News from around the school

New - St Mary's Cross Country Timetable

Please find attached the timetable Cross Country. This will be held on Thursday 30th March at the Mooroopna Recreation Reserve on the Leon Heath, Pee Wee Young & Bernie Trevaskis Ovals.

Students will walk across to the event in their classes following recess and will return to school prior to 3pm. Students are asked to wear their house colour t-shirt for the day.

Students will have their lunch prior to leaving and each class will take student’s recess/snacks with them in their class tub.

Please ensure students have their school hat, sunscreen applied and a water bottle for the day. Students are not allowed to leave from the oval. They must return to school.

NEW - Subway Changes

NO SUBWAY LUNCH ORDERS NEXT WEEK due to Cross country and Friday 31st Pupil Free Day.

Subway lunches will be delivered the following week on Thursday 6th April due to Good Friday Pupil Free Day on 7th April.

New - P/1/2 Easter Bonnett Parade

Our P/1/2 Students will have an Easter Bonnet Parade in on Wednesday 5th April at 9.30am.

Families and Friends are invited to watch and it will be live streamed on the day as well.

New - LiteracyPlanet - Word Mania

LiteracyPlanet is currently running a word-building competition called Word Mania, where schools compete against each other for major prizes and certificates.

All of our students from Years 1-6 have been entered into the competition. Your child's teacher will provide them with login details. They can use this login information to play Word Mania at school and at home.

The game can be played via Desktop (app.literacyplanet.com/login) or through the Word Mania app.

The competition relies on an honesty policy. Students are expected to compete unaided and use their own skills and ability in the competition.

Word Mania boosts students' word building skills, improving their knowledge of phonemes, morphemes, affixes and plurals, as well as spelling and word recognition. Word building is a great challenge for developing complex literacy skills and is fun for students of all ages and levels.

Word Mania has been shown to improve these key skills by an average of 36% over the course of the competition.

The warm up round will occur between March 6 and April 23, with the competition round being held between May 2 and May 5.

Good luck and happy word-building!

New - St Anne's College 2024 Enrolments Open

The St Anne's College 2024 enrolment process has begun. Please see the attached enrolment flyer below for relevant information regarding the enrolment procedure.

Dates of Interest

MARCH 24th - 31st - ENROLMENT TOURS - Experience our learning spaces in action via student-led tours
MARCH 29th - COMMUNITY OPEN NIGHT 5:30PM - 6PM - We welcome families to visit our learning space
APRIL 5th - INFORMATION NIGHT 7PM - 8PM - Discover, ask questions and absorb

St Annes 2024 Enrolments Flyer.pdf

New - Notre Dame College 2024 Enrolments

Please see the following Flyer with Notre Dame College2024 enrolment dates.

Dates of interest

2024 Online Enrolment Application open - Wednesday 26 April 2023
2024 Enrolments close - Friday 19 May 2023

NDC 2024 Enrolment flyer.pdf

URGENT - Help St Mary's Bingo Committee

Our Parish has been running Bingo on a Saturday evening for close to 45 years. Over this time the school has received monetary donations of approx $12,000 per year, for support in achieving and maintaining larger projects around the school. just recently new airconditioning in the Marian Centre.

In raising this money, the small Bingo Committee, needs some support from our school families to volunteer and assist on the Bingo roster once or twice over an 8 week period .

The tasks that we require help in are -

Ticket Selling - 6.30pm - 9.30pm - 3 hours
Canteen - 6.30pm - 9.00pm - 2.5hours
Caller - 7.30pm - 10.00pm - 2.5 hours. This is now done by 'auto call'
Floor Walker - 7.30pm - 10.00pm - 2.5 hours. This is checking the winners ticket and calling back the ticket number

Bingo is held in the Marian Centre Saturday evenings for people in our community and volunteers will help other people from the committee, parish or the school. This is a great way to meet new people and help raise funds for our school and parish.

We thank all our families who are already helping, this is very much appreciated and we look forward to meeting new helpers for 2023.

Please contact any of the following to help out on the roster.

Tom Dumaresq - 58254836

Emma DiFede - 0416857026

Bev Ryan - 58252597

Maree Williams - 58252584

School Office - 58252858

Thank you for your consideration in supporting our school and our Parish.

Bingo Committee

NEW - Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD) On School Students with Disability

What is the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data? Schools must now complete the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD) every year. It counts the number of students who receive additional adjustments or “help” at school because of a disability. The NCCD helps governments plan for the needs of students with disability.

Please read the attached document for further information.

NCCD-Parents Information Sheet.pdf

New - 5/6 Camp - Parliament and Civics Education Rebate - PACER

2023 Canberra Camp

Canberra Camp was a huge success!

Students were given the opportunity to participate in a variety of educational programs that focused on Australia’s history, culture, heritage and democracy. The Australian Government recognises the importance of all young Australians being able to visit the national capital as part of their Civics and Citizenship education.

To assist families in meeting the cost of the excursion the Australian Government is contributing funding of $67.50 per student under the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate program towards those costs. The rebate is paid directly to the school upon completion of the excursion.

We were very proud of all St Mary’s students - we received many comments from the places we visited about their exceptional behaviour, their willingness to participate in activities and what they already knew about the nation’s capital.

Grade 5/6 Happy Campers

We continue a re-cap of our Grade 5/6 Camp Adventures. we had such an amazing week in Canberra, seeing and learning so much.

We share some of our packed adventures from our visit to Parliament house, Questacon, National Arboretum, Cockington Greens Gardens, The Royal Australian Mint, The Electoral Commission, a fun night of bowling and The Australian War Memorial.

Day 2 - The moment we have all been waiting for - visiting the House of Representatives and the Senate! As parliament was in sitting; we were unable to take any photos inside the chambers! But… Sam Birrell came and found some of us while we were there! And… the tour guides said we were the smartest school they have had so far this year!! Go St Mary’s!

Loads of fun was had at Questacon! So much to see and do.

We were lucky to experience a new 'favourite' Canberra activity - A scavenger hunt at the National Arboretum! This was an awesome after dinner activity tonight!

Day 3 - We spent a beautiful morning exploring the Cockington Green Gardens. Canberra definitely turned the weather on for us!

Was fascinating to visit Royal Australian Mint and see where and how our money is made and what happens to our old money.

We spent the afternoon at the Electoral Commission learning how to vote and participating in our own mock vote! Turns out apples are the favourite amongst our 5/6’s!

We then spent some time down by Lake Burley Griffin exploring the amazing sculptures and surrounds!

Everyone was excited to spend our final night tenpin bowling! We had so much fun... there was lots of smiles and laughter whilst we enjoyed our bowling!

Day 4 - The final and most important stop on our tour of Canberra - The Australian War Memorial!

A beautiful way to end our 4 days away, and the students were so respectful and reverent as we remembered the men and women who fought for our country.

Thank you to all our amazing students for sharing this camp in the most respectful manner and taking every opportunity to explore and enjoy every activity.

Thank you to our supervising staff for enjoying this experience with our 5/6 students, without your dedication these types of activities would not be possible.

We had an amazing week, but there is no place like home!

NEW - Guest Speaker - Liam Twomey

What an inspirational afternoon!

The Grade 3 - 6 students had the privilege of listening to guest speaker, Liam Twomey, an elite triathlete and aspiring Paralympian!!

Liam spoke to the students about his story, about finding three things to be grateful for each day, about the importance of mindfulness and breathing exercises to calm yourself down and about setting goals for yourself (even if you are no good at sport...yet!!)

Liam also spoke about how we may react to others in a negative way because we are not happy with ourselves and how being grateful for what we have and who we are can help improve our relationships with others.

What an amazing person! We will definitely be following Liam's story as he strives to reach the ParaOlympics in Paris in 2024! Go, Liam!!!

Liam was diagnosed with a Ewing Sarcoma and had his right leg amputated below the knee when he was 7 years old. He struggled with accepting this through his teenage years. At 21, Liam moved states in need of a fresh start. There he found a love for sport, and a new outlook on life. Today he is an elite Paratriathlete for Australia training to one day compete at the Paralympics.

NEW - St Patricks Day

The Grade 6’s organised some St Patrick's day activities to complete with their Grade prep buddies today! They all had lots of fun!

Was great seeing our students dressup for the day... We had so much green at St Mary's!

New - Kim O'Keefe Visits St Mary's

We had a fun session with Kim O'Keefe, MP for Shepparton District, and our grade 5 & 6 Students learning about Kim's roles in Local and State Government and the difference between the three tiers of Government. The students had some really great questions and Kim got in the spirit of our St Patrick’s Day fun. Thank you for visiting us Kim.