Lord God, we are mindful of our work as a community in Catholic education; of the challenges, difficulties and opportunities that confront us each day. We have within our realm the potential to profoundly influence and enrich the lives of those at St Mary's, to nurture their talents and to expand their horizons. Hear us as we pray for your presence among us as we seek to reach out and touch those with whom we work, play, laugh and cry.

Strengthen these children with your gifts of grace, so that they may love and serve as disciples of Jesus. Grant that they may grow into the fullness of the joy of the Gospel. Fill them with the gift of your presence and increase in them the fruit of your Spirit: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of love, patience and gentleness, the spirit of wonder, truth and justice.

Amen

Term 2 Week 7

This week F/1 have been exploring National Reconciliation Week. In this week of celebration we have an opportunity to build respectful relationships between all Australians, especially with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Together we have learned some Dja Dja Wurrung language, listened to First Nation stories, created some art inspired by these stories and visited the Castlemaine Boorp Boorp Boondyil exhibition. Boorp Boorp Boondyil means ‘passing knowledge on to our children’ in the language of the Dja DjaWurrung people.

Year 2/3

This fortnight has been filled with engaging learning experiences and memorable adventures, most notably our recent excursion to the Bendigo Gold Mine.

In Reading we have been focussing on enhancing reading comprehension through a variety of texts and reading conferencing sessions. The students have also enjoyed exploring creative writing, producing some impressive recounts from another person or animal’s perspective.

In Maths, we have begun to explore multiplication and division. Through interactive activities and practical examples, students are learning to understand these concepts as sharing equally and representation through arrays. We have been using objects like counters and teddies to visually represent multiplication and division problems, which helps in solidifying their understanding.

Congratulations

A Special congratulations this week to Adam, who participated in the Ballarat Badminton Junior Classic on the weekend and had very good results.

Year 5/6 Singles – Winner

Year 7/8 Doubles – Winner

An amazing effort Adam!

PE News

Cross Country

A huge congratulations to our St Mary’s students who participated in the Goldfields Division Cross Country event at Wesley Hill on Friday 17th May-Charlotte, Nynbol, Mitchell, Alastair, Indi, Livinia and Isabelle. They placed highly in their group run on our District Schools Cross Country day in early May and therefore were eligible to compete in this next level at Wesley Hill. All students are to be commended for their participation, effort, enthusiasm and persistence-a wonderful achievement!

Congratulations to Isabelle for her outstanding achievement on this day-Isabelle placed second in her run and headed off to the next round of cross country, the Regional event, in St Arnaud on Tuesday of this week. She ran an exceptional race and finished 9th in her group run, qualifying her for the State Championships next term-a huge congratulations to Isabelle and we wish her all the very best!

Divisional Netball & Football

On Friday 21st June the Goldfields Division Primary Schools Football and Netball Carnival is taking place at Wesley Hill Recreation Reserve. This is an exciting opportunity for schools to enter a football and/or netball team to participate and compete in a round robin against other school teams in our area.

It is with great excitement that I can announce that we are heading off to Wesley Hill to join in on this day! Thank you to our wonderful parents and community members who have offered to join us on this day and take on the necessary roles of umpire, scorer, coach etc-without your support we would be unable to attend. Our netballers and footballers are very excited and are very much looking forward to the day! They had such a wonderful day back in term one at our school’s district day so we are confident of another very enjoyable day at this next Divisional level event. Lunch time training sessions here we come!

Grade F/1 PMP-Perceptual Motor Program

Our Grade F/1 students have been enjoying participating in PMP this term! Students have been engaging in a range of different activities focused on developing many different skills including balance, coordination, spatial awareness, direction, memory, self control and confidence. It has been wonderful to see their excitement and enthusiasm to participate each week! A big thank you to those parent helpers who have been able to come along and assist on a Tuesday morning. We have one session remaining and then we will finish the term with some group games and team relays focussed on fun, team work and further developing those fundamental motor skills!

Grade 2-6 PE Sessions

Our Grade 2-6 students have been really enjoying learning and participating in Indigenous Australian group and team games this term. It’s been wonderful to observe the positivity, team spirit and resilience of our students! Students have also been participating in team relays, focusing on both team work and cooperation as well as further building their fundamental motor skills. Students are currently planning and implementing their own group team relays/activities/games incorporating some fundamental motor skills with their own classes-some very creative thinkers and some great fun! We are looking forward to a couple of weeks of soccer focused sessions prior to the close of term.

Clare Grainger

PE Teacher

clare.grainger@smcastlemaine.catholic.edu.au

Science News

Glitter, paint and cotton buds….the ingredients for fun and cool galaxy jars! This week and last, students have been exploring Space in Science class. We learnt more about our place in space as well as some interesting facts about space. We coloured, constructed and flew our own wind powered rockets and worked in small groups to make galaxy jars for display and sharing in our classroom. We will complete the term by learning a little more about our planet Earth and then, in our final session, we will review our learning from the term and have some exploratory time with materials and activities from the term.

Clare Grainger

Science Teacher

clare.grainger@smcastlemaine.catholic.edu.au

Wellbeing

Hi St Mary’s,

Firstly, just to let our school community know that I will be on long service leave until the start of Term 3. I hope everyone finishes off Term 2 on a positive note and you all have a good break.

Secondly, I’m really looking forward to coming back and being a part of our new school focus of PBL (Positive Behaviour for Learning) as delivered through MACS.

PBL will help us as a community develop some common schoolwide practices and language to help best support our students going forward.

Thirdly, as a school community we have a huge challenge ahead of us in the online sphere, particularly managing our youth and the impacts that it has on them. This mostly happens outside of school hours and as such it is hard for us to manage as a school although we do see the effects and fallout from this becoming increasingly prevalent.

The eSafety Commissioner website is a valuable resource for both teachers and guardians and I recommend that you take the time to access some of its resources and reflect on how devices and online access is being used and monitored in the home. Online gaming along with social media seem to be the two main areas that are proving to be tricky for our young people to manage. Please take the time to click on the link below and read through the information provided. Teachers will also be using some of the resources in the classroom to support their students.

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/issues-and-advice/gaming

Kind regards,

Mark O’Sullivan

Upcoming Events:

Don't forget to mark your calendars for the upcoming events on the Calendar.

As always, we encourage parents and guardians to stay updated with school news and events by regularly checking Seesaw and following us on social media.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and involvement in our vibrant school community!

Warm regards,

John

St Mary's School, Castlemaine

Respect, Resilience, Responsibility

Term 2 Week 7 · 01 Jun 2024

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