Term 3, Week 9 Friday 23rd September 2022

Mid-Autumn Festival
We are very excited to be celebrating our Mid-Autumn Festival this year. It is one of the children’s favourite days of the school calendar.
Big thank you to al the families that donated money which enabled us to buy the spring rolls, chicken wings, plates, etc.  Your generosity is much appreciated.
Mid-Autumn Festival provides an opportunity for the senior children to be involved in the planning and presentation of the celebration. The senior children have been working in small groups to choreograph their dances and practicing them every day. Year 6 students have been leading the year 4s and 5s, demonstrating routines and keeping the groups on track. The Mid-Autumn Festival is really the time for our senior students to lead and shine!

As part of their practice, the dancers did their routines for the Group 1 Preschoolers, making sure that every student is able to participate in the celebrations!
We look forward to sharing more photos after the celebrations this week.

Attendance Matters
Last newsletter I spoke about the importance of attendance on your child’s learning.  I would like to emphasise that the affect on a child’s learning is cumulative. A missed day here or there may not seem like much, but they quickly add up and become a problem. Missing 5 days per term quickly become a month of missed learning opportunities for the year. This time then easily becomes a whole school year missed by the time the child reaches year 10. That is why we strongly believe attendance matters to your child’s learning!

At St Margaret Mary’s School we have a Student Attendance Policy. The aim of this policy is:

• To provide relevant and engaging learning programs that seek to engage all children and offer opportunities for success, thus encouraging regular attendance.
• To maximise learning opportunities by ensuring student absenteeism is kept to a minimum.
• To have agreed processes for monitoring and managing student absences within the school.
• To create a parent and carer culture that views regular school attendance and communicating student absences to the school as important to the learning and wellbeing of their child.

If getting your child to school is a problem, please make sure you talk to your child’s teacher or Kelly or myself. There are many ways we can work together to support children and families to attend school every day.

Soccer presentations
It was a very exciting day on Monday when Mrs Brown was finally able to present our soccer players with their medallions for the 2022 Soccer season. The children had a wonderful season and participated with a lot of energy and enthusiasm.

A BIG thank you to our super coaches Sann, Kat, Leilah, Marco, Grace, Adam, Sakshi and Luan for all your hard work and patience. Another thank you also goes to the parents who helped out every game day.  Our soccer team would not be possible with the help and support of our parent volunteers, and for this the staff and players are so grateful!

Volunteers
At St Margaret Mary’s School and Preschool we use volunteers to help out on excursions, sporting carnivals, sporting teams and special events. Without our volunteers a lot of the experiences we provide for the children would not be possible.

If you think you would like to volunteer in the future, please contact Angela to enquire about the process for Volunteer Registration.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Last week, our Year 6 students prepared a parish Mass for the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrow. This week, our Year 4 students participated in an online Catholic schools Religious Education Literacy Assessment and the Year 4 to Year 6 Student Representative Team packed grocery parcels for the parish in support of St Vincent de Paul (Vinnies).

Religious Education
This term we have been developing our 2023 and 2024 overview for teaching the Religious Education Crossways Curriculum. Through a collaborative scope and sequencing process, staff members discerned a two-year plan for each of the four curriculum Bands; Preschool and Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, Year 3 and Year 4 and Year 5 and Year 6. We now have four working documents that are ready for teachers in 2023 and due for review in the latter half of 2024.

Journey to Emmaus
On Monday 12 September, our Year 6 students attended a servant leadership day as part of the Journey to Emmaus Program at Whitefriars Catholic School. At the heart of the day, was Luke’s Gospel (24:13-35) ‘The Walk to Emmaus.’ In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus reminded his disciples that when they are faced with challenges, they can draw on previous experiences for inspiration and courage to continue serving others. The students expressed how the social justice experiences they have shared with our community, will also support them to take up new opportunities of service in the future.

Social Justice – Catholic Charities
Today our Year 1/2 Student Representative Team collected The Hutt Street Centre donation baskets from each classroom. Over the last couple of weeks, we are proud to announce that through the generosity of our community we have received over 232 toiletry, 54 stationary and an additional 27 food and clothing donations for the Hutt Street Centre. As part of the Journey to Emmaus Program our Year 6 students have already started creating packs with personalised ‘Messages of Hope’ for those who visit the Hutt Street Centre. Whether in need of short term or ongoing support we hope to brighten the day of those who receive our packs and messages.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone,

Matthew Harrison
Assistant Principal Religious Identity and Mission

Our veggie patch is looking beautiful thanks to Helen's tidy up recently.  We have silver beet, mint, parsley, coriander and dill growing, along with lavender, calendula and a sunflower - most self seeded!

In week 8 all classes got to participate in a Triskiills ‘Gym Steps’ lesson that aims to provide an enjoyable progression of exercises that develops each student's ability to enjoy and perform movement sequences combining effort, space, objects and people. The students all had great fun taking risks and developing new skills and confidence. A big thanks to Megan from Triskills who not only taught us lots of new skiils but provided us with lots of laughs too!

During Terms 2 & 3 we had 4 soccer teams represent St Margaret Marys at the NWJSA competition at St Clair. Every Saturday morning the teams and their coaches would battle it out against other schools in the area. Our students showed sportsmanship, fair play and respect in all the games they played. Special mention not only goes to the parents, grandparents and special persons for getting players out to games, but to the amazing coaches who volunteered their time. A BIG thanks to our super coaches Sann, Kat, Leilah, Marco, Grace, Adam, Sakshi and Luan for all your hard work and patience. Another thank you to the parents who helped out on game day.

Here are the students receiving their soccer medals. Well done to all the students who participated.

One used bar fridge  (possibly 90L)
One used 212L fridge/freezer

14 office chairs on castors  ($20)

Please see Jane in the office 12-3 on Monday