Assistant Principal's Page

Welcome back to Term 3!  The year is going past so quickly and it is quite scary to think that our students are half way through our educational journey this year!  Once again we have a very full term, with many exciting excursions and incursions as well as our celebration of McAuley Day in the last week of this term!  I hope the Term Three Grade Overviews that were in last week's newsletter gave you a taste of some of the very special things that will be on throughout the term.

Focus of the Week:  

Last week as we returned to school, our Focus was on reminding students to act with safety as they enter and leave the school grounds.  These are times when there are lots of people moving in many directions, and not being aware of our surroundings can cause us to become unsafe.  Please remind your children about school procedures when arriving and leaving the grounds, and the necessity to be aware of their own safety during these times.  

This week we are focusing on hygiene and keeping ourselves safe from the many 'bugs' that can cause us to become ill.  Our theme is 'Keep Yourself Safe! Cover a Cough and Wash Your Hands'.  Even though Covid is not as rampant as it has been over the past few years, it too is still lurking in the background.  We want to do all we can to keep our students and our teachers in the classrooms and not home sick.  Please take a moment to reinforce this very important hygiene principle.

Incursion - VR Space Workshop

Tomorrow our Year 3 and Year 5 students will have a brilliant opportunity to experience Space in a totally different way!  Virtual Reality will transport our students into space, piloting their research vessels around planets and moons, helping them to learn about the solar system in a very exciting way!  This is a wonderful learning event that brings this technology right to our school!   We look forward to hearing from Year 3 and Year 5 about this wonderful event.

James Sheahan Visitors

Last Thursday we had the last of our visits from the James Sheahan students studying childhood development across the early years.  As they worked with our students for short periods over a number of visits, they got to experience first hand children's development.  We have thoroughly enjoyed having the Sheahan girls visit, and look forward to doing it all again next year! 

Dental Checkup

The Department of Health has arranged for 'Blissful Smiles Dental' to attend Catherine McAuley to conduct dental examinations on children in Kindergarten to Year 6.  A permission note was sent out late last Term detailing all information about these dental check ups. These dental examinations will take place throughout next week.

Winter Sport - Years 3-6

This term our student in Years 3 to 6 commenced 'Winter Sport'.  Each year our students look forward to their Winter sport, as we send students to a number of different venues throughout Orange to experience a variety of differing sports.  These include gymnastics, fitness, ten pin bowling, boxing, marshall arts and dance.  Year 3 and 4 attend on a Thursday, while Year 5 and 6 go on a Friday.  From all reports, all students loved their first session last week!

Dance Fuse!

 As part of the Personal Development, Health and Physical Educaiton Syllabus (PD,H,PE), all students from Kinder to Year 6 are expected to achieve outcomes associated with some of the physical movements of Dance.  We are very lucky to have a visiting dance company  coming to McAuley to take all students for lessons during Week 4 (Aug 7-11). 'Dance Fuse' have incorporated the outcomes into a clever and fun week where students are instructed in groups and learn dance moves.  These then come together at the end of the week to create a clever dance routine.  We look forward every year to having a visit from 'Dance Fuse' and to giving our students the opportunity to be creative as they work towards these outcomes.  As with all things, we rely on teachers to organise these acitivites so our students will experience their benefits.  A  very special 'thank you' this year to Mrs Marianne Niven for being the person to drive this opportunity to experience 'Dance Fuse'.

Kind Regards,

Robyn Petty