Dear families,

I hope you are all continuing to keep safe and well during these times.

This week has been a most difficult one for many of us and as numbers of COVID increase, things are growing more uncertain by the minute.

After over a week of mask-wearing, I am sure you are growing as tired of this as I am, even  though it is the right thing to do. I pray that we will never get to the stage when picking up our mask is as commonplace as picking up our keys and phone is a permanent thing.

From all accounts, remote learning is continuing to work well for you. Many of you may have noticed that we streamlined our virtual meeting processes so that there are less individual meetings with different teachers and support staff. Feedback resoundingly showed that these different meetings with different people on varying days were hard to keep track of, so this time around, our support staff have been allocated to supervise onsite students. Could we please remind families that it is best that children use headphones/earphones when in their class or group online meetings, as this means there is less distraction for them. If your child is working onsite, please remind them to bring their headphones/earphone along.

Our teachers are continuing to work hard to meet the needs of all our students and early assessments are showing that the children are continuing to make great gains. I am sure this is a huge relief for you as we have all been acutely concerned about how this unusual period of learning would affect our students’ learning outcomes.

At this stage, I remind you that if you are able to keep your children home, we urge you to do so.  Especially with case numbers so high, we are all doing our best to keep the children and ourselves safe onsite.  While we have been instructed to supervise students with special needs who may not manage well at home, we would be happy to work with families to help you set up a structure that can work with your child, if you would like to trial learning from home.  That said, we are here for families in whatever capacity you need us.

This Thursday we will hold our Parent Teacher interviews via virtual meetings.  Today, you will have received  instructions on how to use the Whereby App, the platform that integrates with our SchoolInterviews Online program. If you encounter any problems accessing the interview on the day, please email your child’s teacher who will hopefully be able to help.

On this day, students will not be set any work as this will be a regular school closure scenario.  Children who would have usually attended onsite on this day will be supervised onsite, as we did on the extra week of holidays.  Camp Australia will run before and after school care as usual.

I am loving seeing the many Facebook posts that show the great learning you are undertaking at home, especially the Altona Hill teepee.  I have great plans for these teepee photos so please keep them coming in.  I’m guessing that by the end of this remote learning period, that teepee will become a gorgeous mansion!

Next Friday is Mary MacKillop’s feast day.  Be sure to take some time to ask for St Mary’s blessing on you and your family. Mr Taylor has shared some prayers with families through our assemble slideshow.

Keep on keeping safe,

Sonia

Now, more than ever, it is so important for us to connect with people, to connect with our families and friends. It is also important for our kids to connect with their families and friends safely. 

While we understand that many students and families want to connect using the school applications (Gmail, Meet etc), these applications are to be used for school purposes only.  
However, there are a number of ways kids can connect online.

• Kids Messenger - Messenger kids is a free video calling and messaging app for smartphones and tablets linked to a Parent’s Facebook account. This means parents have full control and visibility over which friends and family they can connect and chat with. The App is extremely ‘child friendly’ with some fun filled features like filters, stickers and games. 

• iCloud - families who have ipads and ipods are able to set up iCloud accounts for their children. These accounts are connected to the parents iTunes, giving parents some control. Children can then message and facetime as you would if you were using an iphone.

•  Zoom - Many parents have Zoom accounts which would enable them to set up Zoom meetings for kids and their friends. 

It is important that any online connections that are made, using these applications, between children are facilitated and supervised by parents. (Please note: families who have borrowed school ipads, these applications will not be able to be loaded onto these devices). If you require any help or support in setting up any of these applications please contact Ronnie Tucker vtucker@smaltona.catholic.edu.au

Already this term in Religious Education so far, we have celebrated Grandparents Day linked to the Feast of Sts Anne and Joachim. The Prep & Yr 1/2 children spent time exploring how special these people are to them. Here are some examples of some of the work submitted by our Year 1/2 classes.

In the middle school, the Year 3/4 students have been exploring how important signs and symbols are as an expression of our Faith. Miss Barnes has provided them with some great activities linking art to Scripture and presenting a detailed Loom video so that all students saw a friendly face during remote learning.

   

Many of the classes have also been learning about St Mary of the Cross MacKillop, in the lead up to her Feast Day next weekend. The Preps did some wonderful work learning about Mary’s family and the Year 5/6 students went further to create a multigenerational family tree for Mary. Our senior students have also collected a wide array of information about the key dates and events in Mary’s life and used these to create timelines.

We are so very proud of all the work our teachers do to maintain our Faith links during this difficult time. We are also extremely appreciative of all the efforts of our students and families in sharing back many examples of the great work and beautiful experiences they have had as a part of their Education in Faith this term.

Yours in Faith

Matthew Taylor

Religious Education Leader

Reading is important because it develops the mind. The mind is a muscle and regular exercise is important. Reading also helps people to grow mentally, emotionally and psychologically through the storylines and characters.

To support your child’s reading development it is suggested that they should read independently for at least 20 minutes each day.  As parents, there are some strategies that you can use to get your child to think further about the text.

At St Mary’s we use the Fountas and Pinnell Wheel which breaks the comprehension strategies into three main areas. Thinking Within The Text, Thinking About The Text and Thinking Beyond The Text.

If you would like to read more about these three areas you can look at the Fountas and Pinnell Wheel that demonstrates each of these three key areas and the system of strategies within them.

Stefanie Harvey

Learning and Teaching Leader

Please email Marg mmasseni@smaltona.catholic.edu.au with your thoughts.

Two Tuning in to Teens courses will be running in term 4:

• Wednesday 6 to 8pm from 14^th October to 25^th November.
• Wednesday 6.30 to 8.30pm from 28^th October to 9^th December.

Registrations essential. Learn more over on our webpage: www.hobsonsbay.vic.gov.au/teens

Rarely - it means that something doesn’t happen often

Adverb

Synonyms: seldom, infrequently, hardly

In the desert, we rarely saw any live plants.

My brother and I rarely played Monopoly together.

What are WOWs?

WOWS, or Words of the Week, are words that will appear every week both in the newsletter and in the display cabinets around the Prep/1 building as a way to help the students at St Mary’s Primary School build their vocabulary.

What we know from research about the importance of a large vocabulary is as follows:

1. Having a large vocabulary helps children think and learn about the world around them.

2. Vocabulary implications for literacy, in particular comprehension of written word essential for being able to answer questions about and successfully predict things from text.

3. A child’s vocabulary growth is directly linked to his or her overall school achievement.

What can we do with the Word of the Week?

It is important to talk about the words of the week with your child. Initially, discuss what the word means and put it in a sentence. Use the word frequently throughout the week – at set times like in the car after school or at the dinner table but also incidentally throughout general conversation where appropriate. When the child has a solid understanding of the word, you can think about other ways to build upon this knowledge and further increase vocabulary by thinking about other words that mean the same thing (synonyms) and words that mean the opposite (antonyms) to the WOW. 

Congratulations to our June Aussie of the Month students - Xavier, Andy & Alyssa.  Click here to find out why they are so wonderful!