Term 1 Week 6 (11/3/2022)

What is On?

Monday 21st March - School Photos

Dear Parents and Carers

This week has been a big week for many in our community who are offering support to the Nothern Rivers. Our Stage 3 students and staff have worked to offer our support with furniture and classroom materials. We have also as a school provided 'Start Packs' to a school who are relocating to SCU. While these acts of service are small we know that until the schools are settled they are unable to seek other support. We are ready to offer other support as soon as the schools know what they need. I have been approached by parents who would like to help and the Diocese has designated the St Vincent De Paul Appeal as our school's response. As we plan into the future we will direct support in this way. 

You may like to support local initiatives advertised through community notice boards or the Red Cross Telethon this weekend. We know that in the coming weeks our school community will come together in support.

Parent teacher interviews will be released this afternoon through Compass. This is a new process where teachers have individually opened a calendar for their Stage. Please be aware that each teacher will offer individual times depending on their availability. With Stages and Compass teacher will offer individual interviews and they will collaborate with one another after the interviews are complete. This means in Stages 2 and 3 there are three teachers with times to choose. Teachers will no longer meet in pairs. All interviews are 15 minutes in duration. 

We do not know how this system will go but there are many more time slots on offer and we hope everyone is able to find an appropriate slot. After this I will seek feedback on the new system from staff and families to evaluate the process. 

Any problems please ring me.

Ann

McAuley Catholic College - Open Night & Save the Dates

Sport Dates

-Polding - Sydney - Tuesday 22nd March

Cross Country

-School - Yamba, Thursday 7th April

-Zone - Grafton, Wednesday 4th May

-Dio - Grafton, Tuesday 24th May

-Polding - Tuesday 7th June

Athletics

-School - Yamba, Friday 24th June

-Zone - Coffs Harbour, Wednesday 20th July

-Dio - Lismore, Friday 12th August

-Polding - Newcastle, Friday 9th September

SACRAMENTAL DATES 2022

Confirmation- Thursday 30th June, from 5:30pm at St Mary’s Church, Maclean.

Reconciliation- Wednesday 24th August, 11:40am in school hall.

First Holy Communion- Saturday 27th August, 5:30pm at St James Church, Yamba

Awards Assembly- Save the date!

Due to the closure of St James School last week because of the flood, we will have a double Awards Assembly in the last week of term on Wednesday 6th April at 9am for S3 & S2 students and 9:30am for S1 & ES1 students in the hall. Parents of awardees will be notified earlier that week and are warmly invited to attend. There will also be a recorded viewing that you can access if you are unable to attend.

RE News

We stand in solidarity with one another across the Diocese of Lismore during our recovery from these devastating floods. Many have experienced trauma, loss and grief. A sense of powerlessness is common to us all. And yet, the spirit that binds us together has seen countless acts of courage, selflessness and sacrifice from our community. What has been witnessed is the joy of the Gospel. There will be further opportunities for almsgiving on a new scale. We keep all of our families, who were affected by the flood in our prayers.

PROJECT COMPASSION: “Love your neighbour as you love yourself” (Matt 22:39). Help empower our most vulnerable neighbours worldwide to build a better future for their families and communities by supporting Caritas Australia and Project Compassion. 

During the Season of Lent we are collecting donations in each Stage for Caritas, Australia. 

Who is Caritas?

From humble beginnings in 1897 Germany, Caritas, named after a Latin word meaning love and compassion, grew to become one of the world’s largest humanitarian agencies. The Catholic Agency for Aid and Development, Caritas began in Australia in 1964. And many people, then and now, feel that supporting Caritas is a great way to reach out to people in need.

Renee Howland

Leader of School Mission & Catechesis

LOP News

Yamba Song Videos 

Writing a song 

The LOP writing challenge in  2021 was to write a song about Yamba . The students listened to the song Old Welcome Feeling by Rob Imeson for inspiration. When children learn how to write songs, they are learning how language works and how to experiment with different rhythmical and rhyming structures. To begin, some students  came up with an idea ( based on Yamba ). The students  used the app chrome music maker to make  a melody that was simple and memorable.  

We will showcase the entrants through the school newsletter.

Enjoy our entrants:

Willow Bews, Marlie Zvatora , Eamon Mawn

ES1

This term in History, Kindergarten will be investigating their Personal and Family Histories. We have started our unit of work exploring what makes our families special and what similarities we have with our peers' families. Students will be investigating how events in the past are celebrated and why they are important to them.  Students will also explore the origin of their family and the families of their classmates.  We are looking forward to a great term of learning in History every Thursday!

Mrs Hollington

Stage 1

This term in English we have been looking at Imaginative Writing. Students have been using ‘the beach’ as their writing stimulus. Using their own photos of the beach students have written an imaginative story- they created characters and described them and the scenes using verbs and adjectives to excite the reader. According to Stage 1 we can see Megladons, Seagull’s that steal your hot chips and evil mermaids! Ask your child what they wrote about or who appeared in their story!

Stage 2

This week in Stage 2, we have been working on developing a setting when writing narratives. 

We studied a stimulus picture and used our senses to answer the following questions:

What could we see?                                       What could we hear? 

What could we smell?                                  What could we feel? 

We then used our creative minds to convert this into writing a detailed narrative description of the setting. 

Check out some of our work below!

Stage 3

This week in Stage 3 we have been talking about how we can commit to the act of service and assist those people who were badly affected by the floods last week. Students cleaned furniture to be donated to St Joseph’s Primary School, Woodburn this week, where the school was totally destroyed by flood waters. Each student wrote a kind message on beautifully decorated tags that were attached to the chairs and delivered to students in Woodburn. 

Our Mission Reps were also very busy putting together prayer boxes and storytelling kits for teachers from Woodburn to use for their Religion lessons. 

We hope these donations help the staff and students to gain a sense of hope and to feel supported.