End of Term 2

This is our last newsletter for the term. Congratulations to all of our dedicated and hardworking students who have put in another huge effort this term to develop their skills across many Key Learning Areas. Thank you to our wonderfully supportive parent body and to the teachers for their hard work and dedication.

We farewell Mrs. Ashlee Picker, who is taking twelve months maternity leave. We wish Ashlee, Ben and Claire the very best of luck for the safe arrival of baby number two. We thank Ashlee for her dedication to her role as Performing Arts Teacher.

Next term, we welcome Mrs. Claire McCormack to the St Mary's Staff. Claire will be filling Ashlee's position.

I hope you have a happy and safe holiday break and I look forward to seeing the students back on Tuesday 13 July.

Term 3 Dates

We had Friday 30 July scheduled for our 2021 Grandparents and Special Friends Day. With the current COVID situation rising again in NSW and the Sydney Red Zones in place, we have decided to push this event back to later in the term. Our top priorities are to keep our families safe and to be able to welcome our special visitors to St Mary's. Early next term another date will be released. We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. 

On Monday 2 August at 3.30pm, we will be holding a parent workshop with our school Catholic Care Counsellor, Sharyn Lynch, on Emotional Regulation. All parents are welcome to attend. Care will be provided for your children for the duration of the session. More details about this session will be provided next term. 

School Assemblies

In a constant endeavour to gain the most amount of quality learning time out of our week, we have decided to hold our weekly whole School Assembly each Friday morning at 9.05, rather than on a Monday morning.

'Student of the Week' Teacher Awards will be presented at this assembly and these, along with our other awards, will be published the day before in our Newsletter. Parents and friends are welcome to attend if they wish. 

This change will allow our students to get straight into learning on a Monday morning and will enable a 120-minute literacy block four days per week. 

Spelling Mastery

Next term students in Year 3 to Year 6 will commence Spelling Mastery as our whole school Spelling Program. 

Spelling Masteryis a six-level Direct Instruction series that teaches students dependable spelling skills by blending three approaches: the phonemic approach, the whole word approach and the morphemic approach. 

The whole word approach focuses on memorisation.Spelling Masterydoes not use memorisation for words that contain predictable phonemic elements, but reserves memorisation for words that have irregular letter-sound relationships (i.e feud, break, gone). Prompts are used to make the initial learning easier and systematic practice is provided to facilitate retention.

The phonemic approach is used for letter-sound correspondences that are predictable. For example, the sound /ar/ is highly consistent. In about 95 percent of the words in which the sound /ar/ is said, the sound is spelt with the letters a-r. A careful analysis of phoneme-grapheme relationships was made by the authors and the generalised relationships are systematically introduced and practised.

The morphemic approach is used for combing the roots, bases, prefixes and suffixes into words. The morphemic approach used is highly similar to that used inSpelling Though Morphographs. Students combine morphographs to write words and do exercises in which they indicate the morphographs in words. The use of morphographs to figure out the meaning of words gradually increases as students progress through the levels.

We have been using Spelling Mastery as an intervention program at St Mary's for a few years and have seen great improvement as a result of this program. The program also aligns with the approach used in InitaLit and Connected Math Concepts. 

The Catholic Education Office has supported our move to the Spelling Mastery program and has contributed funds for us to purchase the teacher resources required. The school will purchase the student materials.

So what will be different? Your child will participate in a direct instruction spelling group four times a week. Each child, in Years 3-6, has been given a placement test and will be put in one of six small multi-age groups. The placement test indicates which level your child requires to further develop their spelling skills. Each day at 11.00am your child will go to their group to participate in the lesson. They will have a Spelling Mastery student journal to work in. The lesson involves a lot of teacher and student input, recitation and repetition. Your child will not take home a weekly core list of words and will not do a weekly pre- and post-test. They may, however, still have some individual words to learn from their writing or relating to class texts.

Enrolling Now 

Enrolments in Catholic  Schools in Canberra have now closed. In NSW enrolments continually remain open however we would appreciate it if they could be completed as soon as possible, as our 2022 staffing is allocated at the end of this term.

If you have a child starting school at St Mary's next year we would appreciate it if you could please enrol your child now online or call Belinda for an enrolment pack.  https://enrolments.stmarysc.nsw.edu.au/nsw-enrol/start

School Fees Due 

If you haven't paid your Term 2 school fees please ensure that, unless you have a direct debit in place, you organise payment as soon as possible.

If you do have a direct debit in place, please check that it covers the minimum amount required per week- $42.77 for 1 child, $47.54 for 2 children, $52.31 for 3 or more children.

If you would like to have a discussion regarding your fees, please do not hesitate to speak to me or Belinda as there are a number of options available.

Lost Property and Naming of Clothes

Please make sure that all pieces of clothing, lunch boxes, drink bottles and other items sent to school are well named so we can return pieces to their owners quickly before the end of term.

School Photos

School Dental Assessment Program

On Wednesday 28 July, the Southern NSW Local Health Dental team will be coming to St Mary's to complete dental assessments on each student. Consent forms will be sent home. These need to be completed and returned to school, please.

Commonwealth School Data Collection Notice

It is that time of the year again when the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment collect certain information about our school, staff, and student body. Please find an information sheet below regarding this census and how the information is used. 

Commonwealth School Data Collection - Parent Privacy Notice