9 August 2018

Newsletter Articles

Dates to Remember

Principal’s Message

We have all settled in well to Term 3 and all our students have been working with enthusiasm.

The playground upgrade is looking great! We hope to be able to enjoy the fun of our new activity areas before too long.

A BIG thank you to our wonderful P & F for their generosity in enabling the work to be carried out. I am sure it will be greatly appreciated by all our students.

Welcome

We welcome another new student to Kindergarten. His name is Clayton Spazzal. We are happy to welcome Clayton and his family to OLV and hope they enjoy being part of our community!

First Eucharist

Last Sunday seven children from our school celebrated their First Holy Communion. This was a wonderful occasion as it completed the children’s faith journey through the Sacraments of Initiation (Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist). Congratulations to Annalise, Dakota, Elsie, Georgina,

Year 1 Mass – Feast of St Mary of the Cross McKillop

Tomorrow Year 1 will be leading us in the celebration of the Eucharist to honour the feast of Australia’s first Saint, Mary of the Cross McKillop.

All are invited to join us for this special occasion in the church at 9am. Please ensure students arrive at school before the bell.

It will be a wonderful opportunity for our First Communicants to receive the Eucharist with the school community!

Uniform Reminder

There continues to be a noticeable number of students not wearing ties each day and many girls coming regularly without a belt on their tunic. When girls wear tights, they should be navy in colour.

We understand at times items can be mislaid and we appreciate the rush of mornings. However, if possible, it would be good to see greater adherence to the uniform policy.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

Tissues Please!

All classes are in need of tissues during these colder months. If you could send in a box to your child’s class, it would be very much appreciated

Wallsend Winter Fair

On Sunday 12 August the local community will be sharing the fun of the fair.

Our school will be marching in the Grand Parade at the Wallsend Winter Fair and the lunchtime dance group will be performing on the Baptist Church stage.

Parents are asked to please encourage your children to participate in the Grand Parade as we would like to have a great representation of the students of OLV.

Another note was sent home yesterday, in the hope of gathering more participants.

Please consider supporting the school community by coming along!

This is a popular local community event and it is a great opportunity for our school to contribute.

Please return your forms TOMORROW if you are able to join in!

BOOK WEEK FUN

Book Week is being held this year from 18th – 24th August. The theme is “FIND YOUR TREASURE!”

Book Fair

We will be holding our annual Book Fair on Tuesday 21 August. The books are supplied by Central Book Supplies and offer the children an opportunity to buy books at a very reasonable price. The children will be able to view the books on Monday and complete a “Wish list”. The list is only a guide to the books that are available and their cost. Parents and friends are welcome to attend the Fair and assist their children with their purchases but, in fairness to all students, no books will be sold prior to the commencement of the Fair. The children will visit the Fair with their class starting with K then Year 1, and so on. As this is our major fundraising event for the Library, we appreciate your support (donations are gratefully accepted! e.g.: by donating a book or money to our wishing well to purchase books for the library).

Book Week Parade

Our popular Character Parade will also be held on Tuesday in our school hall at midday. Please join us!

The first thing that may come to mind for you when you think of the theme, Find Your Treasure is pirates!

You might be a classic swashbuckling pirate, a modern pirate like Jack Sparrow, a steampunk style pirate, or even an evil pirate! You could also dress up as a pirate's parrot, an octopus, a mermaid, or any other creature a pirate might encounter! Don't forget your pirate accessories, such as eye patches, swords, earrings, gold teeth, and more. Some hints: Peter Pan, Treasure Island, Pirates of the Caribbean or famous pirates in history!

Please, do not spend lots of money on your child’s costume. Hopefully you have something at home that can be turned into something that represents the topic.

A REMINDER that the school day will continue after the Character Parade and children are required to remain at school until 2:55pm.

COMPASS

Absences

Parents are encouraged as much as possible to use compass to record absences. It is as simple as using the Skoolbag app and it is recorded directly into the class roll. BUT in saying that please only record absences as if you use compass to pre record late arrivals or early departures and then also use the kiosk when you actually sign the child/children out at school it causes all sorts of issues in the attendance section of your childs/childrens records. We ask that you only use the absence section of compass and leave the late arrivals and early departures to the kiosk only. If you are having any trouble with compass please feel free to speak with Mrs Parfrey, sometimes all it takes is a password reset.

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 a 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 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.

Hunter Life

Our visit to the Life Education Centre last week was enjoyed by all students. Each class gave very positive feedback about the day. It is a fun and very interesting way for our students to learn some valuable lessons to assist them as they make their way through life.

NAPLAN TRIALS

Next week our Year 3 and Year 5 classes will be participating in an online Item Trial. This is a test for different types of questions to be used during NAPLAN testing and is not a test to assess students’ knowledge.

Year 5 will participate on Tuesday 14th August and Year 3 on Wednesday 15th August.

In Week 6 both classes will again take part in a NAPLAN Online test to assist schools in checking readiness for NAPLAN Online in 2019.

Both classes will be completing trials on Wednesday 29th August and Thursday 30th August.

For both NAPLAN events the children will be in the Library using laptops or tablets.

ASPIRE

Year 5 & Year 6 really enjoyed their attendance at the ASPIRE production of Dark Matter.

It was an amazing production showcasing the many of the talented students of our Diocese. The story, the music, acting, singing and dancing were spectacular!

Keilie H. from Year 6 was a natural on the stage and we were excited and proud to see her perform. Well done, Keilie!

ASPIRE 2019

Auditions for ASPIRE 2019 will take place during Term 4. Anyone who will be in Year 5, 6, or 7 next year is welcome to try out for the production. There are posters outside the canteen displaying some information.

If your child is interested in auditioning, contact Mrs Carroll for further information.

KINDER Enrolments 2019

The enrolment period for 2019 is now open. 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 our school website at:

or on the CSO website at

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

P&F News

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:

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 co-ordinator.

LEXIA AT HOME

It is great to hear that so many children have been able to download the Lexia Core 5 program at home. Some are even using it with their IPads!

Here are the details again if you would like to do Lexia at home.

If you would like to use the program at home you will need to download this new version. You can download from

or, you can use it via your web browser

You do not need any codes but will need the admin user email address. lady@victories.com.au from there children log on with their usual Lexia username and password. I Pad and I Pad mini users can download the Core 5 app from the App store- search for “Lexia Reading Core 5”.

If you have any problems, please contact me at the school on a Tuesday or Friday. – (Jenny McCallum - Learning Support Teacher)

Mini Vinnies

At Our Lady of Victories, everyone is always keen to help out. Due to the donations from the sale of lemons, we were able to purchase plants for our class gardens. The students in the following picture were quick to fill the job of gardeners.

As you may be aware, our farmers are struggling with the drought. We are extremely lucky here in the city. Some of our community have kindly donated items and money to assist the farmers. Thank you to all who have assisted. Please say a prayer for our farmers.

Take care and God Bless you

Karen

REC News

Father’s Day Liturgy

On Friday August 31st, the school will celebrate Father’s Day by holding a Father’s day breakfast followed by a Father’s day liturgy in the School Hall at 9am. All fathers, grandfathers and significant males in our OLV community are welcome to attend with their families. During this event, there will be a slideshow featuring these special men in our lives. Please email photos you wish to be included to clare.paff@mn.catholic.edu.au by Friday 24th August 2018.

Clare Paff (Acting REC)

School Photos

Photo day is Monday 27th August. Please return the envelopes on the day with or without an order. If you are purchasing photos the envelopes need to be returned with the correct payment as change IS NOT available. Family photo envelopes are available from the office. Please ensure children are in full winter uniform with the correct shoes and their hair neat and tidy. These photos provide great memories in years to come.

As the photos had to be postponed, spare envelopes are available from the office. Please ensure you check to see if you need one prior to photo day.

Class News

Kinder

Our Religion unit this term is “Loving God and Others”. We talked about what love is and how it feels to be loved by someone. We discussed the question ‘How do we know that God loves us?’ and learnt that God loves us no matter what. We viewed the story, “The Boy and the Ocean” on God tube which conveyed the message that we are surrounded by God’s love revealed in his creation. We viewed a video clip, “What does love look like?” We discussed when we feel loved eg “I feel loved when my mum hugs me.” We recorded our sentence and illustrated it. In English this term we are exploring ‘Fairy tales”. We read ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and formed an opinion about whether Goldilocks was a good or bad character. We compared different versions of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears ‘and completed a set of yes/no comprehension questions about the story eg. ‘The three bears had eggs for breakfast” (No). Our Science Unit is “What’s it made of?” We followed a pictorial map of our school to locate different objects around our school eg goal posts. We identified the materials that were used to make them and why that particular material was chosen. The materials we are investigating are wood, plastic, metal, rubber, glass and paper. Our Geography unit is “People Live in Places”. We used Google Earth to find our school and familiar local places. We viewed some of the Kinder homes and discussed their house number and their street name. Please give your child opportunities to learn their address and if possible, view their house on Google Earth. We named our favourite place at school and identified what makes it special. We had great fun in Gymnastics. It is the highlight of the week!

Year 1

Year 1 have had a very busy start to Term 3! We have been developing our narrative skills in English with work on fractured fairy tales. We are comparing different versions of the Cinderella story, looking closely at characters, setting and endings. Year 1 have enjoyed a few new activities in our guided reading groups, rainbow sight word booklets and roll a sight word game give us the opportunity to practise our sight words each week.

In Maths we have covered whole number, patterns and now addition and subtraction strategies. We have been working on how to solve problems by drawing a picture to help us using the information. With the beautiful weather last week, we took the opportunity to take our Maths outside and enjoyed using bigger space to estimate and look for patterns.

In Religion our topic is “Ways of Praying”. We have looked at the different ways Jesus prayed through stories in the Bible. Our class made a list of prayers we know and were quite surprised to find we made a solid list!

We had a great time visiting Healthy Harold! This visit supports our topic this Term as we learn about our bodies. Year 1 have discussed how we use the senses we have and have found some interesting information about the bones in our body.

In Science our topic is called “Up, down and all around”. We are learning about Earth Science and enjoyed our lesson outside playing eye spy! Everyone was looking for things that were natural and things that were man made around our school.

We are proud to show off our finished Picasso art from last Term! I am really impressed by everyone’s effort to produce such beautiful bright pieces of art! Please feel free to pop in and have a look at your child's work!

Back in Week 1, NAIDOC week, Year 1 made some Aboriginal flags using paint and crepe paper after learning about what each of the colours represent.

This Friday at 9:00am, we are very excited to present our class Mass in the OLV church. Everyone has been given a reading to practise at home this week. We hope you can come along to celebrate Australia’s first saint with us, Saint Mary of the Cross Mackillop.

Year 2/3

Year 2/3 has made a great start to the term . We have been busy studying a range of texts in English linked to our Geography curriculum, such as A-is for Australia- a factastic tour by Frane Lessac and Are we there yet? by Alison Lester. The students have written postcard entries from various places around Australia we have learnt about and we are beginning to note the similarities and differences about different places around Australia, which is our theme in Geography. In Maths we are working through the number strand and developing some new skills problem solving using Newman’s Prompts. This is a whole school initiative to improve our abilities in this area and it has been very enjoyable so far. In science we are learning about built environments and what essential services we need in our communities . In religion we have started learning about the Hebrew Scriptures also known as the Old Testament. We visited Life Education last week which connected with our current work in Health . We will soon commence our dance and drama unit for this term. Great work so far year 2/3.

Year 4

In Year 4 in Religion, we have been discussing 'justice' and what it means to be a 'just' community. We read some passages from scripture, specifically from the Gospels, that outlined Jesus' teachings about being 'just' and 'fair'. In St Matthew's gospel Jesus says: "And the King will say, 'I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!'" Jesus is telling us that when we are fair and 'do' for others we are also doing it for God, the King.

In English we have continued to read 'Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' by C.S.Lewis. We are learning much new vocabulary and many new expressions. The story is also helping us get in touch with our creativity and imaginations. We are also becoming 'critcal thinkers' by learning to form our own opinions about characters and events in the story. In Maths we are solving problems every day by using the 'Draw a Picture' strategy. We have solved problems about biscuits and lollies, pigs and ducks, names and numbers. We have also completed work on addition and subtraction of decimals and worked out number patterns. In Geography we have been looking at the size and population of Australia and China, as well as their climate zones, and comparing the two countries. Today we compared rainfall of the two countires and made a graph to highlight the similarities and differences. We are really enjoying the Drama and Dance lessons with Mrs Francis on Fridays. It is a fun way to end our busy week at school.

Year 5

What a busy few weeks! Is it only Week 3??

In Religion we have been looking at prayer. We have looked at the fact that prayer is not just talking to God, but it’s how we express our relationship with Him. It involves communicating with Him and being aware of His presence in our everyday lives. We have discussed the many types of prayers and we wrote some beautiful litanies. We have also looked at how and when the Hebrews prayed and are now looking at what Jesus taught us about prayer.

In English we finished our novel from last term and were amazed at how involved Rosa was in the Eureka Stockade, but we sort of guessed that she would be somehow. She was always up to something! We have also started our new novel, “Hitler’s Daughter’, by Jackie French. There are lots of characters in this story and after only 3 chapters we know so much about them. We are making character profiles and they are quite lengthy.

In Maths we have looked at addition and subtraction, patterns and algebra and are now working on the concepts for mass. Today we played a game which made it easier for us to recognise, read and convert grams to kilograms. It was lots of fun. We have also been working really hard on developing the strategy of DRAW A PICTURE when challenged by a word problem. We have had some interesting problems and Ms McGann is so proud of our ‘wrinkly foreheads’ (ask us about this) and our willingness to persevere! We will move on to a different strategy next week.

In Geography we have looked at Sydney in the late 1800s and then compared the same places with those of modern day. Wow, hasn’t a lot been done to the environment!! We discussed why these changes occurred, whether they were good or bad and what impact they had on the people of the day. Today we used Google maps to locate our houses and we learnt to do a screen shot, something that will be very handy in the coming weeks when we investigate the types of houses in different areas of the world.

In Science we will be looking at light but we haven’t started it yet. That begins on Thursday so stay tuned for updates about our amazing activities. We won’t keep you in the dark! (See what we did there!?)

In Drama we have introduced ourselves on camera, learning about the importance of learning our ‘script’. Later in the term we will be producing a ‘movie’ so learning our lines will be important.

In Dance we are working with Year 6 and are learning some old time dances, such as the Waves of Bondi, Strip the Willow, Pride of Erin and the Waltz. We will then be creating the choreography for our own group or partner dance which we will teach to the rest of the group.

In PDH, we are looking at ourselves, our strengths, areas to work on, our likes and dislikes. We will use this information to understand ourselves and others better, knowing that we are all unique individuals.

In PE, which started again on Tuesday, we have been learning to, or refining our throwing skills. This was lots of fun. We can’t wait for the next session.

As well as all of that, we visited the Life Education centre and learnt about the dangers of smoking. Maree and Jordan got a hug from Harold (Ms McGann was jealous!) AND we went to the Civic Theatre and saw the AMAZING ‘Dark Matter” performance of which OLV’s very talented Keilie was a part.

Year 6

We have had a very busy start to Term 3. In Religion, we have begun a unit on Liturgy and we have spoken about the ways in which we celebrate. We shared some of the rituals our families have for special gatherings. We went on to discuss some of the many rituals celebrated in the Church. We each devised a ten word summary to express our own understanding of liturgy. In English we have been working on our debating skills and they are developing well. There are quite a few eager candidates for the School Debating Team! In Maths we have been challenged by some interesting problem-solving opportunities each day. We are learning to use a variety of strategies to assist our ways of finding a solution. Last Tuesday, we visited the Life Education Centre where we learnt a lot about self-esteem, relationships and self-respect. On Wednesday last week we had a wonderful time attending the ASPIRE production, Dark Matters. We really enjoyed the acting, music, dancing and singing talents of students of our Diocese. It was particularly exciting because our classmate, Keilie, was a member of the vocal ensemble. We could see how much she clearly enjoyed the chance to share her singing talents. We are really enthused by our Science unit – Electrical Energy. We have begun investigating a variety of energy types and carrying out a school survey about use of energy. In Geography, we are embarking on a study of Asia in our Geography unit - "A Diverse and Connected World". We have been studying maps of the continent of Asia and were surprised by how many countries are part of Asia. We all had a big workout at gymnastics today. It was a lot of fun!

SPORTS NEWS

Diocesan Athletics Carnival

We congratulate 6 of our students on their excellent achievements at the Regional Athletics Carnival, which qualified them for the Diocesan Carnival on Wednesday 8th August, this week. Well done to: Isla W., Julian A., Maria K., Bailey W., Jesse F. and Peace H.!

They all represented the school with pride and great sportsmanship. A big congratulations to Jessie on her advancement to the Polding Carnival!

Term 3 Gymnastics

For sport in Term 3 the children will continue their Gymnastics program each week. However, so that we have access to the excellent program that we have used in the past, we need to change our sports day to Thursdays for Term 3 this year. The cost of the program is included in the Sports Levy.

Class Awards

Class awards for Week 8