NAIDOC Week 2023
The national celebration of NAIDOC Week takes place during the school holidays from Sunday 2 July through to Sunday 9 July, 2023. The acronym NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee. NAIDOC week celebrates Aboriginal people’s history, culture and achievements and is a great opportunity to learn about their rich culture. It is a time of celebration and connection between all peoples. 

For Our Elders - is the National NAIDOC Theme for 2023. The NAIDOC Week theme was chosen to reflect the important role that elders play in the lives of Indigenous Australians. By honouring the past, and paying tribute to our Elders, we lay the foundations for the future generations to come. (Please see the flyer under Community News to find more information about NAIDOC Week events happening in the Eurobodalla).

At St Mary’s we are passionate about developing all staff and students’ understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures, languages and knowledge systems. We are incredibly proud of our connection to the first custodians of the land on which we live and work, the Yuin people. We are committed to developing and maintaining genuine, collaborative and respectful relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents, families, local community members, service providers and agencies. 

Our school NAIDOC Week celebrations will be held at the start of Term 3, beginning with the NAIDOC Regional Mass.

NAIDOC Regional Mass and Awards 2023
On Friday 21 July (Week 1) St Mary’s will be hosting the South Coast Schools Regional NAIDOC Mass which will be celebrated in our Sacred Heart Church. We will be joined by other students from schools across our Southern Region including St Bernard's, Batehaven, Carroll College, Broulee, St Patrick’s, Bega and Lumen Christi, Pambula. 

All our Aboriginal students at St Mary’s from Kindergarten to Year 6 and our school leaders will be attending this special Mass. We warmly welcome the parents, carers and families of these children to join us for Mass.

The theme of our Mass is ‘For Our Elders’ and the celebration will begin at 11:20am with a Smoking Ceremony and Welcome to Country offered by Trish Ellis. Mass will begin at 11:30am. Following Mass there will be a presentation of NAIDOC Awards for nominated adults and students from our regional schools.

Yuin Banaan - Cultural Day
On Friday 4 August our K-12 Pathway schools will be hosting the Yuin Banaan Cultural Day at Captain Oldrey Park, Broulee. Aboriginal students from Kindergarten to Year 12 from St Bernard's, St Mary's and Carroll College and their friends will be invited to attend, as well as all family members. Students will travel by bus to attend the full day of cultural activities.

We have been very fortunate to receive a NAIDOC grant from the National Indigenous Australians Agency to support this event. Activities planned for the day include a bush tucker and medicine walk; traditional dancing with the Muladha Gamara group; damper cooking; Yarning circles; a seafood cook up; ochre face painting; Aboriginal Trivia, art making and soccer. Some of these activities will be organised and led by Carroll College students and we thank them for their initiative and leadership.

Community organisations and service groups have been invited to set up stalls on the day and many have also offered to co-ordinate an activity for the students. 

We particularly extend a very warm invitation to Elders of family members from our school communities to attend the Yuin Banaan so that we can honour you in a special Elder's tent.

Please mark this date in your calendars! More details will be provided in the coming weeks.

Wishing you all a safe and relaxing holiday break.

God bless and take care,

Sue Heffernan
Assistant Principal

Dear Families,

Sacrament of Confirmation
Last Sunday we celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation at Sacred Heart Church. Vicar General Fr. Richard Thompson, together with Fr. Anthony Riosa presided over this special mass. I once again thank the Year 6 teachers Mr. Matthew Harpley and Mr. James Campbell for preparing the students. We are so grateful to our parish community for preparing and decorating the church, and of course for the beautiful music.  To our newly confirmed children … may the memory of this special day always stay with you and be your guideline, along with the faith you have in your heart:

Ava B, Asher B, Meeka C, Betty DB, Darcy F, Oscar G, Evie G, India-Arie H, Cooper H, Xavier H, Alex H, Harper L, Lilly M, Jake P, Grace R, Axel S, Fiona S, Indiana T, Will W, Quade M.

St Vinnies Winter Appeal
Over the past few weeks the students have been collecting canned food for the annual St Vinnie’s Winter Appeal.  At St Mary’s we get quite competitive with our can collecting!  This morning the students gathered under the COLA to see which class had collected the most cans. This year Year 3 had the longest line of cans and celebrated with some sweet treats. Thank you to all of our families for their generous donations!

A Prayer for the End of Term
We thank you Lord, for this term. For our challenges, our successes, and the mistakes from which we have learnt. Be with us as we spend our time with family and friends.

Give us strength and courage to do what is right: to be witnesses of our faith. Help us these holidays to appreciate what others do for us and to give time and effort to help others. 

Keep us safe in our activities; give us good rest and good fun. Bring us back refreshed and ready for a new term. We thank you for our classmates, teachers, parents and a community that cares for us.

May we always be conscious of you in our lives. Amen.

Genevieve Schofield
Religious Education Coordinator (Acting)

Dear Parents and Carers,

Just a reminder that ICAS Assessments for 2023 are now open for registration.

ICAS is an online academic competition that is designed to assess students’ higher order thinking and problem-solving skills in English, Mathematics, Science, Writing, Spelling Bee and Digital Technologies.

How to participate in ICAS 2023

If you wish for your child to participate in ICAS this year, please: 

1.   read about ICAS subjects and prices here:    (https://www.icasassessments.com/products-icas) 
2.   read the terms and conditions here: https://www.icasassessments.com/wp-  content/uploads/2022/04/Finalised-Parents-Ts-and-Cs-2022v03-1.pdf
3.   go to Parent Portal here:(https://shop.icasassessments.com/pages/pps
4.   enter our school’s access code – LBU762
5.   enter your child’s details, select the tests you would like to purchase, then
     proceed to payment.

   
   ICAS Assessments 2023

   Subject	Sitting Window	Cost
   Digital Technologies (Yrs 3-6)	7 Aug – 11 Aug 2023	$19.25
   Writing (Yrs 3-6)	7 Aug – 11 Aug 2023	$23.65
   English (Yrs 2-6)	14 Aug – 18 Aug 2023	$19.25
   Science (Yrs 2-6)	21 Aug – 25 Aug 2023	$19.25
   Spelling Bee (Yrs 2-6)	21 Aug – 25 Aug 2023	$19.25
   Mathematics (Yrs 2-6)	28 Aug – 1 Sept 2023	$19.25

   Parent orders close Monday 31 July 2023

   
   

Justin Bateman
Coordinator

English
This term students have benefited greatly from the large volume of sentence level writing through explicit direct instruction and daily review. Students have worked hard to hone their writing craft using adverbs, stative verbs and conjunctions in narrative writing. They have practised building correct sentences, joining dependent and independent clauses with appropriate conjunctions. The culmination of their hard work was an outstanding collection of narrative pieces written under assessment conditions.

We have also commenced a new class novel entitled “Catch A Falling Star” by renowned Australian author Meg McKinlay. Students have been listening intently to identify and tabulate figurative language such as simile, metaphor, hyperbole and personification. They have also looked at the art of using subtle humour in their writing through the analysis of sarcasm, dark humour and irony.

Maths
In Year 5/6 students continue to be highly engaged in daily reviews. Each day, we cover a wide range of key concepts that allow for a significant degree of differentiation to cater for the diverse learning levels of a multi-age class. This term we have completed explicit lessons on division, number facts, adding and subtracting like and unlike fractions, perimeter, area and order of operations incorporating indices. 

Students have been working diligently to complete modules to mastery level in Maths Pathway, with a strong emphasis on taking a thorough approach to setting out bookwork, as well as checking and rechecking written responses before moving on.

Religion
Students in Year 6 have recently completed their major assessment project on a Saint of their choosing to coincide with Sacrament of Confirmation completed by over twenty of our year six students. They learned about the fruits of the Holy Spirit, The Gifts of the Holy Spirit and how they relate to the modern context. Students in Year 5 chose an inspirational leader to complete a major project on. This is a particularly significant unit for Year 5 as they begin to transition towards being the official leaders of St Mary’s in 2024.

Creative Arts
This term all students in Stage 3 have been learning about Electronic Music including different kinds of instruments that produce sounds electronically as well as MIDI programs for making songs. Students had two projects to complete including a research project on an electronic instrument of their choice as well as creating a song using Chromelabs Music Maker. Students were assessed on the number of changes in their song as well as varying pitch, changing dynamics, thoughtful timbre and great tempo. Students are also looking forward to having some of their artwork from Term 1 displayed at the end of the year.

Science
All students in Stage 3 have been doing Chemistry this term with some very interesting concepts and facts about elements, protons and electrons, states of matter, the universe, the big bang theory, supernovae and chemical changes. Year 6 students used chemical change to create delicious choc chip cookies. Year 5 students attempted to form crystals using household solids with limited success. No wonder diamonds are so expensive if it takes this long to form crystals!

History
This term students have been learning about migration. It is very interesting to see how many students have relatives and ancestors from all different parts of the globe. Earlier this term students completed a research project on an Australian Prime Minister. We had just about everyone from Edmund Barton, to Robert Menzie, Julia Gillard and “ScoMo”.

Sport/PE
PE with Mr Hill continues to be a big highlight with Year 5/6 students each week. It is really inspiring the way all students in our class enjoy the physical movement aspect of PE as well as thoughtfully contribute during health lessons. This term all Stage 3 students thoroughly enjoyed the chance to play hockey each Friday and we have been blessed with some amazing weather.  

On Friday, 16 June, St Mary’s celebrated our school Athletics Carnival at Gundary Oval. It was a beautiful sunny day and all the students were set for a fun day of racing and throwing events. Students all participated with great enthusiasm and showed incredible team spirit. A highlight was definitely watching our K-2 students participating in the novelty events as well as running in their 100m races. Judging by their determination, we will have lots of up and coming runners at our future athletics carnivals! The rest of the school were cheering our little buddies on which I am sure made them run even faster. 

A special thanks to Tim W for his work in the lead up to the carnival to get the track looking great. We really appreciate Tim giving up his time to help with marking the track for our carnival. Another special mention goes to the St Mary’s staff for always helping with the early morning set up and also to our parent community, who always come together to help out on special days like this in various roles such as timekeeping, marshalling and running novelty events. It was clear that all the students had a wonderful day. Take a look at the photos posted on the St Mary’s Facebook page. 

Mr Hill and I are currently making our way through the high jump and long jump finals here at school. We aim for these to be finalised by the end of week 1 next term. Once finalised, we will be able to inform the students who will be making it onto the Southern Region Athletics Carnival on Wednesday 2 August at Bega. Keep an eye on COMPASS for event notifications for the SR Carnival.

NSWCPS Rugby Union
We congratulate Asher B on his performance at the NSWCPS Rugby on Monday in Forbes. In some tough competition, Asher was part of the Canberra Goulburn team which played against teams from Sydney, Parramatta, Wollongong and Wagga. I’m sure Asher was able to take away lots of tips and tricks into the game of rugby. 

Asher B: ‘Going to the rugby in Forbes was really exciting because I got to play with and against people I hadn’t played before. It was really exciting and it was fun to play on the wing for my team’.

Interschools Snowsport
We wish Xavier H (Year 6) luck as he competes in the interschools snowsports competition in July. Xavier is entered into the Snowboard Slalom and Snowboard Cross competition. Xavier has always competed at a high level in this competition in the past and I look forward to sharing his results next term.