18 October 2018

Newsletter Articles

Dates to Remember

Principal’s Message

Good to be Back!

What a wonderful two weeks we have had! It was so thrilling to be back to a place that is so friendly. OLV is always an encouraging place to be.

Sadly, though, Nicole Parfrey will not be returning to work at OLV. She is moving on with new endeavours. It must be said, though, how big a hole this leaves in our community and it will be very difficult to replace her with someone of her ilk. She left these words for all in our community as a farewell …

Unfortunately, I will not be returning to OLV for term 4, 2018. I will be relinquishing my position as Office Administrator at OLV. I am going to be dedicating my time to getting my son David established in his NDIS program and returning to university study.

I have loved my last 10 years at OLV and will always treasure the staff, students and families I have met along the way. I would like to take this opportunity to say what a wonderful job OLV does at supporting the community and parish with the dedicated teachers and staff …

I will dearly miss the friends I have made and the students I dealt with on a daily basis and I pray god leads you in a prosperous path.

God bless
Nicole

Ms Leanne Fry is filling in on a temporary basis for the next couple of weeks until a permanent replacement is appointed.

Playground

We will be blessing our new play spaces on Friday this week. The children have been having a great time using the new areas and are enjoying exploring their boundaries physically and socially. The Liturgy will commence at 9:30am and morning tea will be served afterwards.

Grandparents Day

We will be celebrating the wonderful gift of GRANDPARENTS on Friday 26 October. A liturgy will highlight the ways grandparents support the families in our community. Please come along at 10am for the liturgy and blessing followed by a picnic lunch on the oval with the children afterwards. A flyer will come out soon to invite you all.

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.

REC News

Plenary 2020

What do you think God is asking of us in Australia at this time?

This is the question we are being asked by the Bishops of Australia. Together, we are on a journey of listening to God by listening to one another. All Australians are invited to engage in an open and inclusive process of listening, dialogue and discernment about the future of the Catholic Church in Australia. Your voice is needed – join in! Speak boldly and with passion, listen with an open and humble heart. With faith and guided by God’s Holy Spirit, we journey together, toward the future. As a way of clearing our minds and preparing ourselves to listen and share, we are asked to prayer the following prayer:

Plenary Prayer

Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost. Come,
Holy Spirit of the great South Land. O God,
Bless and unite all your people in Australia
And guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another and to recognise Jesus,
our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories
and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age. Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us. St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.

Deadlines

We live in a time where we are always trying to meet deadlines. They are a part of our lives and give organisers the opportunity to do their job on time as well. I feel that sometimes when deadlines are given for a response from parents, sometimes we can be a little lax. Please be aware that if payments, permissions, photographs, volunteering etc. are given a date to be returned, then that is when it is needed to process and prepare adequately for the event. Please do not be offended if you miss out in future if deadlines are not met.

Absences

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 a child is going to be absent for the day or is intending to arrive late (e.g. 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.

Skoolbag is Stopping

We have come to the end of our Skoolbag subscription and with the new resource available 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 etc., to 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 Leanne in the office.

Skoolbag will no longer be used for notifications and such.

New Plantings

Mrs Johnson and the children have been busy planting new crops and flowers throughout our COLA gardens. Some of the plants are meant to deter mosquitos – let us cross our fingers. SO that they have the best chance to get established we have taped off an area beside the COLA and ask that parents ensure their pre-schoolers stay away from this area in the mornings and at afternoon pickup.

Special thanks to Gemma M and her mum who came to pull out some weeds last Friday.

P&F News

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

Please be aware that the Victory Café will be closed on Wednesdays for the next 5 weeks.

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 Mrs Fry, in the Office or Nicole W, the Canteen coordinator.

BUNNING BBQ FUNFRAISER

We are conducting another famous OLV Bunnings BBQ Fundraiser again on Sunday 28 October. We will need lots of volunteers for the day with either setting up, attending to customers or cleaning up at the end. A note went home this week asking everyone to volunteer a couple of hours at the Wallsend Bunnings store to help raise some funds for the school. Every dollar raised goes to providing resources and equipment to enhance the teaching curriculum for all children in the school.

FROM THE FEDERATION

Generation Next is a social enterprise that provides information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people. Take a look at the following link for further information:

Safe Partying

Prior to the holidays, a representative from NSW Police and Headspace spoke to parents from our schools about Safe-Partying and the impact of alcohol particularly on the developing brain.

I thought this link might be useful to families at this time of the year when celebrations often take place. Please look through this most important website and take note of the information provided.

Happy reading!

NEXT MEETING

Our Association’s next meeting is scheduled for Monday 22 October at 7pm in the school library. Come along and join in the discussions and decision making of the association.

Pastoral Care News

During the holidays, I put in some plants to deter the mosquitoes. I hope that these work. I would like to thank Gemma and Vanessa for spending a few hours weeding. They did a great job.

Next Sunday 21st October, the Juvenile Diabetes walk is on again. Please sign up and walk with Archie to support this cause. Entry is free, and there are fun activities for the children. See Karen for more information.

Thought for the week: Try to focus on the positive in your life, take time for yourself, and look around at the beauty our world has to offer.

Take Care and God Bless
Karen Johnson (PCW)

Gemma helping out - Thanks

Class News

Kinder

The countdown has begun and we are getting ready for Year One! We are learning to read and write words containing the /e/ sound e.g. pet and met. There are five vowels and we will cover the last two - /e/ and /u/ this term. We will then be ready to spell bigger words when we go to Year One. Our reading is progressing very well and we will now focus on improving our writing skills. We want to be able to write more than one sentence. In Maths we are learning to make the numbers 11-30 using tens and ones e.g. 16 is one ten and 6 more, 26 is two tens and 6 more. We are learning the numbers one more than and one less than a given number and learning to put the numerals in their correct order. We have started a new unit in Religion, “The Bible, a Special Book”. We are learning about stories and how families have special memories; they pass on by telling their stories to their children. We viewed an Aboriginal story (You and Me Murrawee) and found out that storytelling was a very important part of Aboriginal culture. Please share memories with your children so they have a story to share with the class e.g.. something memorable they did when they were a baby. You are welcome to send in a baby photo with a baby story to share with the class. In Science, we will be learning about how things move and how size and shape affect movement. We found out that our movements can be voluntary (walking, dancing) or involuntary (sneezing, hiccups). We are very excited about our swimming lessons. Parents are welcome to assist, as we will be changing at the pool to come back to school. Kinder 2018 are looking forward to welcoming our new Kinders for 2019 this term and we will be performing two items for them. Lots to do this term but I am sure we will make it.

Year 1

Welcome back to school for Term 4. The children have settled down to work really well after their break and were excited to see each other again! It is shaping up to be a very busy term to finish the year! In English, we wrote interesting and detailed recounts of our holiday adventures and have been back into our reading groups. Year 1 are practising their sight words and working on their phonics sound of the week ‘ar’. Everyone is enjoying the new group table layout in our classroom that has allowed them to work as a team. Particularly in Maths, when they have been measuring the volume of various containers using cubes. In Religion, we have been reading about some stories from the Old Testament. We have learnt about significant people and what God was asking of them. We are all very excited about our swimming lessons and singing with Jackie to begin this week!

Year 2/3

Welcome back to term 4. This is an important time for both years to step up, become more independent and to show that they are prepared for the next stage of their schooling. This means really refining their organisational skills, following through on instructions and being ready to commit to their studies in a more in-depth and mature manner. We are off to a good start with our maths unit, whole number. We completed a pre-test on Monday and since then have been developing our skills rounding to the nearest 10 and 100 and 1000 for year 3. In English, we are considering the text To the Top End by Roland Harvey. This text connects to our Geography unit and reinforces our understanding of key places within Australia. In Science, we commenced our unit on Day and Night. We drew a labelled diagram demonstrating our understanding of how the process of day and night occurs. In religion, we are completing our unit on prayer. We learnt about and experienced the benefits of Christian meditation using the mantra- maranatha- come Lord Jesus to centre ourselves. We will be continuing meditation regularly through this term as an important and beneficial means of improving our spiritual, physiological and cognitive wellbeing. We are looking forward to developing our swimming skills this term and singing with Jacki.

Year 4

We have started our final term in Year 4 very happily – ready to work hard and gain some great results. In English, we are reading the book “Fern Gully” by Diana Young. The environmental theme of this story links with our Library lessons and our Geography unit - ‘The Earth’s Environments’. In Geography, we will be completing a case study on the Great Barrier Reef - learning about the life it sustains, dangers to its existence, how it is used by various groups and the cultural significance it has to our indigenous people. In Maths this week and next we are completing some tasks on chance and probability and whole number. We continue to enjoy using various problem solving strategies to solve a problem at the start of each Maths lesson. We enjoyed our first swimming lesson yesterday and we are looking forward to improving our skills each week.

Year 5

Welcome back to an enormously busy term.

In RE, we will be looking covering two units, one on Values and one on Advent and Christmas. In English, we are going to continue with Rose Blanch and Hitler’s Daughter, comparing and contrasting as we go. In Science, we will look at the way products are designed and packaged, for efficiency and cost. In Geography we will be looking at factors that shape places, with a focus on Macquarie Island and then on bushfires. In Maths, we will continue to work on our problem solving and complete several topics in readiness for Year 6.

Our big focus early this term will be on our Buddy Day, where we will learn what being a “buddy” entails and how to be a good big buddy to our new Kindies.

Later in the term, we will attend a leadership day, in readiness for our positions as leaders of the school in 2019, badged or not. Add to this, swimming lessons, a carnival, singing lessons and a Christmas concert...phew, we are exhausted just thinking about it all!

Year 6

It is great to be back to enjoy our last term of Primary School! In Religion, we have begun a unit on Justice. We are looking at creation and marvelling at the beauty and wonder of our world. We are also realising the responsibility we have in caring for our environment to enable future generations to experience its gifts. In English this term, we are studying picture books and a novel that tell us about aspects of New Guinea. We are studying our nearest neighbour in Geography this term and we are looking forward to learning much about the country. In Maths, we are solving challenges involving negative integers in a variety of situations. We are also revising our problem solving techniques and determining which work better for given problems. We all enjoyed our first day of Swimming and look forward to developing and practising our skills over the next six weeks. We had four girls from our class involved in the Netball Gala on Tuesday and by all accounts, they represented us very well. Great work, Olivia, Kirra, Josie and Ruby!

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. The cost of the program is $10 per week and will be billed to your account or you can pay weekly if you prefer.

Our annual swimming Carnival will be held on Thursday 29 November.

NETBALL GALA

Congratulations to Our Lady of Victories Netball Team for representing our school so well at the Diocesan Netball Gala Day on Tuesday. The girls played exceptionally well displaying their various netball skills. It was a pleasure to coach them and watch them play so enthusiastically and fairly. All had a great day. Congratulations to Olivia, Ruby, Josie, Kirra, Chloe, Ebony, Annalise, Dakota and Isla.

Our Team

Class Awards

Class awards for Week 10 last term.