Term 3, Issue #9 2023

Dear Families

We can’t believe we are over halfway through Term 3 already! It has been a very busy time with so much happening since our last newsletter with staff leaving and new staff taking over, and significant events taking place in our school calendar.

Over the last week, we have welcomed several new teaching staff to our CMS community, Mrs Senija Jahic (4 days) and Mrs Jane Foster(1 day), who are the new Year 6 class teachers to 6M commencing in Week 8. Mr Adrian Zoccali is the new Year 5 class teacher to 5M commencing in Week 7. As we farewell Mrs Rebecca Thorvaldsson this week and Miss Georgia Connelly next week, we wish them both all the very best with the arrival of their babies later in the term.

We welcome back Mrs Achini Ratnayake, as she returns this week from leave. We thank Stephania Norris—Ruiz for teaching Year 2E for the past 5 weeks  while Mrs A was recovering from surgery. 

SEMESTER 2 STUDENT LEADERS

We congratulate our newly appointed Student Leaders for Semester 2:

Titan Meyers, RC, Alexi Ross, RC, Arabella Bain, RE, Anael Cyubahiro, RE, Lincoln Bourn, RM, Myla Smith, RM, Ayak Deng, RR, Finn Eynon, RR Jaylen Ey, 1C, Amia Roberts, 1C, Lilly Breeze, 1E, Oliver Ross, 1E, Nicole Badgery, 1M, Liam Wightman, 1M, Cooper Centanni, 1R Willow Drury, 1R, Audrey Lawton, 2E, William Lorenz, 2E, Sebastian McDonagh-New, 2M, Ayla Milburn, 2M, Lara Saxon, 2R, Jonah Thottan, 2R
Annalise Ritossa, 3E, Daniel Streatfield, 3E, Lucious McKenzie-Brown, 3M, Christian Mynhardt, 3M, Brodie McCafferty, 3R, Kira Mullett, 3R, Bella Owen, 4E, Parker Wensley, 4E, Elliott Connor, 4M
Alexander Zeunert, 4M Emilio Pascual, 5E, Summah Zammit, 5E, Bailey Farrell, 5M, Ollie Verhoeven, 5M, Sage Ferschl, 6E, Jaden Treloar, 6E, Blake Elsmore, 6M, Chae Scaife, 6M

SCIENCE WEEK

Back in Week 4 we celebrated Science Week. This year's theme was:

Innovation: Powering Future Generations

This year's Science Week theme tied in Science, Technology, and First Nations Connections.

Students had to think invention vs innovation. The wheel is an invention, but the wheelbarrow is an innovation. Improving products and services, reimagining everyday things was this years focus throughout the week.

We would like to thank Miss Rebecca Philip, Miss Katrina Timmins and Miss Georgia Connelly for their planning and organisation of the school competition and the lunch time clubs that were featured during the week.

We had 6 entries to the Year 2-6 School Competition, where students were invited to create an innovation from home. Innovate, improve, or re-imagine a product or service. They could be as creative as they like.

Congratulations to Indy Vort-Ronald in Year 6E, who won first prize for her innovative creation of ‘The Stationary Vending Machine’.

The other entries featured the following creations by students:

‘The Washing Line 2000’ by Lucas Marafioti – Year 4E

‘The Lightmark’ by Henry Duits – Year 4M

‘The Squishy Notebook’ by Natouma Jabateh – Year 5M

PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS – 3 Way Interviews

Parent/Teacher Interviews- 3 Way Learning Conversations, are a formal opportunity to meet with teachers and they are coming up in week 9, this term.

3 Way Learning Conversations with parents and children are very important discussions where teachers will report on progress so far, please keep an eye on SZapp for booking details.

MERCY IN ACTION—Catherine McAuley style!

Each year, we raise funds for different charities. It’s part of the fabric of who we are and what Catherine McAuley was all about – reaching out with a MERCIFUL hand!

Term 3, we turn our charitable focus to Catholic Mission. Catholic Mission exists to help support families in health and wellness  challenges all around the world. However, they can only do it with the nation’s help.

Catholic Mission's yearly projects help sustain and enrich the lives of many, especially vulnerable children, by providing a variety of support. As we prepare to help their cause we need your help to gather the following materials:

• bubble wrap, old tee-shirts, old / odd socks,
• plastic/rubbish bags, foam and yard / string

The resources above will be used to create soccer balls

It would be wonderful if you have these materials at home to donate for our Socktober event. Please ensure the donated items are clean. No need to go and buy the materials as recycled items are perfect. The items will be stored in the classroom.

All collected items by:

Friday 15th September 2023

The Socktober Fun Days (GOLD COIN Donation) will occur:

Yrs R-2 - Thursday 21st  September

Yrs 3-6 - Friday 22nd September

This year, we are helping Catholic Mission focusing on Timor-Leste.

Another way to help!

We need:

• Empty soft drink cans / bottles (no lids)
• Empty up and go (no straws)
• Empty juice boxes (no straws)
• Empty pop tops (no lids)
• Anything with a recycled value of 10c (no alcohol bottles / cans please)

Place all clean empty 10c recyclable items in the bins provided at the front gate.

each morning / afternoon the Mercy Leaders will keep a tally of what has been raised and let the school community know during each Monday Morning  Prayer.

Thank you for your support.

Mrs Caldinez
APRIM

We are pleased to inform our school families that there will be no increase in school fees for the 2024 school year.

Catholic Education SA has announced it will freeze tuition fees at its 84 Diocesan schools for the 2024 school year.

“We recognise that cost-of-living increases are putting significant pressure on families,” says Dr Neil McGoran, Executive Director, Catholic Education SA.

“Growth in enrolments across the State in our 101 Catholic Schools, together with prudent financial management, puts us in a position where we are able to hold tuition fees at this year’s level.”

Dr McGoran said the fee-freeze will not impact the quality of education.

“We’re committed to keeping school fees as low as possible and ensuring a Catholic education is affordable and accessible to all.”

Since 2019, Catholic Education SA has been implementing the Making Catholic Education More Affordable Initiative to ensure Catholic schools are accessible to any family who wants their child to have a Catholic education.

In addition to the fee-freeze, further fee remissions are available to any family who is struggling to pay school fees due to financial difficulties. Families should contact  Anne Richards for more information.

Over the last few weeks, the Year 2 classes have been playing around with 2D and 3D shapes. We have been focusing on the properties of a variety of shapes. The properties include how many vertices, edges, and faces they have. If we have a strong understanding of these properties, then we can easily identify and name them. In these photographs you will see the children recognising, comparing, classifying, and referencing. You will also see the children using their 'Growth Mindset' to create their 3D Monster using a net.  

Last term some of our Year 6 defence students started creating and making 'Ugly Dolls' from recycled materials to raise money for the Animal Welfare League at Edinburgh. The popularity of our 'Uglies' far exceeded our expectations and we sold out in the first week. The girls have done a marvelous job and are now back to making more 'Uglies' ready for a final sale in week 10 of this term. Thankyou all so much for supporting the girls with their fundraising.
Over the past few weeks, some of our younger students have enjoyed making parachute men out of napkins and pipecleaners. We have been making our creations in the Library and setting them fly in the playground with great success.

This week our Year 6 defence girls visited Resthaven to assist with their 'Residents Show Day'. Resthaven set up lots of games for their residents and the girls manned the stalls and chatted with their new friends throughout the morning. We are looking forward to future visits with Resthaven for all of our defence students in the near future. 
 

"A huge thankyou to our school community for the fabulous celebrations during Book Week. 

Classrooms were abuzz with stories and activities. Our student leaders organised lunch time activities and visited classrooms to read their favourite stories to them. Our displays showcasing the special books around the school looked great. 

Our ‘Beanie Day’ was inspired by the book ‘Frank’s Red Hat’, with students and teachers wearing their most colourful and interesting beanies to school for the day. Some of the favourite beanies were then chosen by our student leaders to be displayed in the library. 

Wednesday was our ‘Book Week Parade’ and the story characters that appeared at school that day were amazing. We have some truly creative parents who supported the magic literature brings to our lives. Student and teachers had fun dancing and showing their costumes to the school community during our morning parade. 

This year’s theme “READ, GROW, INSPIRE,” reminds us that books have the ability to transport us to different worlds and cultures, ignite our imaginations & even spark personal growth and development. 

So every week : “Read a book, Grow your mind, Inspire your future”. "

Catholic Schools Cross Country Carnival Report

On Thursday 10th August Catherine McAuley School participated in the Catholic Schools Cross Country carnival at PAC Oval in Adelaide. After many weeks of training, a team of forty-five Years 3-6 students participated in the challenging two-kilometre course.

On a beautiful winter’s day students were able to complete the challenging 2km course successfully. Runners were able to achieve some great times with each race containing more than 100 competitors. The students showed great enthusiasm, competed to the best of their ability, and worked through pain barriers to complete the gruelling 2km course.

I was extremely proud of all the runners and their effort to persist to complete the long-distance course. The majority of students finished between 20th and 70th which was an exceptional effort. We had a few students finish in the top 20, congratulations to Biar Garang (3rd), Chloe Paoletti (6th), Ruby Enders (7th), Jaxx Shelley-Cotton (12th), Mitchell Craig (12th), Max Johnson (15th), Matthew O’Çonnell (15th) and Jason Durdin (15th).

Congratulations to all competitors on completing the 2km course and representing the school proudly.

Thank you to Jemma O’Neil, Shannay Edwards, Anna Rositano, Mitchell Wood, and the many parents that attended for their assistance and support on the day!

Well done everyone on a great performance!

Fabian Chevalier
PE Teacher/Coordinator

Seeking creative and talented Year 3 to 5 students who:

➢ love to solve challenges
➢ demonstrate creativity, originality, and diversity of thought
➢ love to perform

Catherine McAuley School is aiming to send a team/s to Tournament of Minds (TOM) in 2024!

What is TOM?

Tournament of Minds (TOM) is a problem-solving program for multi-aged teams of seven students who work together to solve a demanding, open-ended Long-Term Challenge over six weeks. The team must also participate in an unseen Spontaneous Challenge on Tournament Day. The Challenges require creative thinking, teamwork, and performance skills. There are four Long-Term Challenge disciplines:

TOM teams compete at Tournament Day in Term 3 each year, with the chance to go to Nationals should a first place be awarded.

This year’s Tournament Day is Sunday 10th September at Adelaide High School and attendance is free should you wish to go along and see what TOM is all about!

Competition runs from 9am to 4:30pm with each team performance running for 10 minutes. Pop in for a couple or performances or stay all day, the choice is yours!

For more information visit http:// www.tom.edu.au or
email the school’s TOM Coordinator Sandra Holland: mailto:sholland@cms.catholic.edu.au

A friendly reminder that Photo Day is Friday September 8th. You should have received an email from MSP by now on how to purchase your photos online, if not please check your junk box or contact them directly on 08 8132 1148.

On the day full winter uniform is to be worn and hair to be tied back off the face. The Year 6 girls will be allowed to wear their hair down just for the photos on the day. If you have any inquiries, please contact the office.

To align with students learning about internet safety, Catherine McAuley School are hosting two presentations hosted by the Carly Ryan Foundation to share vital information to students and families addressing the current risks posed to children online, and how to manage these. On Tuesday the 19th of September, students in Years 4-6 will attend the student presentation at 9:45am. We wish to extend an invitation to parents and carers of Reception to Year 6 students to attend a parent/ carer session at 5:30pm. 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.   

The presentation is free and will be held at Catherine McAuley School in the JHPAC on the 19th September at 5:30pm. This session is designed specifically for parents/ carers and is not child appropriate. Please keep an eye out on SZAPP for an expression of interest next week.