Term 3 Week 10

Dear Families,

It’s been a wonderfully busy term that is coming to an end. As suggested a few weeks ago in the newsletter, the children have enjoyed some ‘ordinary’ time where we have had great continuity with our teaching and learning programs over the past couple of weeks. 

Our Junior Primary students are making some huge jumps through our Initialit program over the past few weeks which is incredibly pleasing. Each fortnight their learning is measured through some simple testing to ensure they are making the required progress. I love chatting to Miss Watkins and Miss Warwick at these times and watching the joy they take in seeing the students absorb their teaching through the program. Equally the work of our ESOs in delivering the intervention programs that support this growth is vitally important. 

Equally our Middle and Upper Primary students are now up to Lesson 85 of their 120-lesson sequence in Spelling Mastery. The improvement in their general spelling has been noticeable, and we are looking forward to measuring their growth at the end of the program. Again, chatting to our teachers and discussing the data gathered each week in this space is a rewarding process as we ensure that we are delivering the right content to each child in the right way. 

Schools are about so many things. Being a strong community. Offering different experiences for our children in Sport and the Arts. Providing opportunities for students to develop their faith. As I have written before, these are the types of things that might make our School Facebook or are featured in our school newsletter. They are the colourful, bright and bubbly parts of schools. 

To be perfectly honest though the hardest work that we do is in the areas of Reading, Writing, Spelling and Mathematics. They are crucially important as we know to everyday life in all industries, and it has been incredible to see our student results in this space improved steadily over the past couple of years. We now sit above National Average in 9 of the 10 categories in Year 3 and Year 5 in our NAPLAN results which is credit to the quality of programs and educators at our school. For a little Catholic school in the country, we are batting above our average. 

SAPSASA Athletics 

It was great to see 3 of our students compete in the State-wide SAPSASA Athletics event. Congratulations to Sam Phasey who took out the High Jump event and to Angus Slade and Lukas Rowe who represented their school and district with distinction. 

Later this year our Year 3-6 students will have the opportunity to compete at the SA Athletics Stadium (formerly SANTOS Stadium) against other Catholic Schools in our division.  

Whole School Musical 

In 2023, we will be producing a Whole School Musical at the Light Church Performing Space. This allows our students the experience of working in a full-scale musical on a professional stage with lighting and sound. The musical we have chosen is Peter Pan the Musical which has a large cast of 60 speaking roles. As this is the last whole school musical for all Year 5,6,7 students they will be prioritised for main roles. 

End of Year Events 

We are currently finalising our End of Year Events program.

Can I please ask that you keep Tuesday the 13^th of December free for our Presentation/Carols night. This night allows us to celebrate the year that has been, acknowledge our graduating Year 7 students and hear our students and community sing a wide range of Christmas Carols as we celebrate the season of Advent. 

There will be further information about our Graduation Mass and Dinner sent out to families in Week 1 of next term. 

What’s going on with the Build? 

The builders are currently laying footings for our new toilet block which is situated on the northern edge of the playground. During the holidays our current toilet block will be demolished, and the site prepared for our new R-2 classroom space. Our students have transitioned well to our temporary toilets, and we are hoping that by the end of Week 6 we should have access to our new toilet block. 

Festival Choir 

Our Festival Choir are travelling to Adelaide today to complete their performance in conjunction with many other Catholic Schools from across South Australia. The CSMF is a showcase of talent from students within upper primary and secondary Catholic schools involving approximately 2000 students who spend 7 months preparing for their moment on stage. Performances are held each September, with each evening featuring a massed choir, instrumental ensembles, vocal groups, and solo artists. 

Next year the festival choir will be a voluntary experience for any Year 5-7 students who are interested. 

Good luck to Mrs G.O and the choir tonight on their performance. Stay tuned to social media for some updates as the night progresses. 

Fees 

School fees will remain the same for 2023. This is reflective of our commitment over the past few years to lower the costs of education at SCMS. Fee Remissions can be applied for, for families who may be impacted by Cost-of-Living challenges. Please contact Margaret Grainger if you require any support. We offer a range of flexible options for payments, along with generous remission and support for families who find themselves in unforeseen financial difficulty. We do not want finances to become a reason your child cannot complete their education at SCMS 

Wishing you a safe holiday break as we prepare for what is always our busiest term of the year Term 4.  

If you are travelling away during the term break stay safe. 

Kind Regards,

Scott March 

Hello!

Last Friday the staff had their annual staff retreat day. The day was frame worked by the Alpha course, which is an introduction to the basics of Christianity. This allowed for us a staff unit to reflect on the ‘why’ of what we do and like I said in the last newsletter, more importantly the ‘who.’ It was great to have the staff that were present to throw themselves into pondering questions, ideas and theories that are so pivotal to our school’s foundation. We look forward to continuing with the course in the future.

This week we welcome back Fr John who has been back home in Kenya for 6 weeks after not being home for nearly three years. We look forward to hearing all about his time visiting his family and friends.

Next term will prove to be a busy term as it always is, with sport, graduation, harvest for some of our families and the lead up to Christmas. I hope that the school holidays will allow for you to get some much-needed time to rest and recharge.

Finally, during the holidays we remember the one-year anniversary of Deb Walford’s death. We ask that you keep her family in your prayers during this time and for the repose of her soul. She was a lovely, thoughtful woman who is very much missed.

God Bless,

Miriam Honner

The Reception classroom have enjoyed revising numbers from 0-20. Here we are playing a fun game of number bingo to work on their number recognition.

The Year 1/2 children have had the opportunity to create and maintain their very own potato patch. The students had a blast planting the potatoes and they look forward to having a sense of responsibility over the patch as the year progresses. Thanks Jo for making this happen for the students.

The Year Three and Four Class have completed our M.I.T.I.O.G. Learning for this term. We have enjoyed exploring and celebrating the gift of our lives as Humans who are made in the image of God. It was so special to learn about our own early life stories and to share the special moments with the class!

What Matters?

Throughout the year a few of our students entered the Whitlam Institute ‘What Matters?’ writing competition. This was a writing competition designed to encourage young students to develop a perspective, a point of view, on where we’re heading as a society. The writing competition had year 5-12 students from all over Australia enter, all writing about different topics they are interested in. Recently our students received participation certificates, to acknowledge their hard work. Throughout this process it was encouraging to see how passionate, observant and articulate our students are.

Congratulations on an outstanding effort, Isabella Rowe, Jade Player, Owen Bishop, Jada Clasohm, Henry Bryan, Angus Slade and Catalina Taheny.

Spain has not always been one single country. In the past it was many small kingdoms. When Isabella 1 of Castile (one such kingdom), married Ferdinand 11 of Aragon (another kingdom), they worked to make a united country; one Spain, not many. It was through them that the explorer, Christopher Columbus discovered America: 

In 14 hundred and 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Spain became very rich from all the discoveries in the Americas

Regards,

Mandy Thompson.

Last week Gerd and Claire from the RAA visited our school! The RAA delivered a new suite of car seats for our school vans, through their Regional Safety Grants Program. Time was spent training staff, following best practice for use of the new seats. The RAA team were also able to assist the wider community with seat checks, fitting and general advice. Gerd and Claire enjoyed their time so much in our community that they are taking the idea of pop-up car seat services for rural and remote communities back to their team. We hope to have them back 'on tour' in Yorketown again. Thanks to those who stopped in for a seat check and chat, Gerd and Claire commented many times on how friendly and welcoming our community is!

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