Term 3, Week 1 2022

Dear Families,

Welcome to Term 3. I do hope that you were able to spend some quality time with your child(ren) during the holidays. I know that sometimes holidays can be challenging when you have children at home while you still have work or other commitments. Winter holidays also pose another difficulty as we tend to need to find indoor activities to keep children busy. Whatever your holiday arrangements were, I hope they went well for you! During the holidays our painters were busy completing the transition from ‘green’ to ‘Woodland Grey. It has certainly made the school buildings look fresh and new.

This term we welcome some new students and new staff members. Welcome to our new Receptions: Aria, Ayda, Hazel, Izaiah, Jade, Keira and Paige. We also welcome Teresa in Year 6. To care for our new Reception students, we welcome new teachers Jasmine Fischer and Tara McAnulty who will both work half time in that new classroom. We also welcome Jessica Doherty who is on placement for the remainder of the year on Mondays and Thursdays. Jessica is studying in the area of counselling. She will work with our school counsellor, Shannon O’Toole. Welcome to all of our new children, parents and staff. We hope your time with us is full of learning, fun and many friendships!

As mentioned in the last newsletter the Living, Learning, Leading Framework operates across all catholic schools in South Australia. I am sure that you have heard about this Framework over the past few years. There are some good videos that explain what it is all about here and I encourage you to have a look at them. Each year there is a Living, Learning, Leading survey for students, another for staff and one for parents. The 2022 survey is now open and I encourage you to give up 5 minutes of your time to complete the survey. We welcome the feedback that you can provide to help us continue to improve as a school. You can complete the survey here. Click on the button that says “Start Survey” and enter the code specific to our school: LLLPSM. I have provided some clarification points about this survey for you:

• The survey takes between three and five minutes.
• Please follow the following link: - www.NSIPartnerships.com.au
• This survey is to find out about the performance of St Mary Magdalene’s school.
• This is a real opportunity for you to tell the school staff how things are going for you and your children.
• We value your feedback and will try to respond to the information that you provide.
• Your feedback does NOT include the data of individuals; rather, feedback involves graphs based on feedback from all parents and caregivers. To ensure anonymity, aggregated scores are not provided for groups of less than four parents or caregivers.
• It is your impressions that we are seeking. There are no right or wrong answers.
• For parents and caregivers with more than one child at our school, just respond based on the experience of your oldest child at the school.
• The response format requires you to consider the school’s performance for each statement on a scale from 1 to 6 (with 1 being the lowest or worst score and 6 being the highest or best score).

There is also a letter attached that further explains the survey. Please see me if you have any questions.

Last Thursday (22 July) was the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene. Unfortunately, this was in the school holidays but we will celebrate this coming Monday with a sausage sizzle and a few other activities as outlined in other areas of this newsletter or via Seesaw. Mary Magdalene is an important figure in our Catholic Tradition and was a key person in the life of Jesus Christ. With our focus on Mary Magdalene and with today’s climate, it is a good opportunity to continue to ensure that all women are respected and seen as equals in our world. It is disappointing that we still do not have equal pay and equal opportunities for all people, regardless of gender, race or disadvantage. Two of our school values are Respect and Justice and sadly, without equality, those values are not being upheld in our society. Each term we focus on particular school values and the one for this term is Service. I thank each one of you for the ‘service’ that you may already provide in our school or our local community. I encourage each of us to consider in what ways we can be of service to others. It may be looking out for an elderly neighbour, helping someone in need, supporting a charity like Vinnies, or simply smiling and saying hello to everyone you meet. There is great personal or intrinsic reward and self value when we reach out to others in service.

From the end of next week, our Principal, Chris Platten will be on leave for three weeks. During this time I will be sharing my time between St Mary Magdalene’s and St Thomas More Schools. Thank you for your understanding, if you do not always see me in the mornings or afternoons, during his absence.

Working in Partnership

Peter Mercer

Head of Campus

‘No work of charity can be more productive of good to society than the careful instruction of women.’ ~ Catherine McAuley

Liturgical Year of the Church 

This week we celebrate the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene. Her Feast Day is held on July 22. Mary Magdalene is a significant woman who is mentioned many times in the Gospels. She was one of the people who had the courage to stay with Jesus at the foot of the cross at the crucifixion. She was the first witness to the Resurrection and was given the role of telling the apostles that Jesus had risen. She was brave and courageous and filled with faith. She was a special friend of Jesus and she travelled with him listening and learning about what it means to bring God’s promise to the world. In 2016, Pope Francis recognised the significance of Mary Magdalene’s role as the first to witness the resurrection and elevated her memorial acknowledgement to that of a feast on the church’s liturgical calendar. Next week we also recognise the significance of St. Mary Magdalene in our celebrations. Please see flyer attached. 

We pray… 

Loving God, through the joyful words of Mary Magdalene, you bring the good news of your love to all the peoples of the earth. Strengthen us to carry that good news in our lives, in our hearts, and in our words. Amen 

Sacramental Program Dates for Term 3 

Confirmation Session for Parents and Candidates 

Saturday August 27 Term 3 Week 5 St. Thomas More Church 9.00am – 11.00am 

Practice for Confirmation 

Saturday Sept 3 Term 3 Week 6 St. Ann’s Church 10.00am – 11.00am 

Celebration of Confirmation 

Wednesday Sept 7 Term 3 Week 7 St. Ann’s Church 7.00pm – 8.00pm 

Celebration of First Eucharist 

Saturday Sept 10 Term 3 Week 7 St. Thomas More Church 6.00pm – 7.00pm 

OR 

Sunday Sept 11 Term 3 Week 8 St. Thomas More Church 10.00am – 11.00am  

5/6 Class Hosts

During Week 10 the Year 5/6 class hosted a Wellbeing Day for the school and helped start celebrating NAIDOC week.  

On the Monday the whole school gathered for Prayer and our students opened our NAIDOC week celebrations. We were joined by Anzac and Malakai from St Thomas More who conducted a Smoking Ceremony and helped us with the Welcome to and Acknowledgement of Country.  

After the Prayer Service each class engaged in a Yoga Session followed by Hand printing and colouring in of the ‘Get Up, Stand Up and Shout out’ NAIDOC week official painting. After this the whole school enjoyed a shared fruit break before first play. After first play, students then engaged in rotational activities in the classrooms for the rest of the day. 

Throughout the week many classes continued the learning and activities about NAIDOC week. At the end of the week on Friday, the handprints that were printed on Monday were placed in a sign below as we gathered and acknowledged the wonderful contribution that our Indigenous brothers and sisters have in our lives and community.