Term 2 Week 6 Newsletter 2022

Dear Parents, Friends, Staff and Students of St Catherine’s,  

I hope you have been keeping dry and warm over the past weeks. It seems Winter has certainly arrived in the Adelaide Hills, bringing significant rainfall and plummeting temperatures with it! 

As SA Health Covid restrictions have eased, we have been able to welcome parents and visitors back into our school for various events. It has been a welcome change to see parents and grandparents attending our class Liturgies and Masses as well as come along to our school assemblies once again. 

It is with a sense of ongoing excitement and anticipation that I share that there has been significant progress with our building project over the past few weeks. The roof and internal steel structures of the new administration space and break out areas are well on the way. The replacement cladding on the library is complete and we have taken possession of the new OSHC room. The new OSHC room is now a purpose built space and with it being in the heritage building, it has a wonderful sense of homeliness about it, making it an inviting and calm space for the children. 

Vinnies Winter Appeal 

This term our School Captains are working towards raising awareness and support for this year's Vinnies Winter Appeal.  Information about activities that students can participate in to support this appeal will be sent via skoolbag in the coming weeks. 

Vinnies Education Leaders Sleepout (formerly Vinnies Principal Sleepout)

This year I am participating in the Education Leaders Sleepout to raise important funds and awareness fo rthe most vulnerable people in our local communities.

Each year in South Australia there are more than 6,000 people, including children, who have no place to call home. At the Vinnies Education Leaders Sleepout, comfy beds and home cooked meals are swapped for cardboard and a night without the creature comforts of home.

Further information, including how to make a donation are available on my fundraising page:  

https://vinnies-sa.grassrootz.com/education-leaders-sleepout/john-low?utm_source=gr-notification&utm_campaign=PageCreatedNotification&utm_medium=Email 

Welcome 

This term we welcome Walter in year 1 and Lily in year 6 to our school community. We also welcome Mrs Mandy Herbert as a Curriculum Education Support Officer (ESO) who joins our wonderful ESO student support team.    

Safeguarding Children 

The Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide values the dignity of all God’s children and takes seriously our role in safeguarding their wellbeing and protection both within the Church environment and communities in which they are raised. The Archdiocese strives to maintain a child safe culture which recognises the welfare and safety of children and young people as paramount.  

The Policies/ Guidelines relating to safeguarding children at St Catherine's include;  

• Safeguarding Children and Young People Policy (Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide)   
• Responding to Online Safety incidents in South Australian schools 
• Keeping Safe: Child Protection Curriculum information for educators (Department for Education SA) 

These Policies and Guidelines are available on our school website:  https://www.stcaths.catholic.edu.au/our-school/current-policies-reports-and-guidelines  

Year 5 Camp 

Earlier this term the Year 5 students participated in a two night camp at Mylor Adventure Camp. They participated in a range of challenge activities aimed at supporting the development of resilience and teamwork. I was able to spend the first day at camp and then joined the students and teachers again for the second night. It was great to see the children looking out for each other and encouraging one another. They should be proud of their efforts in attempting the various activities, not to mention staying away from home for two nights.  

Monday Tuck and Friday Lunch  

Our dedicated P&F and parent volunteers have got Monday Tuck and Friday Lunch up and running again. The students have very much enjoyed being able to purchase items such as cupcakes, biscuits or hot chocolates. We are extremely grateful to all our parents who have volunteered to help with providing these opportunities for the students. 

Positive Education Parent Workshop - 30th June 

We are looking forward to welcoming as many parents as possible to our Positive Education Parent Workshop being held on Thursday 30th June from 6-7pm. Further information including how to register is available in the Wellbeing section of this newsletter. 

Finally, a reminder that tomorrow is a Pupil Free Day. As a staff we are participating in an annual Reflection Day where we will take time to further explore our school's Catholic Identity through the lens of scripture and story telling. 

Have a safe and relaxing long weekend. 

Warm regards, 

John Low 
Principal 

Our Year 5 class attended a fun and exciting three-day camp, to Mylor Adventure Camp. We participated in many physical activities such as archery, boulder climbing, bridge construction, low ropes course and a challenge course over wet and muddy terrain. Over this exciting time, we learnt many new skills, including, bouldering, archery, and bridge building. We did not only learn new skills but, character strengths to.

Over our three-day period we got to learn so much more about our classmates and we had an amazing time working together. One fun activity we did was the challenge course, and oh gosh challenge us it did. We had to learn to use a lot of teamwork, encouragement, mental strength, bravery, and a whole bucket load of good sportsmanship.

Our Year 5 Class overall had a one-of-a-kind time, bonding with our friends and challenging ourselves to things that we thought were impossible, like going to the top of the Giant Swing. So, in conclusion, our class had a remarkable time learning and growing together.

By Ellie and Alfie

Pentecost 

We celebrated Pentecost this term, recognising this as the beginning of the Church. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit gave God’s people a special gift, the ability to speak in other languages. Teachers have explored this theme with students asking questions such as  

• In what symbols do we recognise the Holy Spirit?  
• What difference would it make to the Pentecost story if Jesus’ followers didn’t recognise the presence of the Holy Spirit in the wind or tongues of fire?  
• What if Jesus’ followers were still too scared to go out and preach the Good News, as Jesus had commanded? 

World Environment Day 

Our continued commitment to being Ecological Aware was again put under the spotlight with many classes learning about World Environment Day. There are a number of ongoing activities and initiatives which take place around our school that help students grow their knowledge and work with others to make changes that reduce their environmental footprint.  

“An ecological footprint can show the amount of land required to support the lifestyle of an individual, region, industry, community, nation or even a school. It is an estimate of the area a population uses to produce all of the natural resources it consumes and to absorb the waste this generates. Put simply, it calculates the size of our impact on the Earth.” 

( http://www.eqa.edu.au/site/measuringyourschools) 

As a household you may also like to consider some of the ways in which your family can also make a change to ensure your impact on the environment is positive.  You can use the Green Footprint Reflection to spark a conversation about behaviours in your household. 

Congratulations to Lochie in 6CD who performed so well in the trials for the SAPSASA Cross Country Team. Lochie received 2nd overall and 1st in the Hills Zone Schools. This has earned him the right to compete in the SAPSASA Cross Country event on Thursday 9th June. Good luck, Lochie!

Congratulations to Mackenzie, Hugo and Louis who went through a number of tryouts to be selected in the Hills SAPSASA Football Team. The boys recently played a carnival at West Beach over three days and their team was very successful. Well done boys!   

This Term the children have been very busy learning many new things! The children have decided that their favourite learning areas have been Writing, Mathematics and Art!

In Writing the children have been learning all about Information Reports. They know information reports have headings, labelled photos, include facts and a contents page. The children connected their science learning on plants with writing when they wrote an information report about plants!

In Mathematics, the children have been learning about ways to count collections of objects. The children learnt they can sort their objects into groups of 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to easily count their total.

The children have been loving Art, where they have been exploring different materials like water colour paints, crayon, and oil pastels. Their most recent art project was to create a plant using a wide range of materials to showcase their imaginations. They turned out wonderfully!

We have a wonderful term of learning so far. Here are a few things we have been working on in 3/4:

Technology – Branching

3/4’s have been learning about how branching is used to create decision making for user inputs when using technology. They have created a storyboard of their narrative to demonstrate their understanding of branching and are now in the process of using PowerPoint using hyperlinks to create their Choose Your Own Adventure book.

Health – My Identity

Students were asked to create a word cloud about who you are – your identity.

Religion – Sacred Texts

In Religion, the year 3/4’s have been learning about sacred texts. We identified what sacred means and what things are sacred. We read some scripture from Holy Bible about the Creation story and made a comparison to other texts. We then used MineCraft to recreate our understanding of the Creation story told in the bible.

This week students would have received the Book Club catalogue for issue 4. Order are now open via the LOOP app. Orders placed by families help build up the rewards for the school which go towards the purchasing of new resources for our school library. Don’t forget you also have the option of selecting 'gift' when you order in case you want the purchase to be a surprise for the kids. Thank you for your ongoing support with this initiative. 

Seven Steps for Writing 

                                  A Sizzling start written by Abby in Year 1 

NAPLAN

During Week 2, students from Years 3 and 5 participated in NAPLAN (National Assessment Program). NAPLAN is a point-in-time assessment allowing parents and teachers to see how their child is progressing in literacy and numeracy. It is the only national assessment for these year levels. As students progress, it is important to check where they are at in their learning in the essential skills of numeracy, reading and writing. Questions in each of the 4 tests - writing, reading, conventions of grammar and numeracy are all linked to the Australian Curriculum: English and Mathematics.  

NAPLAN does not replace ongoing assessment made by teachers about students performance, such as the school based report your child will receive in Week 10 this term. Your child's individual results are generally received between mid-August to mid-September. The results are used by teachers to identify students who need greater challenges or support. St Catherine's school uses the results to identify strengths and areas to improve on teaching programs and to set goals in literacy and numeracy. 

MiniLit Decodable Readers 

Our new MiniLit decodable readers have arrived and thankyou to Lyndall, Alison and Riahn for spending time contacting 240 new reading books! These books will be used in class, and as take home books for our Early Years students.  

Decodable readers allow students to use their phonics knowledge learnt in class to decode words. Some books are 'shared reading' texts which are designed to read alongside children to develop fluency and comprehension. 

Thank you for your ongoing support by making time to listen to your child read at home.  

Corey Lewis and Narelle Brine
Leaders of Learning Assessment and Curriculum 

Dear Families,  

I hope you are all well and are managing to stay warm and cozy now that we are absolutely in the thick of winter here in Stirling! 

Action for Happiness Calendar - Joyful June  

When facing big challenges we can still notice the little good things. Even in difficult times, there is still a lot to be grateful for. And we can actively cultivate positive feelings by looking for what's good. 

The Joyful June calendar is full of actions to help create more positive emotions. 

To learn more about Joyful June, you might like to watch the following video:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNsanL_9qas 

I hope you will join me in spreading some happiness and practicing ways to manage our own wellbeing this June ❤