St. Mary's eNews

Term 1 Week 4


Social & Emotional Learning Groups

In the coming weeks, Liv (Speech Pathologist) and Rishika (School Counsellor) will begin some small group sessions which will focus on Social Skills and Loss & Change.

If you feel your child would benefit from being part of these groups, please contact Cathy Sims or Marg Masseni.
Sessions will focus on:

Social skills 

  • Taking turns
  • Winning and loosing
  • Initating, mantaining and ending conversations appropirately
  • Saying excuse me/ interrupting / manners
  • Thinking about others
  • Flexible thinking
  • Eye contact
  • Asking for help/ requesting
  • Social cues
  • Context appropriate volume

Emotional awareness

  • What are they- what do they feel like, look like, sound like?
  • Recognising them in others and yourself
  • Problem solving and coping skills
Loss and Change
  • relationship changes
  • the death of a loved one
  • removal from family members
  • traumatic events at home or within the community
  • disability
  • family breakdown. 


Olivia O'Hare (Speech Path)

Last week we introduced Rishika, our school counsellor and this week we would like to introduce you to Olivia O'Hare, our Speech Pathologist. Liv works with us on Thursdays and Fridays in consultation with Cathy Sims, our Learning Diversity Leader.

 

"I am so thrilled to be doing something I love, in a community that I love! I am incredibly fortunate to be in a position to positively affect a person's life and to give them a voice." says Liv.

Olivia has completed her Bachelor of Speech Pathology at The Australian Catholic University and has also completed a Bachelor of Psychology Applied Science at RMIT University.

She is a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP), and a member of Speech Pathology Australia. Olivia has had clinical experience in the assessment, diagnosis and intervention a wide range of practice areas, for both adult and paediatric clients.

Olivia's clinical experience ranges from a variety of settings including work in the primary school setting, hospital acute and sub-acute wards, Community Health in Early Intervention, adult Community Rehabilitation and she currently runs her own private practice. She specialises in paediatric and adult speech and language difficulties, literacy, and has a particular interest in intervention with individuals with Aphasia post stroke.

She is the founder of a non-for profit awareness raising campaign called ‘A Night for Aphasia’ and enjoys this work in addition to working with St Mary’s Altona and running Now We're Talking Speech Pathology and Psychology. Not sure what Aphasia is? Jump on our socials @anightforaphasia and check it out!!

Olivia is a positive and enthusiastic clinician and is passionate about helping others and making a difference in any way she can! She believes that creating a fun and safe environment, tailored to each individual client, is essential for their growth and progress.

Olivia feels it is important to help educate families and share her knowledge on how they can facilitate the same learning and progress the client further at home so that you can have a seamless journey towards reaching your goals. 

Olivia is passionate about the Speech Pathology field and looks forward to working with you and your children.

How lucky we are to have Liv working with us!
Welcome to St Mary's!



School Photos 2021

School photos will be taken on Wed 3rd March by Elite School Photography. 

 Students should wear their full school uniform. If they have Physical Ed, they should bring their runners to change into for their lesson.  House Captains should bring their coloured tshirt for their leaders photo.

    
All orders are to be competed online
, via the Elite School Photography website, PRIOR TO THE DAY.

 You can order your child's school photos using the login code ESP202515 and follow the easy steps to order.  Please ensure all relevant details are filled out correctly.

Family Discount - If you have more than two children attending this school, please list all their First Names and all their classes and select 2 as the quantity, for the Deluxe and Standard packs.
Your third and subsequent Child will receive their pack free of charge, but you must list all your children's names to enable this.
The family discount only applies to the Delxue and Standard Packs.

If you have any queries regarding School Photos, please contact the friendly staff at ESP directly on 9570 9311.

Kelly Sports Dance Program

Due to lack of bookings Kelly Sports Dance will not go ahead this term.  The program will be offered again in Term 2.  Flyers listing more information will be sent home towards the end of term.

Walk/Ride to School Day ~ Monday 1st March

Our first Walk/Ride to School day will be held on Monday 1st March. Come along in an active way and earn house team points.  See the house captains on the netball court when you arrive and they will put your name on the house team chart. We are looking for the most active house team! Go red! Go green! Go blue! Go yellow!
Who will it be?

Fun & Fitness is back!

Our first before school Fun & Fitness session will be held next Wednesday 7th February.

Fun & Fitness is held every Wednesday morning from 8 - 8.30am on the basketball court.  Sessions are run by Mrs Masseni and are open to all children from Prep - Year 6. Parents and siblings are also welcome to attend and join in the fun but there is no obligation to stay.

We engage in a variety of games and activities suitable for all ages levels.  The more the merrier ~ so come along and try it out.

For more information, contact Mrs Masseni via the school office, email her or catch her in the yard before or afterschool.


Respect • Responsibility • Resilience • Courage



Anaphylaxis

We have several students in our school that are anaphylactic, which means they have serious allergic reactions. In our particular case students have an allergies to peanuts, macadamias, cashews, almonds, all tree nuts, kiwi, egg, prawns and salmon. 

If these students eat any food products that have these foods or traces of the foods, they could be put into a life threatening situation.

We are asking for your co-operation particularly if one of these students is in your child’s class, that NO sharing of food takes place.  If your child does bring one of the foods listed above, can you ask them to make their teacher aware so that the students can be kept apart.

Can you reinforce with your own child to not share their food with anyone.

On special occasion days e.g. birthdays, class teachers will have a ‘treat’ that these students can eat.

Students: These students are in 4/5L, 3/4B and 5/6KC.



Community News

Click on the links below to access news from around our community for this week........ Church Bulletin 21st February
Emmanuel College News
What's On - St Josephs by the Sea

2021 Swimming Team

Congratulations to our 2021 Swim team who competed this morning against other schools in the Altona District.  As you can see by the many smiling faces we had loads of successful races, whether ribbons were won or not.  Some children will go on to compete in the Divisional carnival in March. Apologies to Zoe N who missed our photo today but I'm sure her face would have been full of smiles too!

Thanks and well done to Ms Sottile (Alessandra) for organising swim training and the team for today. She has done a great job in her first few weeks at St. Mary's.
Thanks also to Mrs Taylor and Leonie Duane who accompanied the team today.

If you are running late...

While we know that parents make very effort to be ontime at the end of the day, sometimes things get the better of us.  Appointments run late, traffic is bad or sometimes you just forget that you have to pick them up...yes it has happened. 
Don't panic.... Children whose parents are not at school right on bell time, will be cared for by the teacher who is on afterschool duty.  Please remind your children of this and their teachers will do the same. 

The after school duty teacher keeps any 'uncollected' children with them until 3.35pm (3.15pm Monday) and then takes them into the office to wait under the supervision of our office staff. 

So you can either pick them up from the yard before those times, or from the office after.

Masks

A reminder that all visitors to the school should be wearing masks if they are enthering the buildings.

Vistors to outside areas must wear masks if they cannot socially distance (1.5m). 

We ask that all visitors who come for assembly wear a mask as social distancing is difficult in that area. We may need to change our procedures if parents are not wearing masks and not social distancing.

Introducing Rishika...our School Cousellor

Rishika Sangeeta is the School Counsellor at St. Mary's, Altona for this year. Rishika has been working as a School Counsellor for the last 2 years and works privately as a Behavior Therapist to support the needs of children on the spectrum.

She works extensively with children experiencing grief/loss issues, anxiety and depression with a focus on developing children's social, emotional, and communication skills to promote holistic personality development. 

We are pleased to be able to offer counselling services for children who might benefit from support in these areas.

If you would like your child to see Rishika for individual or small group sessions, please contact Marg Masseni who will pass the referrral forms on to you.

If you have any questions or queries please don't hesitate to contact Marg for more information. 
mmasseni@smaltona.catholic.edu.au