Term 2 Week 10 2022

Principal's Message

Dear families and friends,

‘We do whatever it takes to lead the way in Love, Learning, Faith, School Spirit, Sport & Community’

                                Dear God

I pray You will bring peace today to those who are struggling. 

Please bring hope to those who feel helpless. 

Bring comfort to those suffering with illness. 

May we all look to You for strength each day.  Amen.

Thank you:  I wish you all a safe and happy holiday. I would like to thank staff and students for such a great first half of the 2022 schooling year. Yet again, we as a school have put our kids first and foremost and ensured they are getting the very best out of us.

I am looking forward to the great opportunities and experiences we will share together again in Term 3.

Below are the expectations we put on ourselves as a staff at SMP to live up to our school Vision. I am really pleased with how our crew has gone this Semester.

Love

• We welcome all with Love.
• All teachers know all kids' names. Class teachers know their students deeply.
• Every child is treated through the lens of one of God’s Beautiful Creations, this includes knowing when to show tough love.

Learning 

• All teachers embed learning agreed practices. 
• All teachers have High Expectations of all kids and follow up. 
• We reflect on our practice as a professional learning team. 
• We know our impact and achieve our desired results.

Faith

• All teachers actively and freely talk about their Faith to students, staff & parents.
• All teachers attend and take turns leading Staff Prayer and at least one sacrament a year (Confirmation or Eucharist).

Community

• All teachers attend at least 2 community events each year (ANZAC, Beef Week, NAIDOC, Fun Run).
• All teachers facilitate and/or participate and share the workload with the ‘little extras’ e.g. Breakfast Club, Poetry.

See you all again on Monday 18th July

Take care

John O’Brien

Assistant Principal's News K-9

My name is Vinnie and I am the new Assistant Principal K-9.  I am a 3 month old Dachshund who is in training to  become our SMP School Dog. I have been chosen to  be a calming and supporting influence in the classrooms and to spend time with the students on the playground as a friend to them.  I hope  to provide love and joy to the kids at SMP.

We will be working hard over the coming  months to make sure I learn all the tricks that will help me be a great support dog to all the kids.  When I am here at school, I will help kids in small groups to manage their  emotions and also improve their reading and writing skills. I will be on a lead, resting in Mr O’Brien’s office or sometimes in the library with Mrs Schuhmacher and visiting classrooms to spend time with the students.  

I have successfully met all classes, but I am aware that not everyone likes dogs, so if your child is afraid of me,  or has had a previous unpleasant experience from one of my friends, or are  allergic, please let Mr O’Brien know by contacting him via email  john.obrien@lism.catholic.edu.au so we can  make a plan to ensure that I don’t frighten them any further and maybe we  can become good friends. 

Mr O’Brien would love for any feedback from our school parent community  about me coming to school, so if you have any questions or feedback, please  feel free to contact him.

I look forward to meeting you all at some stage soon. 

Woof Woof,

Vinnie - Assistant Principal K-9

Assistant Principal's News - Mission

Our House Cooking

Last Thursday, Miss Mac, Mrs Wilde and Mrs Ross supported some of our Year 6 Leaders of Faith to cook a meal for residents of the Our House facility in Lismore. Our House is a purpose-built accommodation for patients, carers, and their families who are receiving treatment at the Cancer Unit at Lismore. It also provides accommodation for other patients, carers, and their families who require medical attention in Lismore. What a wonderful initiative for our staff and students to support such a worthy not-for-profit organisation - Leading the Way in Faith!

Three SixTeen Youth Group

Thank you to the 50-odd students who have participated in the Youth Group in Term 2. We are so lucky to have Mahaila Day (College teacher), some College leaders and our Youth Ministry Officers run this for our kids. This will continue again in Term 3 with dates to be confirmed.

Friday Church Visits

In Term 3, all of our students will have one or two visits as a grade to the church on a Friday to participate in either a Mass or a Prayer Service. It is a high priority for our school to continue to give the students the opportunity to participate in prayer and celebrate our faith with Father Peter in the church as this hasn’t been able to be achieved with the many restrictions and disruptions over the last two years. When your child’s grade is attending on a Friday, the classroom teacher will organise for an invitation to go home to parents to come along and celebrate with us if they are free.

SRC

Our school SRC - Campbell Stuart, Charlie Walker, Callin Loy, Lachlan Rippon, Anna Bennett, Elizabeth Carey, Lucy McCormack and Emerald Dean - have organised the collection of student and staff voice in regards to Home Learning. They have looked at the data from the students and made some suggestions to the teachers for some trialled amendments in Term 3. These are only small adjustments that won’t impact the structure of Home Learning at all.

School Jackets

At time of print, we still have not received a confirmed time of arrival for the school jackets.

‘Tell Them From Me’ Surveys

In the coming weeks we will be inviting students, teachers and parents to provide feedback on their experience of our school using an online survey called Tell Them From Me (TTFM). The surveys are an important part of our whole school evaluation and planning process.

 We would like to invite you to complete the Tell Them From Me Partners in Learning survey. As we value the role of parents and carers within our school community we would greatly appreciate your feedback. The information you provide will be used to maintain our commitment to working together in partnership to further improve student learning and wellbeing at SMP.

The survey is anonymous and will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. The surveys will be available online  in early August and we will send out a link via the school app and text message.

Sam Irvine

Assistant Principal Mission

Mini Vinnies Cake Stall

Wednesday of Week 9 saw the Cola a hive of activity as hundreds of students lined up to buy the delicious cakes, slices, biscuits and treats provided by the Mini Vinnies to sell at their cake stall. Within 40 minutes there wasn’t a crumb of cake or slice left and an AMAZING $421.05 had been raised to support the Blanket Appeal being run by St Vincent de Paul Society. A huge thank you to the parents, grandparents and family friends of the Mini Vinnies students who provided the wonderful cooking and to the whole school community for their support.

Mini Vinnies - Jumpers for June

A HUGE Thank You to our school community for your support of this project. This week the members of Mini Vinnies carried over 30 very full Woolies bags full of coats and jumpers to the St Vincent de Paul shop. They were greatly appreciated by the staff and will be much appreciated by those ‘doing it tough’ at the present time.  This was a wonderful way for ... St Marys to do whatever it takes to lead the way in love and faith ...

Karen McDonald

Leader of Catechesis

Assistant Principal's News Teaching & Learning

Targeted Group Support at SMP

At SMP we do whatever it takes to lead the way in learning. One area we pride ourselves in is using data to identify specific student needs and then using our amazing staff to work in the classroom with targeted small groups, to ensure each child is supported in these needs. 

In Mrs Ross’ Year 4 reading group, the students have been exploring the importance of understanding clues to identify characters and their attitudes when reading texts. Sometimes as a reader we need to predict, then reread or backtrack to check that we have understood the text.

Can you predict which animal some of our students are writing about? 

I am sliding through the dirt to hide myself.  I can see a bird circling high above in the sky.  I can see the sharp claws of a chicken digging near me. I don’t want to be its dinner. Oh no! I spy a shovel - I don’t want to be fish bait.   Makaylah and Zoey

I wasn’t ready but the pack made me leave. I had to go and hunt for my own source of food. I was only little and I had no idea what the jungle was like. My mother nudged me away so I had no choice but to go. I raced away to the pond to get some fish to fill my growling stomach. When I returned to the pack they were gone. A tiger had attacked - would I survive without my pack?               Lilly

I was soaring through the air as I spied a little speck hopping around eating grass. I began to circle around, locking my eyes on the prey far below. I caught my prey and returned to my aerie. I felt cruel as I realised my prey was a lost baby rabbit. My family ate that night.  Cole

I live in the bush and sleep in a hollow. I am a marsupial and have a pouch where my baby lays safe and sound. I will strike you if you approach me.    Reece and Jacob

I live in an icy area. I have two webbed feet and am mostly black and white. I slide down icebergs on my tummy. I keep my eggs safe from the cold.     Riley and Maddison

Congratulations to Mrs Ross and her Year 4 Reading Group.

National Treasures Short Story and Poetry Competition

A number of our eager, creative writers entered this competition last term. This entailed writing a poem or short story in their own time and entering their finished composition online. Congratulations to Ella McIntyre and Alayna Johnston for making it through to the next round. Their poems will be published in a book for others to read. This is a great achievement for these students. Ella’s poem is shown below.

Lismore Flood- Ella McIntyre, Grade 5

All because of this horrible Lismore flood

Our town is drenched in mud and blood

Refrigerators on roofs and paddocks of planes

All that’s left are tears and smells of oil stains

Our knees are buckled and our hearts are heavy

We lost our homes when the torrent broke the levee

But our community is tough, we’re bred that way

An army of volunteers in tinnies saved the day

Camouflage trucks driving through our town

People in boots all around

We will rebuild cause we are strong

We won’t be out of action for very long!

Congratulations to all the students who entered this competition. You are leading the way in Learning!

Felicity Wilde

AP Teaching & Learning

Learning & Teaching News

Little Scribes Writers Festival

In week 6, the whole school participated in the Little Scribes Online Writer’s Festival. This entailed joining in a live zoom each day with a well known author to learn some tips on how writers come up with ideas and create their texts. The students enjoyed connecting with these authors and learnt some valuable skills to improve their creative writing skills.

K-2 Investigations

K-2 classes started investigations in their new learning spaces. The teachers have spent the last week planning and preparing for engaging, student-centred investigations and the students investigated this week with such enthusiasm! They embraced the new structure and expectations to consolidate concepts and become active participants in their learning.

Kindergarten Reading and Writing

Kindergarten students have been working hard on developing skills to read and spell words so they can comprehend and write short texts. Students practise this by segmenting, stretching and blending sounds together to decode new words in texts. They are becoming more confident to spell unknown words using their sound-letter knowledge and their Sound Waves Chart as a prompt. Congratulations to all Kindergarten students for working so hard on achieving their reading and writing goals!

Year 1 Writing

Year 1 has also been smashing their reading goals this term! They have been learning to read and comprehend simple texts. This means, students view or listen to a variety of texts and use a beginning, middle and end template to demonstrate their understanding of a text using drawings and sentences. Wonderful job, Year 1!

Laura Hughes,
K-2 Instructional Leader

Investigations

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Leader of Intervention News

What is the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD)?

At St Mary’s our Classroom Teachers, Student Support Educators, Leadership Team and Specialists, such as our school counsellor and speech pathologist, work hard to ensure all students can access and participate in education.

Our school team is committed to ensuring students with disability are well supported within the school setting. 

Please find attached a fact sheet on ‘What is the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD)?’

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about how our school supports students with disability. 

Paula McIntyre

Leader of Intervention 

Sport News

Zone Cross Country

Big congratulations to all our students who travelled to Lismore to compete in the Zone Cross Country.  All students from SMP did a fantastic job in wet and muddy conditions.

Dio Cross Country

Well done to the three students that made it through to Dio in Grafton. Tom McCormack, Charlie O’Brien and Harper Gould all did a fantastic job in some very wet and tricky conditions. All three managed to finish in the top 20 which was a great effort.

Dio Rugby

Congratulations to Lachlan Rippon, Harley Northfield, Amos Leven and Sam Butler who made it through to Dio in Forbes. Big congratulations to both Lachlan and Sam who have progressed through to Polding. It is a tremendous achievement to make it through to that level.

Rugby Gala Day

Congratulations to the boys that travelled to Coffs Harbour for the Rugby Gala Day. They played extremely well throughout the day and narrowly missed on making the final.

Athletics Carnival

Congratulations to all students for participating in the school Athletics Carnival. Lots of smiles and happy faces made for a great day. Big congratulations to the 48 students that made it through to Zone which will be held on Thursday 28 July at Geoff Watt Oval in Alstonville.

1500m 

The 1500m for Zone will be held on Monday 4 July at Hepburn Park. Students need to make their own way to this event if they have gained selection.

All Stars

At this stage unfortunately our All Stars is still postponed with our playground being out of action. As soon as a date can be confirmed we will let you all know.

Charlie Walker

Charlie has been accepted to the Gymnastics NSW State Development Squad. This is a high- performance training squad that will allow Charlie to attend training sessions with some of the top coaches in the state.  Congratulations, Charlie.

NSW Schools Cup

We wish all the players that are participating in the NSW Cup the best of luck, the successful team on the day can gain entry through to Sydney. We also wish all the best to the girls heading down to Sydney over the holidays to participate in the State Championships.

Brendan Mitchell

Sports Co-ordinator 

Birthdays

Happy birthday to Imogen Wells Eli Cottam-Harris Gabriel Esteban Zahryah Pirlo James Bratti Toby Makejev Spencer Really Jordan Taylor Jaxon Williams Jade Pirlo Emerald Dean Ledger Gould Sebastian Hogg Louis Armstrong Heidi Handford Eliza Brenan Harper Dhu Zahli-Rose Marks and Elaina Underhill who recently celebrated their birthday in June.

Student of the Month & Learner Achievement Awards