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Dear Parents and Caregivers,
This week we officially began to welcome our new 2023 Kindergarten students and their families to the first playgroup sessions. During the last two years our Playgroup and Readiness sessions have been severely interrupted by COVID and we are excited to be able to recommence these important sessions, designed to provide the best possible start to the important first year of formal education.
In a sense, our school has a double staff; the staff that performs within the school and the very important staff that perform within the home. Recent research evidence indicates that a child’s education can be greatly enhanced by involvement at home, but also through involvement in school activities. It is parents’ enthusiasm, support and involvement that will inspire children to do their best. Children frequently adopt the attitudes and opinions held by the important adults they look up to; and enthusiasm for learning is no exception. If children sense that parents consider education to be a high priority, they are likely to view it in a more positive manner themselves. Positive reinforcement will help children to adopt a more enthusiastic attitude towards the processes involved in their own learning.
Certainly, we aspire to develop in our students a love of learning, a passion that will hopefully become a lifelong aspiration for all our students. Our relationships are governed by love. This week, as our Kindergarten cohort for 2023 attend school for their first playgroup sessions, the sense of deep parental love will be evident and on display. The love within families is inspirational and lies at the core of our community. The journey of learning about the great gift of love begins in the family and moves outward. Love is not a one-dimensional concept.
In learning about love we also learn lessons about being disappointed, misunderstood and hurt. We are also reminded that none of us is totally innocent of hurting others. It is here that we learn to forgive, as well as to ask for and accept the forgiveness of others. We learn that despite our best intentions we usually fall short of being the person God intends us to be. But God, just like a loving parent, reminds us to ‘come as we are’ and that we are loved even when we are at our least lovable.
Inspirational love also exists between teachers and their students and between the students and their friends. The daily work of our school and our staff and students is an expression of this love. Underpinning all our actions and emotions is the pre-eminent response of Jesus - to love our God with all our heart and all our being. It is this desire to seek oneness with our God that makes a Catholic school such as Mary Immaculate truly different.
Our school motto ‘Christ Our Way and Life’ speaks of our search to bring to life our relationship with our God and with others. At Mary Immaculate, we so regularly find evidence of our God in action, in work, in learning and in thought. We find our God with, and through each other. In doing so we give ourselves the grace to love our God above all else and to love our fellow neighbours as ourselves.
Who will be the neighbour in your midst this week?
Who will be the vehicle to bring you closer to your God?
Wishing you a week embraced in the love of Christ.
Tina Murray
Principal
P&F TERM 4 GENERAL MEETING
The Term 4 General Meeting will be held on Wednesday 2 November at 7:00 pm. Parents are warmly invited to attend this in-person event that will be held in the Library.
To register your attendance and to add any items to the agenda please complete the form via the link below. Please add any agenda items by COB on Monday 31 October to allow time for meeting documents to be finalised and distributed.
CLASS FORMATION FOR 2023
Thank you to the many parents who have provided input into the class formation process that will commence shortly.
Parents are invited annually to contribute to the process of class formation by informing us in writing of any special needs that may affect class placement. Please complete the linked form to provide input regarding the class placement of your child in 2023. This survey will close on Friday 28 October, 2022
PARENT INPUT SURVEY
Each year we seek parent, staff and student input to prepare aspects of the Annual School Report. This year all parents have the opportunity, via an anonymous on-line survey, to provide input into areas affecting the education of their children and the general functioning of the school. All feedback is greatly valued and will assist in contributing not only to the preparation of the Annual School Report but also to future directions and school improvement initiatives.
We greatly value all feedback and suggestions from our community members as contributions will assist in the preparation of the Annual School Report and planning for 2023. The survey will be available for the next 3 weeks until Wednesday 2 November 2022 and can be accessed via the following link:
The positive behaviour approach to enhance learning used at Mary Immaculate is called Positive Behaviours for Learning (PB4L). This framework helps create vibrant and positive learning environments in which all students are supported to reach their full potential.
The PB4L framework is an integral component of the CEDoW Student Pastoral Care and Wellbeing Policy, which articulates the need for schools to ‘play an active role in building a positive learning environment where the whole school community feels included, connected, safe and respected'.
All staff at our school work together to explicitly teach, affirm and correct agreed behaviour expectations across school-wide, classroom and non-classroom settings, based on our school rules that underpin who we are and what we do at Mary Immaculate.
Students at Mary Immaculate follow explicit behaviour expectations based on the following school rules:
- Be Safe
- Be Respectful
- Be Responsible
As part of PB4L, all students are monitored on the playground and in the classroom. Positive behaviour is acknowledged through Mission Points.
Read more about our Positive Behaviours 4 Learning (PB4L) Framework.
Each fortnight the school chooses a focus which is explicitly taught and revised with the students during this time. The focus for Weeks 2 and 3 are:
- Freeze and Five – when on playgrounds, students freeze on the bell and raise their arm to indicate that they are ready to listen to the teacher instruction.
- Dismissal arrangements– students who previously assembled under the Year 2 shelter will now need to assemble in the area in front of Kindergarten and Year 1. Grade signs will be used to support this process.Parents will need to enter via the relocated Aquamarine Drive gates and make their way to collect their children from this pick-up point.
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- Aquamarine Drive gate - A - I (Red)– Kinder / Year 1 shelter.
- Emerald Drive - J - Q (Purple)– parents wait on grassed area near hall / church – students will move to their parents from the Office gates.
- Aquamarine Drive gate R - Z (Orange) - Kinder / Year 1 shelter.
- Bus / After School Care providers - assemble in the covered area near the Office shelter in grade lines. After School Care providers will pick up students from this area.
- OOSH dismissal meeting point - COLA.
- Students moving to bus lines and other after school care providers will move from classrooms on the first bell. All other students and OOSH students move on the second bell.
Mrs Lillian Del Giudice
Assistant Principal
ACTIVATE FIRE
On the 15 of October 2022, Year Six participated in a day at Holy Family Primary School. The day was called Activate Fire. This included a range of activities while learning more about our Spiritual Journey based on our recent sacrament of Confirmation. Activate Fire was a way to help us open our hearts to others, our Faith and celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The activities Year 6 most enjoyed were the group games where we learned more about each other, learning to be prayerful through music and listening to the faith stories of our group leaders.
Brody and Alicia
6Gold
GRANDPARENTS AND GREAT PEOPLE DAY MASS AND MORNING TEA
We are extremely excited to invite our grandparents and the great people in our lives to our Grandparents’ and Great People Day Mass to be held on Friday 28 October 2022 commencing at 10.15 a.m.
This will be followed by a special morning tea, classroom visits and a picnic lunch with children. Please respond to the COMPASS invitation via the link below:
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Mass 10.15 am
Morning Tea hosted by the P&F 11.15-11.40 am
Special Choir Performance 11.40 am
Classroom Visits 11.45 am - 12.15 pm
Picnic lunch with grandparents and great people 12.15-12.45 pm
MISSION MUFTI DAY
This month our school will be participating in Catholic Mission Socktober Challenge during Mission Week (24 - 28 October).
Our students will engage in a range of engaging activities to deepen their understanding of Mission and our school will celebrate on Thursday 27 October with a “Mission Mufti Day".
Students will be asked to wear a colour based on the Mission Rosary (this will be their house colour) and will participate in a Socktober challenge day with their grade.
STUDENTS ARE ASKED TO BRING A GOLD COIN DONATION FOR THIS DAY
ALL SAINTS LITURGY
Year 3 will be hosting a special All Saints Liturgy in the Church on Tuesday 1 November at 10:00 a.m.
Parents and carers are warmly invited to share this special Feast Day with our students.
CHRISTMAS ART COMPEITION FINALISTS
As finalists, both artworks have been chosen for submission into the Archdiocese Exhibition held later in the year at Notre Dame University. Good luck girls!
Mrs Kirsty Simpson
Religious Education Co-Ordinator
Congratulations to Kinder Gold for earning a Gold Star last week – well done! Sadly we still have quite a number of outstanding loans from the end of last term, but we look forward to getting them all back as soon as possible. Well done to all the students who have returned their books and remembered their Library bags.
Library tomorrow is Year 3.
Next week:
Monday – Year 4
Tuesday – Year 6
Wednesday – Year 1
Thursday - Kinder
As we explore Poetry this term, we may ask the question, What is Poetry? It is many things to many different people, but Sally Murphy, an Australian Poet and Author, describes it as follows:
A Poem
by Sally Murphy
A poem
Is a whole lot of words
A plethora of words
A smattering, a scattering
A shattering of words
Thrown on a page
In carefully created
Chaos
To make you wonder
In this poem, you see poetic techniques – repetition, rhyme, alliteration – and the poem intends to leave the reader not with a definitive answer, but with something to ponder. That may be a depth of feeling, a sense of joy or even just a giggle!
Scholastic Book Club
Catalogues for Issue 7 went home last week. Orders for Book Club On-Line will close this Friday 21 October. There are some great books available at good prices. Thank you for your support.
Remember to encourage your children to read every day, even for just ten minutes, and if possible, read with them. That valuable time spent with them will be what they remember!
"The more that you read,
the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you'll go."
Happy reading!
Mrs Sue Bryant
Teacher-Librarian
For Catering Purposes for the Morning Tea please click on the link below: