Term 3, Week 3, 2024

Dear Families,

Last Friday we celebrated the Feast Day of St Mary Magdalene with a walk down to Mofflin Reserve for lunch and some games. The children (and staff) had a great time. It is the first time we have ventured down to this relatively new park. I encourage you to make use of the great parks we have in our area. Thank you to our volunteers and staff for their great work on the day. On Thursday of this week is the Feast Day of St Mary MacKillop of the Cross, Australia’s first saint. She began the Sisters of St Joseph in 1866 and established the first catholic school in Australia in Penola in 1867. Our school (St Mary Magdalene’s) was established with the charism of the Mercy sisters, while the ‘St Joseph Schools’ were established with the charism of the Josephite sisters. Our students learn a lot about our Mercy values of Compassion, Courage, Hospitality, Justice, Respect and Service but we also celebrate and share the story of Mary MacKillop with them.

In our last newsletter I mentioned that we are changing our phones over to a Voice Over the Internet Protocol (VOIP). Hopefully this will happen in the next few weeks. In doing this we have been given a new school number replacing our old one. Our new number is 8287 7900 and it is now active. The old number will still work for the next 6 months or so to give people time to start using the new number. Please change your contact details or address book to reflect the new phone number: 8287 7900.

I hope you have been enjoying the Olympic Games from Paris. The Australians have done extremely well in terms of medals and we should be very proud of them all. With just under a week to go it is an opportunity for us to highlight what the Olympics are all about for our children. It is always great for our children to have ambitions and hopes, but more importantly to be proud of being Australian. Well done to our staff and students who have had a focus on the Olympics with their own ‘Potato Olympics’ along with other activities.

Next Wednesday we are fortunate to have a visit from Helen Connolly the Commissioner for Children and Young People. The Commissioner for Children and Young People is an independent statutory authority established by the South Australian government to promote and advocate for the rights, development and wellbeing of all children and young people living in South Australia. The Commissioner is committed to seeking opportunities for the involvement of children and young people in informing government and influencing decision-making that affects them, with particular consideration to the needs of vulnerable and at-risk children and young people. Each year Helen invites students to write her a postcard outlining things that matter to them. She then collates this information into a yearly report. Our senior students have been involved in this initiative for the past few years and will continue again this year. We look forward to Helen speaking with some of our Student Leaders next week.

Our School Board meets next Tuesday 13 August at 6:30pm in the Staff Room.

Good luck to our Year 2s for their excursion this Friday to the Space Discovery Centre. Thank you to those parents who have offered to be volunteers on the day.

Next Thursday 15 August our Community Hub is officially opening their ‘Toy Library’. This toy library will be open to the community and enables families to borrow toys for a set time, return them and borrow some more. Thank you to Community Hubs Australia, Kerryn Chambers our Coordinator and our volunteers who will run the toy library for this great initiative.

Please remember if your child is late to school, or is picked up early, they should be signed in and out through the front office. 

We would like to remind students and families to be wary of approaches from strangers, especially when they are unaccompanied or travelling to and from school. If they are approached, students should not respond and should not accept offers of rides or gifts. Students should seek the assistance of other nearby adults if they feel unsafe and should report any events to a trusted adult (parent or school staff member) as soon as possible. SAPOL advises that taking out a mobile phone and calling police can deter an offender and they recommend the student making a formal report to their closest police station.

Please remember that we have the following dates set aside as Pupil Free Days for the staff to undertake professional development, staff reflection, complete hand over activities, etc. Our remaining set dates are: Friday 23 August, Monday 14 October, Thursday 12 December and Friday 13 December. Please mark them in your diary and book in to OSHC if you require this service (spaces are limited).

Congratulations to those students who received a Mercy Award at assembly this week. This was a special ‘Performing Arts’ Assembly where different classes, students and the choir did mini performances. They were fantastic … congratulations and thank you for your presentation. Thank you also to Rosemarie Villano for coordinating the performers and the assembly.

Kind regards

Peter Mercer

Head of School

‘Shaping our Future Together’

On the 23^rd of July, Mrs Drewett's and Miss Hill's classes celebrated our 100th day of school. To celebrate, we dressed up as what we think we will look like when we are 100 years old. We did lots of 100 themed activities including a parade through all the classrooms and front office, watched an interview with a 100 year old and the "Grandpa" episode of Bluey, created 100 Days of School crowns, sang our way to 100, and did 100 movements. It was a fun and memorable day - now onto the next 100 days!

The festival is more than just a week of performances. It is a year of education. Students from differing backgrounds come together and share social and emotional interaction in a positive learning environment.”

The annual Catholic Schools Music Festival is the premier Arts Event for Catholic Education in South Australia. 

Our St Thomas More and St Mary Magdalene's school choirs are in full swing with rehearsals and workshops in preparation for the 36^th Annual Festival held on Monday, 23 September 2024.

Stay tuned for more information, including tickets sales, in the next few weeks.

The Year 3 class have had a busy start to term 3! Last week, we celebrated St Mary Magdalene’s Feast Day with a walk to Mofflin Reserve, which was a fantastic day. We have been busy preparing for the Premier’s Reading Challenge and have been doing lots of reading as a class. Our writing focus has been ‘Procedures’. This week, we wrote our own procedural texts about ‘How to make fairy bread’. We then swapped our writing with another peer and followed their procedure whilst making our own fairy bread. This was a fun way to give feedback to our peers and think of ways we can improve our writing.

We are looking forward to the fun that the rest of term 3 holds for us!

Feast Day of St Mary Magdalene’s School

On Friday, our whole school walked over to Mofflin Reserve to celebrate the Feast Day of our Patron Saint. It was an awesome day filled with activities, games, and a whole lot of fun! We greatly appreciate the help of our teachers and volunteers who contributed to a super day.

Hello Families,

I can’t believe we are already in term 3. We have grown so much since this time last year with some afternoon’s now having 40+ children in attendance.

For this reason, it has become increasingly important that you contact OSHC staff regarding bookings as there may be times, we cannot accept children due to our numbers.

Just a general reminder of our Pupil Free Day on Friday August 23^rd. Bookings are required by Wednesday 14^th August as spaces are limited and we may not be able to fulfil late bookings.

We’ve been having a lot of fun in OSHC this term so far and have welcomed many new faces into our space.