Dear families and friends,

Welcome to our second newsletter for the year and we are now half way through the term!

NAPLAN for our Year 3 and 5 students will take place on the 11th, 12th and 13th of March, with tests in Writing, Language Conventions, Reading and Numeracy. Mrs McDonald has been busy preparing our senior students for these tests.

Our CDSSA Athletics Carnival in Casterton is coming up on Friday 27th March. Mr Cummins has been focusing on Athletics in his sports lessons each Thursday. Parents are very welcome to come and watch on the day. A permission note will be going home soon with more details.

Our swimming program has now finished. The students have made lots of progress. Lessons focus on water safety, confidence and swimming skills appropriate to each student’s age and ability level. Lessons are structured so all students can safely develop skills while enjoying being active in the water. For younger or beginner swimmers, lessons focus on becoming comfortable in the water - submerging face and blowing bubbles, moving through water with support, floating on front and back, building confidence and reducing anxiety in the water. Our older students learn and practice correct swimming techniques, arm movements and coordination, freestyle, backstroke, swimming longer distances safely, building stamina and fitness in the water, introduced to breaststroke and survival strokes. Glenda leads our program and has been supported by Britt Parry in the water. We hope to have Britt qualified as a swim teacher for our next lessons.

All our students have fortnightly lessons in Japanese via Webex with Mai Sensei from the Victorian School of Languages. Last week, our Senior class worked with Mai Sensei online and focused on learning colours in Japanese. On alternate weeks, classes work with Miss Bailey to learn the local Gunditjmara language and all about Indigenous culture. For their first lesson, our Junior class learned the Nyunga sun dance from the Yugambeh people in South East Queensland, sang their favourite Indigenous lullaby Inanay and learned to say 'hello' and 'goodbye' in the local Gunditjmara language (Dhauwurd Wurrung).

We have purchased mini tennis nets from HART Sport – and a 6m portable net is on its way too! The students are absolutely loving tennis at the moment!

A big congratulations to our very own first prize winner!

Foundation student Charlotte Rafferty has taken out a blue sash and $5 prize after coming first in her category at the Tyrendarra show!

We hosted our first termly community breakfast early on in the term. As a school we absolutely love having all our families visit for breakfast – it is always delicious and lots of fun! Mrs McDonald was in awe of the kindness, vibrancy and generosity of our community! Hearing the chatter and excitement between students, staff and families is a special way to start the day. As always, thank you to all our kitchen helpers for making our first breakfast of 2026 such a success!

Also, we will be having a stall at the Merino Easter Market, we will be having an Easter raffle with lots of yummy prizes. Please send in any donations of Easter Eggs for our raffle to the school. It would be very appreciated. Also, we are looking for helpers on the day plus volunteers to put the sun shelter up. Please contact the school via Dojo or 55 791 305 if you can help. There will be items for sale that the students have made, free mask making and much more.

School Council

We held our first meeting for the Council on Thursday February 26th at 8am. Items discussed at the our meeting were - VSBA Planned maintenance for our school, financial reports, playground inspection report, new bus/garden shed to be built in the middle of year to replace exisiting garden shed that is beyond repair, annual school management motions, Student Free days – Tuesday 27th January, Wednesday 16th December, Thursday 17th December, Friday 18th December, principals report plus the following polices were approved -

Cash Handling
Electronic Funds Management
School Purchasing Card
Anaphylaxis
Asthma
Sun Protection
Insurance

Also, councilors whose term expire are - Tanya Henty-Anderson and Damien Henty-Anderson. So, we will have two vacancies for parent representatives on our school council. Both Tanya and Damien can nominate again if they choose too.

If any of our parents are interested in joining the school council, please see me for nomination forms and further information. All nomination forms need to be given to the Principal by Friday 13th March.

Our next meeting and AGM is Thursday 19th of March.

Kind regards,

Lisa Ferrier

Merino Consolidated School Newsletter

BE SAFE, BE RESPECTFUL, BE A LEARNER

Issue 2 · 04 Mar 2026

In this issue