St Mary's Newsletter

We value others their property, their environment and ourselves.

The blind man in Sunday’s Gospel saw in Jesus the chance to be healed.  His faith in Jesus made him bold even when others discouraged him.  It leads us to reflect – how willing are we to go against the crowd in our pursuit of wholeness in Christ?

All Year Six bus students who are attending Merredin College in 2022 are required by Student Bus Services to go online and re-apply, as bus pick-up and drop-off locations in Merredin will be different. (Going to and from Merredin College as opposed to St Mary's School).

For further information, please contact Tamra Hendricks on hendrickshaven@gmail.com 

We have our final P&F Meeting of the year on Monday evening at 7.30pm in the Library.  All are welcome to come along to support the P&F.

Book Club Catalogues were sent home with students earlier this week. Orders are due in by Monday 25th October.

Congratulations to Sandra Garrett and Joel Waters on the arrival of baby Quin.  A brother for Nash (4/5), Lily (Pre-primary) and Judd (Pre-Kindy).  Congratulations also go to Caitlin and Kael Crees who welcomed Beau during the week - a brother for Harry (Kindy) and Max.

We offer our congratulations to St Mary’s parent and Merredin police officer Sergeant Andy Galbraith who is one of three finalists in the individual category of the Nine News Police Excellence Awards.  This is a great honour for Andy (and his family), in recognition of his commitment to the community and his passion for working with the youth of the wheatbelt.  Andy has been recognised as being a great role model.  Congratulations Andy and Good Luck!

We welcome the Pope/Ajaj (Leo - Pre-primary) family who have joined our school community recently.  We hope that you enjoy your time here.

God Bless and have a lovely weekend with your families,

Ms Adriana Coniglio

Principal

Kind regards,

Mrs Pauline Riethmuller

Assistant Principal

In Religious Education this term we are looking at Baptism.  We have begun looking at being part of God's family, the Church, becoming part of God's family when we are baptised.   We belong to many groups with the first group being our family.  Part of our discussion and activity was looking at our family tree. Jesus asked his followers to reach out to people and make them members of the Church community by Baptising them. The Sacrament of Baptism is a joyful celebration that connects people with Jesus and other members of the Church in a special way. We will look at the people and celebrations that are involved in Baptism. 

We are so excited to be back at school for Term Four. In Mathematics this term, we will be studying Financial Mathematics. We started the unit by playing a ‘Calculating Discounts’ game to practise our mental calculation strategies. We had to roll a price dice and a percentage dice, then calculate the discount and then the sale price. We will be savvy shoppers in no time!

This term we are investigating Chemical Sciences.

Pre-Primary class will identify that objects are made of observable properties.  They will conduct simple investigations; observing, questioning, sorting and collecting data and communicating their ideas using graphic organisers such as tables.

Year One class will conduct investigations with different objects, including everyday materials and play dough. Predictions and comparisons will be made about how the shapes of objects made from different materials can be physically changed through actions such as bending, stretching and twisting. Students will also explore how materials change when warmed or cooled. 

The Year Two class will identify that materials can be changed or combined for a particular purpose. They will investigate the ways Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples combine different materials to produce different objects.  The scientific skills used in this unit include: predicting, observing, investigating and communicating.

Year Three and Four explore how adding or removing heat can affect a material’s state of matter through investigations and experiments. The students will use a variety of substances to investigate their properties.  This unit involves students working scientifically and using scientific thinking.

Year Four and Five will develop an understanding of the properties of natural and processed materials and how these influence their use. They will explore the properties of elasticity in greater depth.  The students will work scientifically and predict, observe and investigate.

Year Six students will explore reversible and irreversible changes to matter by using common, everyday substances and consider everyday observations. They will examine reversible changes of state and irreversible chemical changes with practical investigations and experiments. They will create mixtures and explore how to separate them.

Scitech visited Saint Mary’s on Monday.  The incursion was based on Chemical Sciences. The students enjoyed many different activities from Elephant’s toothpaste to colouring cabbage leaves.  

Alena Madaffari, "I enjoyed the lava lamp activity.  I got to go and help."

Clancy Sutherland, "I enjoyed the mega-bubble ball."

Layla Jacobson, "I liked the puffy paint, it made the bubbles all puffy."

Nate Sayers, "I liked the bubble bath because it exploded."

On Friday we held our annual Cricket T20 Blast Cup against Merredin College. The weather certainly gave us a taste for summer to come. We headed off to the College early in the morning with seven teams ready for the challenge. The students all displayed a great attitude and sportsmanship as well as encouragement for others.

We came away winners for both divisions with St Mary’s 2 winning the boys competition and St Mary’s 1 winning the girls competition.

The teams were;

St Mary’s 2 Boys

Jonah Clarke, Taj Jefferys, Charlie Kudas, Archie Gethin, Liam Anderson, Jack Kermode, Logan O’Meagher, Zac Crees and Lochlan Harris.

St Mary’s 1 Girls

Charlotte Criddle, Ellie Atkinson, Jasmine White, Chloe Bartlett, Marissa Oakley, Milla Dolton, Caitlin Carlson, Michayla Maiolo and Ruby Smith.

During the lunch break there was a catching competition and St Mary’s won the boys comp with Oscar Davis taking it out.

We also awarded MVP for each team and they were as follows;

BOYS

St Mary’s 1:  Judd Cooper

St Mary’s 2: Charlie Kudas

St Mary’s 3: Oscar Davis

St Mary’s 4: Elijah Sutherland

GIRLS

St Mary’s 1: Ellie Atkinson

St Mary’s 2: Isabella Stones

St Mary’s 3: Skye Wilson

St Mary’s Parish is running the sausage sizzle at 2 Dogs on 6th November. We would like to sell some slices or cakes as well. If anyone would like to donate a cake or slice it can be left at school by Thursday 4th November. 

As the cakes and slices will be cut up and put into containers and not kept in the fridge, no cream please. All the money raised will be going to support the Parish. Any queries please contact Louise Discenza, in Library or louise.discenza@cewa.edu.au or Vicki Musca,  vmusca@bigpond.com.

Please let me know if you a dropping a cake/slice to school. I am more than happy to get it to Vicki.

Thanks.

Louise Discenza

This week;

Saturday 23rd October - 6.30pm in Merredin

Sunday 24th October - 10.00am in Kellerberrin

So many people contributed to make last weekend’s fair a huge success!  Thank you to the many generous sponsors that supported our day and thank you to the people in our St Mary’s community that donated goods and helped out during the day in a whole range of ways.  An extra big thankyou to our stall coordinators and school families that stepped above and beyond to really make the day amazing. We’re so lucky to be part of a school community that can come together to run such an incredible day.

In particular thankyou to these people who went above and beyond to help make the fair a success;

Asha Carr for holding the reins and coordinating the day overall – it’s a massive job with so much behind the scenes work and pressure to pull it all together. Estelle Madaffari for approaching, organising and liaising with our many sponsors as well as running the very popular pizza stall. Lisa O’Neill for event promotion and advertising. Olivia Gray and Christine Johnston for running a hugely successful silent auction. Andrea Roberts for providing our day’s ‘sideshow’ events. Oliva Geier our gorgeous clown that wandered around all day sharing balloons and lollies and making people smile! Claire Kudas, Gemma Dolton and Zoe O’Malley for running the sell-out wine wheel. Deonne Sutherland for running the very popular cupcake decorating. Maureen Wilson for organising this year’s mystery bags. Vanessa Thompson for her beautiful plants. Tosha Munro, Adele Wahlsten and Emma Galbraith for running the cake stall AND tea and coffees. Adriana Coniglio and Pauline Riethmuller for bringing us the show bags. Marie Bartlett for organising all of the outside stall holders. Erica Carlson for coordinating the colouring in competition. Naomi Thomas for tackling everything in the school hall - toys, books, pegs and bags as well as keeping the Lego safe! Kristy Sharp for entertaining our kids all morning digging for money in the money pit. Mr Sharpy for the extremely popular water slide and boot throwing comp. Mr Willow and the Merredin Fire Brigade for bringing us the bouncy obstacle course. Matt and Beth Smith for running the sausage sizzle and much needed drinks. Meg Gethin for organising floats and collecting and handling all monies raised. Brad Atkinson for his incredible donation – providing the opportunity for the golf ball drop raffle, and donating second and third prize…amazing! Jasmin Holmes for calmly – always with a smile - helping out with all our last minute requests and being a go to person on the day. Heather Jardine, Megan Anderson, Minda Onikola, Marcia Sayers, Meg Gethin, Kristy Sharp and Naomi Thomas who helped set up Friday and Kat White and Marcia Sayers who came down super early on the day to help put up all the tents.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

 We’re so lucky to be part of a school community that can come together to run such an incredible day.

Thank you so much to all of the following sponsors who donated cash, goods or food related items to our School Fair. Their generosity alone helped raise over $4,000!. We would also like to acknowledge the additional funding received from MLG towards our air-conditioning units. Thank you!