1 March 2018

Newsletter Articles

Dates to Remember

Principal’s Message

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK

It’s that time of year again – Catholic Schools Week (CSW) 2018 is just around the corner! The theme for 2018 is ‘Catholic schools: Faith in our Future’. From Sunday March 4 – Saturday March 10. Catholic schools across our region will open their doors to families, friends and community members to celebrate Catholic Schools Week 2018.

This year’s theme, ‘Catholic schools: Faith in our Future’ focuses on strengthening relationships between students and their Catholic faith by ensuring that all students - with support from their parents, staff and members of the wider diocesan community - will have every opportunity of realising their full potential.

Our Lady of Victories will be celebrating in a number of ways to which all members of our community and their friends and relatives are invited. The main highlights are:

This theme focuses on strengthening relationships between students and their Catholic faith by ensuring that all students – with support from their parents, staff and members of the wider diocesan community – will have every opportunity of realising their full potential.

This will be achieved by access to an education that:

• is delivered by high-quality teaching – so that students have every opportunity to achieve excellence in learning
• is in a faith-based environment and which is based on the witness and message of Jesus Christ – so that students can, for example, learn to help those in the community who are less fortunate than themselves
• gives each student an inquiring mind and the knowledge, values and skills – so that each student will be rigorous and creative in pursuing and contributing to truth and social justice in the future

ENROLMENTS OPEN FOR 2019

Catholic Schools Week (CSW) also marks the start of the 2018 enrolment period at Our Lady of Victories and for all 57 schools across the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, plus the region’s newest Catholic high school, St Bede’s Catholic College, Chisholm. Two of the region’s high schools, St Mary’s Catholic College, Gateshead and St Joseph’s College, Lochinvar will be opening enrolments for their new Year 11 cohorts which will see them become providers of education spanning from Years 7 – 12.

Spiritual News

PROJECT COMPASSION

Earlier this week, each family received a Project Compassion box for their home with an information brochure. As a Catholic community, we have a duty to support the Project Compassion Appeal during Lent as a way of helping those in our world who are less fortunate than us in what they have and where they live. Our donations go directly to helping individuals and communities improve their lives and even might save a life.

In our School Liturgy this week, Year 1 told us the story of Rattanak from Cambodia. Next week Year 6 will tell us about how Project Compassion helps Bayan from Jordan. For more information about these people and Project Compassion, visit the website below.

OUR LADY OF VICTORIES FEAST DAY

We have been asked to rethink the celebration of our patron saints fest day. We will not be celebrating it on the 23 of March, as in recent years, but on a date in October which will be clarified later.

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.

Meeting Dates for Term 1

1. Monday 5 March– with AGM
   Our meeting will be held next week on Monday 5 March. If you are interested in nominating for a position on the executive or know someone who would make a good exec, please put forward you name. If you are nominating someone else, make sure you ask him or her first. We have provided a little explanation of all the positions for you to consider.

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

Class News

Kinder

In Religion we are reading stories in the Bible about Jesus as a friend. We have read “Jesus and the Children”, “Jesus Heals a Leper” and “Jesus and Zacchaeus”. These stories introduce the children to the idea that Jesus’ way of being a friend means caring for our special friends and also reaching out to those who need a friend. In English we have learnt the letter names and sounds for the letters a to g. A lot of revision is needed to reinforce automatic recognition. We are using our sight words on flashcards to make sentences. Teacher made class books reinforcing the sight words will be sent home each night with a Kinder child to read to their family. Please return these books the following day so they can be passed on to someone else. We read a ‘big book’, The Jigaree and identified rhyming words (words that sound the same). The shared reading texts we focused on in weeks 4-5 were ‘Rosie’s Walk’ (an imaginative text – unrealistic), and an information book called “My Hen is Dancing” (realistic)- it gives us lots of information about chickens. Ask your child what a wattle is (it’s not a tree), or a vent. We finger painted Rosie the hen and added feathers for our classroom display. In Maths we learnt about addition and subtraction. We threw two large dice and challenged each other to see who could call out the answer first. We also added the dots on dominos to find the total and played a game called ‘Rabbit Ears.’ Our fingers are fantastic for helping us solve number problems – please encourage this. In Science we labelled photographs of our chicken run and coop and identified the parts of a hen. We talked about how to care for our hens and compared the needs of a hen to our needs. Information for those parents who were unable to attend the Parent / Teacher meeting last Thursday has been sent home with your child.

Year 1

In Religion this week we've completed an assessment task to show how much we understand about the names and symbols associated with Jesus. In English, we read the story 'Guji Guji' by Chih-Yuan Chen. We enjoyed the book, and it was interesting to note the similarities and differences between it and 'The Ugly Duckling' (which we've also looked at recently). The children were asked to share which story they preferred, and to give a supporting reason for their choice. In English (linked with History) we have also been learning about the history of our school. Mrs Spencer was our guest visitor on Monday afternoon. She brought in her old OLV uniform from when she was a little girl here at school! She also brought in her workbooks, her school reports, her 'port' and shared many stories with us about what our school used to look like. On Tuesday we brainstormed all the information that Mrs Spencer shared with us, and we wrote down some of her memories from her time as a student at OLV. In Maths last week we were learning about subtraction strategies using number lines and manipulatives. This week we are learning about Mass. Yr 1 have been hefting objects to find which objects are lighter, heavier or balanced. In Health we have been learning about the importance of wearing a seatbelt correctly and why car restraints are needed. Yr 1 have discussed the 'safety door' in our cars and why we should enter and exit a car on the footpath side. We've created butterflies with watercolour paints in Creative Arts to link in with our 'insect' study in Science and they are looking beautiful!

Year 2/3

In the last fortnight, students in year 3 have extended their skills in multiplication and division including the use of arrays and problem solving. Year two have also learnt about arrays as well as revisiting addition and subtraction strategies such as the split strategy. In English we continued to study a range of narratives including Once Tashi met a dragon by Anna and Barbara Fienberg . We noted the use of descriptive language and analysed the character Tashi. We have also been developing our skills at writing an interesting start to our own narratives focusing on developing details about the setting and characters. In science we completed a home explorer’s activity drawing and labelling living and non-living things and then considering the features of these. In history we have noted some facts about the traditional life of the Awabakal people. In music we continue to develop our skills keeping to the beat. Our religion lessons have focused on the Jewish groups in Jesus’ time and also what life may have been like for Jesus when he was young.

Year 4

This week in Religion, we discussed ways Jesus showed love and compassion to all people during His ministry. We also reflected on the question: What illness would you like Jesus to heal today and why? In English, after reading a few more chapters of ‘The Tale of Despereaux’, we wrote about the main idea, the key event, we predicted what might happen next and wrote a fact and an opinion from that section of the story. We also discussed ideas around what is in people’s hearts and what might be the dark and the light in people’s hearts. In Maths last week we explored length and this week we have been focusing on multiplication. We looked at the multiplication tables to find number relationships such as halves, doubles and triples. We also played some trading games with dice and MAB material and were introduced to the term ‘factors’. During PDH we have been talking about drugs and medicines – what they are, what they look like, why people take medicines, who gives them to us and safe storage of medicines.

Year 5

In Religion we learned about the animosity between the Jews and Samaritans and the role women had in society during Jesus’ time. Then we considered different groups in society today who struggle to be accepted. We participated in a ‘hot seat’ activity and have started writing a newspaper report on the event. In Maths with Mr Hammond we’ve been measuring lengths longer than a metre and with Ms McGann we have been focussing on adding multiple numbers of various sizes, concentrating on showing our working out and trading when necessary. In History we completed a timeline about the establishment of colonial settlements in different parts of Australia. We have completed our first History assessment and Mr Hammond is very impressed with our performance on the task. In Science we conducted an experiment to test whether the surface area of a desert animal’s ears contributed to their ability to cool down. We used a dinner plate, a bowl and a cup to simulate the ear sizes and we discovered that animals with ears with a large surface area will cool down much faster than animals with ears with a smaller surface area. In Art we are creating collages of ourselves to go along with the self-portraits already finished. In English we are becoming very good at predicting the story line in the next chapter of our novel, based on the image at the beginning of each. We are learning lots about our characters, although Elsie is a mystery, and also lots about what Sydney Cove was like at that point in time.

Year 6

In Religion, we have written newspaper articles describing times when Jesus challenged authorities as he carried out his mission. We are also looking at how Jesus’ death and resurrection is the fulfilment of his mission on earth. We observed a number of depictions of the Cross of Jesus. After discussing their varying aspects, we each created our own depiction of the Cross. They look great on our wall! In English, we read the story, The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan, and we also watched a film of the story. We discussed the two versions and then wrote a comparison of the book and the film. We are working hard in Music to master various chords on the ukulele and we are learning a few different songs. It is tricky, but fun! In History, we are learning about the Federation of Australia and the people and events that led to Australia’s democracy. We are all enjoying the PE and Sport activities we participate in each week.

Great Garden Grubs

Mrs Johnson and her band of eager children have done it again and produced a huge watermelon, which was 5kg bigger than the last – another Diocesan record (unofficial at this stage). This melon is a great testament to the enthusiasm of our little gardeners and Mrs Johnson’s guidance.

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 IPad!

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 the link below 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 their 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)

SPORTS NEWS

Regional Swimming

Our swimmers had a great day last week competing against the other schools in our region at the Mayfield pool. All our swimmers performed to the best of their abilities and competed strongly in their events. There were some outstanding efforts by some that gained them selection to represent the school and region at the Diocesan Carnival next week. Congratulations to Dakota C, Bailey W, Ari B, and Gus C (who sadly won’t be able to represent due to his age – next year for sure). For the first time in many, many years, one of our relay teams made it through to represent the Region. Well done to the boys in the Junior Relay team – Gus C, Ari B, Bailey W and Deacon W – a great effort.

Playground Upgrade

As you might or might not be aware, we are in a consultation stage of upgrading parts of the playground for the children to experience some challenges, mystery and fantasy. We have been in discussions with Kim Maroney from the CSO and Sean Gale (a recommended contractor) about how we can go about doing this.

We have been able to set a meeting date with Sean to throw some ideas around and get a notion of the costings that may be attached. On Monday 5 March at 6:00pm (just before our P&F Meeting), Sean is able to sit down with staff and parents and come up with some concrete suggestions to get the ball rolling.

If you are interested in being part of this process, please come along and join in the discussion.

Coles Sport for School

For every $10 spent at Coles, customers will receive one SFS voucher. Send these vouchers in to school and put them in the collection box in the foyer. There is also a collection box at Coles, Wallsend for our school. Final days for vouchers will be in May. Get your friends and relatives collecting and send them into school.

Class Awards

Class awards for Week 2