T2, Week 3, 2023

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

On Tuesday of this week we celebrated the ‘Feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop’. Most of you would know that Mary is Australia’s only saint and is therefore very important in our church and our schools. Mary was an ordinary person who did some extraordinary things, beginning the Sisters of St Joseph and establishing hundreds of schools around Australia and New Zealand, especially for the poor and disadvantaged. She is credited with many fabulous quotes, with the most famous probably being “never see a need without doing something about it”. What a great role model Mary MacKillop has been to thousands of people, both here in Australia and around the world.

On Friday of this week we have singer songwriter Andrew Chinn visiting our school, running workshops with the various classes throughout the morning. In the afternoon he and the children will put on a concert for the whole school and parents are most welcome to join us for this from 2pm to 3pm. I encourage you to come along and watch. I am sure you will enjoy watching the kids have fun singing and performing.

Thank you to those parents who completed the online Living Learning Leading (LLL) Survey over the past couple of weeks in support of our school. It is greatly appreciated as it provides valuable information about how our school is tracking. There are still a few days remaining if you would like to participate and have not had the opportunity to do so. Go to this link and use the code ‘SMMSLLLP’. Please note that this survey is anonymous.

To align with students learning about internet safety, Catherine McAuley School are hosting a presentation by the Carly Ryan Foundation to share vital information for parents and carers addressing the current risks posed to children online, and how to manage these. The date is Tuesday 19th of September at 5:30pm and an invitation has been extended to the St Mary Magdalene’s Community. The Carly Ryan Foundation, a certified eSafety Education Provider, has developed an hour-long program designed to provide parents with the most essential and up to date information needed to keep their children safe online. I encourage you to make this a priority in your diary. The presentation is free and will be held at Catherine McAuley School. This session is designed specifically for parents/ carers and is not child appropriate. Please return the tear off slip below if you are intending to attend.

Well done to our students who competed in the Catholic Primary Schools Sports Association Cross Country Carnival in the Adelaide Parklands on Thursday of this week. Congratulations to our students who received a Mercy Award at Tuesday’s assembly.

Our school counsellors (Shannon O’Toole (SMM) and Dave Hillard (STM) are repeating a course that they ran last year called “Bringing Up Great Kids”. I know those that participated last year found it very informative and useful and I encourage you to consider participating this year. It will be held over a number of weeks on a Monday. Please check elsewhere in this newsletter for further information.

We are holding an Open Day in our school on Thursday 24 August, where parents and prospective families can tour through our learning spaces between 9 and 11am.

Please remember that Friday 1st September is a Pupil Free Day as the Staff continue their Professional Development with the IDEAS Project.

Kind regards

Peter Mercer

Head of Campus

Andrew Chinn Concert 

On Friday August 11, Australian religious songwriter and singer, Andrew Chinn, will be visiting our school to share his songs with our children. Andrew’s songs, such as “These Hands”, “Rainbow”, “An African Blessing” and “Rise Up!” are used in classrooms and liturgies around Australia, New Zealand, USA, and Canada. The concert will take place in the Yarning Place, at 2.00 pm. We would love you to join us for this event. 

Special celebrations that we focus on during classroom and whole school prayer throughout Term 3 and those that come up in our liturgical calendar include: 

• 6/8/2023    Feast of the Transfiguration 
• 8/8/2023    Feast of St. Mary of the Cross Mackillop 
• 15/8/2023  Feast of the Assumption 
• 21/8/2023  Catholic Schools Open Week 
• 1/9/2023    World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation 
• 3/9/2023    Father’s Day 
• 5/9/2023    Feast of Mother Teresa 
• 4/9/2023    Child Protection Week 
• 21/9/2023  International Day of Peace 
• 27/9/202    St. Vincent De Paul 

On August 8, we celebrated the Feast of St. Mary Mackillop. She was the first saint of Australia and her influence in the country has spread far and wide. She is recognised for her commitment to the poor, helping those who needed it the most in any way she could. Fr. Santosh joined us for a whole school celebration of Mass where we learned more about how Mary Mackillop helped those in need and how we can be people who do that too. 

Northern Regional Assembly 

You are invited to attend the Northern Regional Assembly. 

The 2023 Regional Assemblies are a continuation of the 2021 and 2022 Diocesan Assemblies and involve a greater number of people at the local level in participation, communion, and mission. The Regional Assemblies offer parishes, communities, and schools an opportunity to engage in mutual listening, developing responses to shared needs, and collaboration for missionary action. 

The Regional Assemblies will discern the following questions: 

What are we being called to do to participate in the mission of God in this time and place? 

• What is our shared reality in this part of the Archdiocese? 
• What are the priorities of each of our local communities? 
• What are the commonalities across our region? Differences? 
• What can we work on together? How can we support one another? What are the gifts and strengths of our members and communities that can be shared across our region? 

Please find attached a flyer about the Northern Regional Assembly to be held on Saturday September 2, from 10am – 3pm at St. Augustine’s Parish, Salisbury. 

CESA Learning by Design Project.

This year we have been working with Makers Empire on a 3D design project. The project involved working on the Makers Empire app to learn how to use 3D design and printing to design solutions to a problem in the school community.

On Thursday Week 2, the 3^rd of August Mrs Gosling and Ms Hughes took 3 students to a showcase in the city to share our work with other Catholic schools involved in the project. Harrison Hain, Charlotte Hooke and Farhad Jafari represented our school. They had to share with students and teachers from other schools what their class project was about and answer questions from other students and adults. Our students were confident and well spoken when answering questions. They showed their knowledge of the Engineering Design process when sharing with others. Well done to all our future engineers in Year 3 and 4/5 who have worked on this project this year.

100 Days of School

On Tuesday 25^th July we celebrated our 100^th Day of School. We have been counting down to this day from the very beginning of the school year.

We spent the day doing lots of different activities all about the number 100.

We -  

• made crowns
• filled bags with 100 items
• took some special photos holding balloons and a sign
• did 100 movements
• wrote and drew a picture about what we might be doing when we are 100 years old
• did a 100 days mindful colouring in .

The day was really exciting, because we also got to come to school dressed as if we were 100 years old.

"My favourite part of the day was getting to dress up" – Keira

"My favourite part of the day was getting to fill the bags with 100 things" – Ayda

"My favourite part of the day was making the crowns" – Keiki

"My favourite part of the day was writing about when I am 100 years old. I said that I will be feeding my grandbabies when I am 100" – Aria

"My favourite part of the day was doing the mindful colouring because it was nice and relaxing after a really busy day" – Caelan

"We finished the day with Mrs Drewett giving us a special certificate saying that we were 100 days brighter and a glow stick!"

We are now counting to the 200^th day of school

Hello again everyone,

We have had an extremely busy first few weeks back at Term in OSHC. We have welcomed many new children and families to our OSHC community and we have had a lot of fantastic construction, building and role play happening in our environment. It’s been a lot of fun as you can see.