Our Lady of Victories Primary School Shortland
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15 Lovell Parade
Shortland NSW 2307
Subscribe: https://olovps.schoolzineplus.com/subscribe

Email: admin@shortland.catholic.edu.au
Phone: 02 4951 1003

21 September 2018

Newsletter Articles

Dates to Remember

Dates to Remember

24 Sept

P&F Mtg – 7pm

27 Sept

Iceblock Day

28 Sept

OLV Day – Yr 2/3 Mass

BBQ Lunch, Tabloid Sports, Mission Fundraising

Awards Assembly

Last Day of Term 3

15 Oct

Term 4 Commences – K to 6

16 Oct

Netball Gala Day

19 Oct

Playground Opening

Principal’s Message

Playground

The children are having a wonderful time on the new play spaces and we are very grateful for the P&F contribution to making this happen. Early next term (Friday 19 October) we will have a blessing of the play space. We will be inviting some dignitaries and CSO Directors to celebrate the opportunities the children have to enjoy their learning experiences. Ms Maroney from the CSO will be following up with the Infant teachers about incorporating play and in particular our spaces, into the learning curriculum for K-2 children. Our ceremony will commence around 9:15am and all are welcome to come along. Morning tea will be served afterwards.

Unfortunately, we cannot allow children to play on these spaces before or after school.

Fruit at school
In the light of the concerns with pins and needles appearing in fruit, we ask parents to cut up any fruit before sending it into school.

Long Hair
Part of the uniform code is that long hair needs to be tied up. If your child's hair (girl or boy) is sitting on their shoulders or longer, then it should be tied up. We are trying to give a consistent and unbiased message to all children - Boy or Girl :)

REC News

OLV Feast Day Celebrations

We will be celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of Victories on Friday 28 September. It will be linked to our Mission Appeal and the children will be encouraged to wear their weirdest/fanciest/favourite socks to school on that day. There will be Mass at 9:00am with Year 2/3 leading the celebration.

ICEBLOCK DAY

The teachers are organising an ‘Ice Block Day’ next Thursday 27th September, to raise money for Catholic Mission. A variety of ice blocks will be sold at lunchtime. Prices will range from $1.50 - $3.00.

CONDOLENCES

We offer our condolences to the Ellis family (Isabella and Aleisha) on the death of their Great Granny. Also to Mrs Noble and her family on the very sudden death of Mrs Noble’s brother. “Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.”

School Community Code of Conduct

During 2018, the Catholic Schools Office has updated and revised the Enrolment Policy, Enrolment Procedure and Conditions of Enrolment for all students attending schools within the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

A School Community Code of Conduct has been developed to reinforce rights and responsibilities for students, parents and volunteers within our school communities.

Staff are bound by the CSO Code of Conduct available at the link below. A copy will be on display in the school’s reception area.

https://www.mn.catholic.edu.au/about/policies

In Term 1, 2019, all existing families enrolled in diocesan schools will be asked to sign the declaration that they have read the documents and agree to abide by the Code of Conduct and the Conditions of Enrolment; parents/carers will be asked to discuss student responsibilities with their children.

If you would like to view the updated documents, please go to the link below and follow the links to the following documents:

https://www.mn.catholic.edu.au/parents-community/how-to-enrol-in-a-catholic-school/

  • School Community Code of Conduct
  • Conditions of Enrolment
  • (Privacy) Standard Collection Notice
  • Enrolment Policy and Procedure
  • School Fees Policy and Procedure

If you have any questions regarding the above documents, please email them to brid.corrigan@mn.catholic.edu.au .

Skoolbag is Stopping

We are coming to the end of our Skoolbag subscription and with the new resource within COMPASS and Schoolzine, we will not be renewing it. We encourage all parents and carers who use Skoolbag for absentee notifications and to receive the newsletter, to now complete their transition over to COMPASS. The schools preferred method of notification is COMPASS and it works very similar to Skoolbag. Once you have it working, it actually has a lot more functionality. If you require assistance getting COMPASS working, please see Nicole in the office.

Skoolbag will not be used from the beginning of Term 4.

SMS / Email notification of Absence

As part of Our Lady of Victories’ commitment to student safety and welfare, our school has begun notifying parents of their child’s unexplained absence via SMS message & email.

This service provides an SMS / email notification to parents of children who are marked absent from school without explanation once the roll has been checked in the morning.

Where possible, it would be appreciated if parents can notify the school at their earliest convenience regarding a child’s absence. If you receive an SMS / email notification, it is requested that you then respond to the school with a reason for your child’s absence.

If a child is going to be absent for the day or is intending to arrive late (eg medical appointments etc), then parents are asked to use the COMPASS APP or call the office to notify the school before 9:30am on the day rather than sending a note afterward.

It is hoped that by providing this service and in partnership with families we can continue to ensure all possible mechanisms are in place to maintain the safety of our students.

Asthma Plans

Reminder letters were sent home a few weeks ago with students whose Asthma Plans need updating and those whose medications were out of date. Please ensure these matters are addressed as soon as possible. It is so important to have the Asthma Plans and medications in order, in case of emergency. Thank you.

Winter Uniform

As with all seasonal transition, the decision to change uniforms can be a little vague. With Wednesday’s warmer day it was suggested that parents should make a decision as to what uniform to send their children to school – Summer? … Winter?

The official date when all children should to change to summer uniforms is the first day of Term 4. Whilst Wednesday was warmer and there is no issue with wearing the summer uniform, the expected forecast for the following few days is much cooler, so it would be expected that children will continue to wear the winter uniform. Of course, parental discretion is permissible if the weather warms significantly before the end of term. However, please, do not “mix and match”.

School Fees

Everyone should have received a copy of their school fee statement. The majority of our fee statements are now sent out via email so please check your emails for these statements and notify the school if you are not receiving them or if you email address has changed. Term 3 is the final round of billing for 2018. All families should have their fee payment plans well under way or be ready to make the final payment for 2018. If you do not have a payment plan in place and have outstanding fees that you are struggling to pay, please contact the office and make an appointment to see Mr Vandermaat. It is very important that you make one of these appointments before letters are sent home chasing up outstanding fees.

SPORTS LEVY - Swimming

In our last newsletter, it was printed that the swimming cost were extra to the Sports Levy. This is because families were not charged for Tennis this year. The annual sports levy covers two sporting programs and one carnival event. This year the Sport Levy has covered the Tennis program, the Gymnastics program and the Athletics Carnival including bus travel. This then leaves the parents to pay for the Swimming program and Swimming Carnival. We decided to leave the Swimming program and Swimming Carnival out of the Sport levy as pricing changes significantly depending on venue and program providers. We apologise if this has caused any confusion and hope this has clarified the situation.

Labelling Items

With swimming next Term and the unpredictable weather, children are using jackets and will be changing clothes etc. To save the hassle for parents and staff of lost or misplaced clothing or items we ask that all items your children bring to school are clearly marked with your children’s name. If you are having trouble labelling your children’s clothing or other items, the office is offering the opportunity to purchase self-adhesive name labels for $1 each and iron on name labels for $1 each.

If you wish to purchase any of these labels please send an envelope into the office with the name of the student on the front of the envelope, the students class, which sort of label you wish to purchase, the quantity of labels and the amount of money enclosed in the envelop. Once the labels have been printed they will be sent home in the envelop via the note bags.

Parents regularly ask us if jackets, jumpers, lunch boxes or drink bottles have been handed in. If these items are clearly labelled it is much quicker and easier to return them to their rightful owner. During Term 4 swimming, we request that sport shorts, sport shirts, towels, thongs, swimmers, goggles and swimming bags are all clearly marked, so the staff can assist students with getting dressed and organised and ensuring nothing is lost.

The school is offering this service to assist parents and students keep their belongings safe. The cost is just to cover the cost of the labelling tapes.

KINDER Enrolments 2019

We still have vacancies for Kinder next year as well as in all other classes. If you know of someone who is looking to move over to OLV, please let him or her know. Parents who are seeking enrolment for their children at OLV in 2019 should ask for an Application for Enrolment from the office. Alternatively, an enrolment pack can be found on our school website.

http://www.shortland.catholic.edu.au/

Or on the CSO website.

https://www.mn.catholic.edu.au/parents-community/how-to-enrol-in-a-catholic-school/

If you are aware of any families that are also considering enrolling next year, please pass on this message.

Premier’s Reading Challenge

Congratulations to Eloise who also completed the Premier's Reading Challenge. My apologies for her name being omitted in the last newsletter.

Mrs Spencer

P&F News

Meeting Cancelled

Due to the commitments of most who attend our meetings, we are unable to secure a quorum for the meeting scheduled for Monday next week – 24 September. Our next meeting will be on Monday 22 October.

Entertainment Book

Thank you to everyone who has purchased their entertainment books or returned them. If anyone has any queries or questions about their reminder notes sent home last week please get in contact with Andrea (at the P&F), our rep Holly Matthews on 0447 770 148.

If parents would like to add to the monthly meeting agenda, please call Kylie Westaway or send an email to OLVparentsandfriends@gmail.com .

Clothing Pool:

The Uniform Pool is now set up and operating from the “Bell Room” next to the Year 1 classroom. The Uniform Pool is open every Thursday morning from 8:40am – 9:10am.

Please Note: We can only take cash sales as no EFTPOS facilities are available.

Canteen Roster:

Wednesday

Friday

19/9 Mary + Kerryn

20/9 Ruth + Lisa

26/9 Kristen E + Naomi

28/9 Closed

A reminder that if you do not have a current WWC number on file with the school office you will no longer be able to put on the canteen roster. As we hate to turn volunteers away, we ask that all volunteers submit their WWC numbers to the office ASAP. If you need any assistance with applying for your number or the process involved, please see Nicole P, in the Office or Nicole W, the Canteen coordinator.

LEXIA AT HOME

The way to access, Lexia at home has changed. If your child is using the Lexia program at home please check the new instructions to ensure you are correctly accessing the program.

Good work to all those children working hard at home using Lexia.

Mrs McCallum

Pastoral Care News

I have been madly buying plants for the garden, and getting everything ready for our summer crops. The children have had lots of fun helping plant them and are enjoying helping me decide what vegies we should plant. We have been looking at what plants might help keep the mosquitos under control in summer and now I have the challenge of finding those plants to put in our garden. If you have a green thumb or are a garden expert and know about which plants, help control those pesky mosquitos I would love to chat with you.

Keep an eye on our ever-changing garden. We are working hard to create a masterpiece.

Take care and god bless

Karen

Class News

Kinder

In Religion we viewed a You Tube clip called “What happens when I talk to God?” We used prayer starters such as ‘Jesus help me to ……’ and ‘Thank you for…..’ to help us think about what to say to God. We chose one of the prayer starters and wrote our own prayer to God. In English, we are learning about ‘Adjectives’. Adjectives describe nouns. We labelled an illustration of ‘The Big Bad Wolf’ using adjectives eg. scary eyes, sharp teeth, bushy tail. Our new sound this week is /g/ and our word family is ‘og’. We are spelling words that belong to the ‘og’ family eg. dog, log, fog. In Maths we did an assessment on ‘Patterns’ and have started a new unit on measuring ‘Time’. We ordered the days of the week and named activities that we do on the weekend and on a school day. We learnt to read the hour time on an analogue clock and matched activities we do in a day to the correct time eg school time – 9 o’clock. In Drama, we had great fun role-playing “The Three little Pigs” using face masks. We have finished assessments in Gymnastics so last week was a fun session. We got to use a new piece of equipment, a long tunnel that we had to crawl through.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfUGQw_tklE

The Big Bad Wolf Description song

Year 1

Year 1 did a great job of independently writing the ending to the Prince Cinders story we had been reading. We look forward to starting our new version of Cinderella this week called ‘Cindy Ella’. It is an Australian version of the classic fairy tale. In Maths, we have covered fractions and time. We have looked at how to find halves of a collection. We found it is very similar to the way we did ‘sharing’ in division. This week we have been learning to tell the time on both analogue and digital clocks. In particular, we have learnt to tell the time to the hour and half hour. In Religion we have started, our new unit called ‘Hebrew Scriptures’. In this unit, we will be learning about some of the stories from the Old Testament. We have discussed the Bible as a form of communication and that it has been around for thousands of years. Year 1 have looked at a map of the Geography of Israel to understand the areas they will hear about in some of the upcoming stories they will learn about. In Health, we have been learning about the muscles in our body. We have over 600 muscles that all have special jobs to do to help us move and even smile! In Creative Arts, we have learnt a dance called the ‘boogie woogie’. Year 1 were very quick to pick up the sequence of the dance and put it together without needing prompting! We are looking forward to learning our next dance!

Everyone had a great time on our excursion to the Shortland Wetlands and we had perfect weather to explore the area! Well done to Kinder and Year 1 for representing OLV with beautiful behaviour.

We have all enjoyed getting out and using our new playground! Year 1 have been making the most of the sunshine and sharing our fruit break and news time out in one of the new spaces!

Year 2/3

Week 9 already and Year 2-3 has had a busy and successful term. In the past two weeks, we read the text Why I love Australia by Bronwyn Bancroft. We noted the visual representations and the descriptions of different Australian landscapes. We also recently wrote an information report about Uluru. In Geography, we have been studying different rainfall patterns in Australia. In Science, we noted some information solutions and systems, which people use in daily lives to assist them such as GPS and activity trackers. In maths, we have developed skills measuring area and understanding the nature of chance events. In religion, we are learning about the main types of prayer including to express praise, sorrow, thanks or an intention. We are also preparing for Our Lady of Victories Feast Day Mass on September 28th September. Please come along if you can.

Year 4

Over the last 2 weeks in Religion Yr 4 has been learning about the Christian Scriptures. We have read about the Gospel writers and learnt that each writer wrote about Jesus from a different perspective. Matthew writes about Jesus the King, Mark writes about Jesus as a servant, Luke depicts Jesus as the perfect man and in John’s Gospel Jesus is shown as the Son of God. We also have looked at the book of Acts of the Apostles, which is a continuation of Luke’s gospel, and then the letters which total 21 – 13 of them being written by Paul. In English we have been learning how to write a fantasy. We created our own fantasy lands, characters, quests for the heroes of our fantasies to go on and described the magic in our fantasy lands. The final step was the ‘hook’, which is an opening paragraph that will catch the reader’s attention and get them to read on. In Maths, we have been measuring area using square centimetres, and then looking at symmetry and movement of 2D shapes. In Geography, we have continued doing our own individual research on comparing weather conditions in Australia and China and writing an information report that includes graphs and charts. We enjoyed Mr Cootes’ visit for Catholic Mission yesterday and are keen to raise lots of money to help the people of Myanmar build a school for their children from K-6. (Currently their school goes only to Yr 1.)

Year 5

Another busy two weeks.

In Religion we have been investigating the Hebrew Scriptures and today looked at the many different names used for God throughout the Bible. In English, we have been working on our comprehension skills and our creative writing, with some very pleasant surprises! We have also written a play script for a section of our story “Rose Blanch”. They are all amazing! In Maths, we have been working hard with decimals last week and fractions this week. We know there is a lot to learn and remember but we are doing a good job of it. In Geography, we are now using Word, OneNote, Prezi or PowerPoint to create our presentations for the research we have conducted throughout the term. IT can be frustrating at times! In Dance with Year 6 we have started collaborating to choreograph our own moves to a familiar piece of music. Today there was lots of discussion and smiles, and progress is being made. We are looking forward to our last gymnastics session next week, as well as the OLV feast day on Friday, where we will “SOCK IT TO POVERTY”.

Year 6

In Religion, we have continued our work on Christian Scriptures. We had to choose a Gospel story and compare the same story across different Gospels. We determined the similarities and differences in each account. We then chose another Gospel story and drew two corresponding scenes from different versions of the same Gospel story and labelled the differences. In English, we are enjoying our novel, ‘Wonder’ by R.J. Palacio, for home reading. In class, we are continuing our media study of Nowhere Boys. It is interesting to look at the way the show has been produced. We are specifically concentrating on Production Values in the last episode we watched. In Maths, we are studying percentages and discovering their use in everyday life. In Geography, we have had some fun using an interactive map of Asia while learning more about the various countries on this vast continent. In Library we are working on a webinar and are currently investigating trade, looking at exports and imports to and from Asian countries. We have enjoyed our Gymnastics lessons this term and have developed and strengthened our skills. It is hard to believe it is the end of Term 3 next week and we have only one more term of Primary School to go!

SPORTS NEWS

Term 4 Swimming

For sport in Term 4 the children will participate in a swimming program each week for weeks 1-6. Our sports day will go back to Wednesdays. 

Our annual swimming Carnival is scheduled for Thursday 29 November.

Polding Athletics

Well done to Jessie Forbes who participated in the POLDING Athletics Carnival last Friday. She medalled in the following events: 100 meters, 200 meters, Shot Put and Long Jump.

BIRTHDAY WISHES

We would like to wish the following children a happy birthday

Bailey W

Congratulations and we hope you have a happy day

Class Awards

Class awards for Week 8

Class

Recipients

K

Angad B, Clayton S, Joseph B, Oliver W

Yr 1

Lochlain H, Ojoe T, Freya B, April W, Margreit K

Yr 2/3

El W, Lyla R, Tahlia B, Emily A-Mc

Yr 4

Logan E, Oliva B, Lachlan J

Yr 5

Zac C, Oscar H, Phoebe C, Jayden S

Yr 6

Isobel C, Christopher C, Keilie H

Principals Award

Angad B, Maree H, Zoe H, Ruby L-P, Julian A, Sienna W, Josie J-P, Joseph A, Deacon W,

Captain’s Awards

Gemma Mooney, Year 2/3

Lexia Awards

Max G, Maria K, Aleisha E, Julian A, Dakota C, Lily W, Heath F, Cooper C, Caleb J-P, Suma M, Millie H, Spencer N, Virginia V, Isla W