned.

At the end of the challenge, students who complete it will receive a special certificate signed by the Premier. They can hang it proudly on their bedroom wall; it’s like winning a gold medal in reading!

Get your students ready to explore, grab their reading lights and bookmarks and set sail on their next reading adventure.

The next great story is only one page turn away.

The challenge will:

• raise the profile of reading and literacy in schools
• give students a focus for their reading
• encourage students to enjoy reading and read more books
• encourage students to participate by being challenged
• offer incentives and prizes for readers
• build self-esteem, pride, school unity and a sense of achievement among students
• increase the involvement of parents in their child’s reading
• increase the number of library books borrowed
• contribute to increased literacy levels.

How to register

Go to:

https://www.premiersreadingchallenge.wa.edu.au/

and click on the "SIGN IN" button to create an account.

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.

Space Music is narrated by ex NASA scientist Dr Antony Brian, who mapped part of Venus whilst working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA. The show is about space exploration and our discoveries to date and is a feast for the eyes with cinematic images and film from NASA, accompanied by a live orchestra! 

Tickets on sale through Merredin Visitor Centre or at the door. 

Come along and support two of our very own St Mary's students, Greta Gethin & Milla Dolton, who will performing in the play "Too Many Daughters: a Jane Austen Parody" by Claire Epstein. 

Merredin: Saturday 6.30pm & Sunday 10.30am

Kellerberrin: Sunday 8.00am

Open Wednesday 8.30am-9.10am

Online Orders: www.quickcliq.com.au