News
Middle Primary News - Measurement
We have had a great start to Term 2 and have dived right into lots of different learning. With Mrs Honner we have started looking at Length, Perimeter and Area. In last Friday’s lesson we used our estimating skills to put in order the ‘Big Things’ of Australia, from smallest to largest, including the big Rocking Horse, the big Farmer, the big Olive and more. We had fun also discussing if we had visited any of these places. We then used boarder tape to measure how tall we were and order our strips from shortest to tallest. Placing these up on the wall, we then mimicked the order to see if we had measured ourselves correctly when cutting the lengths of tape. It was a fun and interesting lesson.
Little Collies
Little Collies celebrating their 3rd Birthday last week. We had a great time creating party hats & eating cupcakes!
Middle Primary News - Exposition Writing
The Year Three and Four class have been very busy learning how to write fabulous persuasive texts. You can visit and read our fabulous work at your Parent/Teacher Interview next week!
Senior Primary News
The 5/6/7 class are continually looking at ways to improve the quality of their writing. Throughout each English lesson, students are constantly exploring different strategies and text types, used by different authors and illustrators, as a way to increase their own understanding and abilities.
This week some of our students explored the book ‘Window’ by Jeannie Baker. This particular book has no words and engages the reader through imagery. Each of the thirteen double pages have picture collages that tell a story of the impact our every growing society has on the environment.
After lengthy discussion and exploration of the book, students were asked to come up with the words for each page. They needed to be creative and intentional with the language they used.
Below are a few examples for the first page in the book ‘Window’:
I’m held in the arms of my Mum, as she stares into the never-ending beauty of our new backyard.
Jade
Here we are at the window. My Mother stares at the greenery with grace. Me in her arm, her breath on my neck. This beauty before us, cannot be replaced.
Jada
I fell asleep in my mother’s arms as she gazed out the window and sighed. “What a beautiful world” she whispered.
Catalina
Reception News
In the Reception class we have been learning about subitising. In this picture students were asked to arrange the counters in a way that would make it easier for them to subitise.
Spanish News
Altogether, there are more than 463 million people in the world who speak Spanish as their first language. There are at least 25 different countries that speak Spanish, including Spain, Mexico and Argentina. Do you know any other countries?
Spain got its name from the Roman people who called it Hispania, a word that may have referred to a lot of rabbits which existed there, about 200 years before Jesus was born.
Casual Day
On Wednesday we will be having a casual day for the last day of term with a gold coin donation to go towards Project Compassion. Please note that it will be a normal dismissal time of 3pm as buses will be running as normal.
Winter Uniform Sales
With the weather cooling down we will be setting up a trestle table with winter uniform items just inside the double gates on Marno Street on Tuesday 12 April. We will have jumpers and pants available for purchase before and after school. EFTPOS only. For any other unifrom items, please see me in the front office between 8.30am and 3.30pm.
Period Products Grant Received
The Government of South Australia have provided a grant to Catholic Education SA, on the same basis as grants provided to public schools, to help ensure period products are available for girls and young women in years 5 and above. The grant is intended to complement, not replace, the existing support provided for these students from school resources.
Students may need period products provided for a range of reasons, whether through unfortunate family circumstances, having run out or forgotten their own products on any given day. It is the Minister of Education’s desire that any barrier to accessing education for girls and young women be removed.
St Columba’s portion of the grant will be used to ensure these products are on site at all times should any of our young women require them.
Principal's Report
Dear Families,
We get to the end of a complex term, but overall a really successful term here at SCMS.
This week we’ve been almost back to full attendance at school. Later in this article there is a brief update around COVID-19 practices but I hope to focus on these matters less and less, as hopefully the situation settles in our state. As parents you’ve been incredible in supporting our school to have no spread on site so far this term.
Capital Works Program
It’s with excitement that I can share an update about our capital works scheduled to begin later this year. It’s been a mountain of work behind the scenes but excitingly the works have been approved by Catholic Education last week. They will now jump through the appropriate hoops at Council and go through a tender process, before beginning later this year.
The shot attached is direct from the landscape design artist who has worked alongside the School Board, Stallard and Meek Architects and myself to develop a contemporary environment for our children to learn in.
As you can see there are some significant changes to our school site with our new R-2 building being situated where our current school garden is currently. Surrounding this building will be some incredible zones for students to work in indoor/outdoor spaces, with productive gardens and sensory walls to provide the Junior Primary at our school the most contemporary facilities in Country South Australia to learn in.
What about the garden?
We’ve always been so proud of the ecological aspects of our school and these will continue to be an important part of student learning.
Over the next two terms, the Gather and Grow Team with the support of the students and staff at SCMS will migrate our School Garden and our chooks into the school orchard area. This will create an ecological haven for our students (and our chooks) where the productive garden will continue to be a part of Science, Ecological and Home Economic programs at our school. The chooks will be homed in a new chook house and be able to roam with a bit more freedom within the confines of the orchard.
We are so fortunate to have Jo Minks join us this term as part of our staff who will help to guide this process. She has led an incredible program this term with our 5/6/7’s and will continue to work with us this year in exploring how seasonal produce can be grown, and used as part of our school programs.
There is so much more to work through with this development but it’s best not to go through this all at once. Over the next month stay tuned for further updates through the newsletter and school Facebook.
COVID-19
It’s certainly been the most complex term of the pandemic (and that’s a reasonably high bar), but we are hopeful of a more settled and normal Term 2. Staff will be using the two Student Free Days to create processes to support any students who require time off through isolation in Term 2. We are hoping that the cases will follow the trajectory envisioned by SA Health and begin to drop over the school holidays and into Term 2.
Our staff have been unbelievably diligent in following the processes of wearing masks and RAT testing when required, which has contributed to the lack of cases at SCMS.
Over the past two weeks we have had no student cases recorded on site.
Easter
I’d like to wish all our families a holy and blessed Easter. I’m looking forward to a time of reflection and a chance to focus on my faith throughout this time.
God Bless,
Scott March
