ABOUT - Term 2 Week 3 - 16 May 2024

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

"Without the Spirit, our Christian life unravels,
lacking the love that brings everything together."
- Pope Francis 

WONDERFUL MOTHER'S DAY STALL

Another fantastic Mother’s Day Stall was held last Friday. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the stall.  Due to the generosity of our families there were many gifts for the children to choose their special presents.   Thank you also to the stall coordinator, Morgan Adams and the mums who attended working bees to wrap the gifts and also helped out on Friday at the stall.  In conjunction with the Mother’s Day Stall we had some fabulous prizes on offer for the raffles.  We would like to thank Claire Harvey from The Rustic Burrow, Matt & Kellie Zell from Victory Lap Sports and Gilgandra Services Club for their generous donations towards the raffle. 

There were also free raffles for each class which every student had the chance to win.  This caused much excitement and we thank the families from our school for their generous donations towards these raffles.  Results of the raffles were as follows: 

First Prize – Lucy Peart
Second Prize – Eline Weston
Third Prize – Georgie Kelly

Class Raffles – Kinder – Darcy Morrissey, Year 1 – Jock Cruickshank, Year 2 – Annabelle Foran, Year 3 – Madeleine Foran, Year 4 – Regan Godber, Year 5 – Jackson Towns, Year 6 – Claudia Harrison.

KINDER / YEAR 5 PENTECOST MASS

Kinder and Year 5 will celebrate a special Pentecost Mass to be held this Sunday, 19 May at 9:30 a.m in St Joseph’s Church. Everyone is welcome to attend.

OUR LADY HELP OF CHRISTIANS MASS

A Mass in honour of Our Lady Help of Christians will be celebrated next Friday, 24 May at 10:30 a.m in St Joseph’s Church. Year 4 is preparing the Mass and all are most welcome to attend.  Please bring a plate to share for morning tea which will be served after the Mass.

FIRST HOLY COMMUNION

St Joseph's Church - Sunday, 2 June

The excitement is certainly building for the First Holy Communion class as this special day is quickly approaching.  Our school community and parish are warmly invited to celebrate First Holy Communion at St Joseph’s Church on Sunday, 2 June at 9:30 a.m.  It would be fabulous to have lots there for this great occasion.

LIFE EDUCATION VAN

The Life Education Van will be at our school next week from Wednesday, 22 May to Friday, 24 May.  We thank the P&F Association for paying for the children’s entry to the van.  It is greatly appreciated.  The timetable for the Life Education Van is as follows, together with a brief outline of the program that will be seen by the children:

Wednesday, 22 May

11:30–1:00  Year 3 – The Inside Story – The benefits of healthy food for health and energy, function of the body systems – digestive, respiratory, circulatory and others, factors that influence physical health, such as nutrition, exercise and medicines.

1:50-3:10  Year 5 – On The Case – What’s in a cigarette and vape, effects of smoking and vaping, history and laws, myths and facts, strategies to reduce harm.

Thursday, 23 May

10:00–11:00 Year 1 – Growing Good Friends – recognising how nutrition and physical activity contributes to health, exploring health messages and advertising influences, identifying qualities and attributes of good friends, people in our network who can support and help us.

12:00 - 1:00 Year 2 – Safety Rules – Recognising safe and unsafe environments, how to care for others, behaviours that maintain friendships, places and people who we can go to for help.

1:50–3:10  Year 6 – Relate, Respect, Connect – understanding how to respect ourselves and others, identifying characteristics of positive relationships, strategies to help maintain positive online and offline relationships, how to recognise, react and report unwanted contact, bullying or predatory behaviours.

Friday, 24 May

10:00–11:00  Kinder – Harold’s Friend Ship – How to build friendships and care for others, identifying and managing feelings and emotions, recognising body clues that let us know when we could be unsafe, safe people and places to seek help.

11:30–1:00  Year 4 – Bcyberwise – Responsible and respectful behaviour when using communication technology, skills for building positive relationships with friends, keeping personal information safe online, how to recognise, react and report unwanted contact, bullying or predatory behaviours, exploring the role of bystanders.

HEALTHY HAROLD MERCHANDISE

To coincide with the Life Education Van visiting our school next week, Healthy Harold merchandise is available to pre-order for any families wishing to do so, by visiting https://bit.ly/haroldshop Instructions on how to order are below.  Orders need to be placed by next TUESDAY, 22 MAY and items will be delivered to your child during Healthy Harold's visit to school next week.

TERM 2 FEES

Just a reminder that the Term 2 Fees are due on Friday, 24 May.  Fee Statements were emailed out today.  If anyone has not received their statement or is experiencing difficulty in the payment of school fees, please contact the office.

ENROL NOW FOR KINDER 2025

We are now taking enrolments for our Kinder class of 2025.  If you have a child ready to start school next year, please call in and pick up an enrolment pack or phone the office and we can email a pack to you.

HATS MUST BE WORN DURING WINTER

The weather might be cooling down, but our faces are exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation every day of the year and UV can be just as high on a cold day as on a hot one, especially if the skies are clear. That is why it is important to continue wearing hats during winter. Our ‘No Hat No Play’ rule still applies through winter, so please ensure your child has their school hat with them each day.

MERIT AWARDS

Congratulations to the following students who received Merit Awards at Assembly on Tuesday:

KINDER: Molly Armstrong for taking great pride in her book work, Daniel Herbig for being an attentive listener and a happy worker, Kohen Walker for a super effort with his sight words and Tessa Hamilton for enthusiastic singing of our prayer.

YEAR 1:  Clark Baker for great work with compound sentences, Hamish Burrell for trying his best in Phonics and Chase Hodges and Becky Hutchison for reading beautifully at our Liturgy.

YEAR 2: Evie Adams for creating accurate drawings of 3D shapes and Annabelle Foran and Lisa-Marie Vermeulen for creating a great acronym to remember how to spell the word, 'chocolate'.

YEAR 3: Lochie Thomas for a fabulous effort in Reading activities, George Taylor for super work in Maths, Ben Ryan for being a conscientious worker in Maths activities and James Riley for trying hard in Reading and Comprehension tasks.

YEAR 4:  Olivia Yates for always trying to complete work to the best of her ability, Laycee Hazelton for working diligently in Spelling, Katie Colwell for a great effort in Maths Operations and Maci-Jae Lomax  for a fabulous effort in Reading.

YEAR 5:  Charlie Howard for improved expression and fluency when reading and Neve Walker for working hard identifying and sorting the phoneme pattern, “sh”.

YEAR 6:  Arabella Chandler  for great work identifying adjectival phrases in sentences, Connor Jones-Copelin for quick recall of multiplication facts when multiplying fractions, Keaghan Lummis  for working hard to correctly multiply fractions quickly and independently and Lucy Zell for active participation in class discussions and always asking clarifying questions.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

This week in Kinder we are learning about the sound ‘L'. We continued reading the funny story of "Mrs Wishy Washy on the Farm" and worked on writing an information report about cows.  Maths has challenged us to learn about combining groups and adding numerals.  We have also investigated the mass of different objects in our classroom and beyond, having fun in group work to find things that balance.  In Science we are looking at pets.  If you haven't already done so, please send in a photo of your pet for next week’s lesson. Keep practising the readings for the Pentecost Mass on Sunday and we look forward to seeing you at the Church.   Have a lovely weekend everyone.
Mrs Alison Newstead & Miss Lisa  Harvey

Year 1

This week in English, Year 1 read the book, "The Good Egg".  We identified the character traits of the Egg and explored noun groups within the text. We brainstormed new titles for the story using the character traits and explained why it is a good title. In Maths, we have been busy exploring patterns. We’ve realised that patterns are created using different attributes and can be named using letters. We had fun building and naming our own patterns using concrete objects. In Religion Year 1 enjoyed listening to the story of how Jesus appeared to two disciples who were walking together on the road to Emmaus. We discussed how we can recognise Jesus in our everyday lives and despite the challenging things that may happen in our world, that we have to trust that God is at work, and that He has a plan. We hope you have a great weekend!
Mrs Julia Jeffery & Mrs Prue Best

Year 2

Thank you to our family and friends who were able to join us this morning for our ‘Friendship’ liturgy. We have a great friend in Jesus and are surrounded by great friends each day. We are going to try hard to follow the commandment, ‘Love one another as I have loved you’. We have begun learning our poems for the eisteddfod, it is important that children read over these each night. During History we read the book, "My Place" and enjoyed watching the changes that took place. We began identifying changes that have taken place in our lives over the years. In Maths we have been learning about 2D and 3D shapes and working on remembering their properties. We have been learning about Pentecost in Religion and completed a meditation imagining how it felt to have the Holy Spirit present in tongues of fire to the disciples. Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

Year 3 has made their own poster this week that persuades the reader to protect dingoes. They have used what they have learnt about the threats facing dingoes, reasons why dingoes are important and how we can protect dingoes, to make their poster effective. They published their convincing texts on their chromebooks and you will be able to see them in their portfolios at the end of the term. We began our place value and subtraction Mathematics unit this week by rolling place value dice to make 4 digit numbers using place value arrows. We also ordered 4 digit numbers and used numeral expanders to write a number in expanded notation. In preparation for our athletics carnival we learnt about and practised shot put. We took a look at our eisteddfod poems this week as well. Copies of these will go home for students to learn for homework. Readings for our First Eucharist Mass will also go home next week for students to practise for homework in preparation for our celebration on 2 June. Have an awesome weekend and we’ll see you next week.
Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Swade Wilson

Year 4

We are all continuing to enjoy learning about Ned Kelly. As we have continued reading a variety of texts from different perspectives we are now considering is Ned Kelly a hero or villain? Today we looked at the digital classroom on the National Museum of Australia site and observed a lot of information to help us form our opinion. During History we have been learning about the First Fleet and have looked at a database of passengers. It was interesting to see the names of the passengers and the reasons why they were being transported to New South Wales. We were surprised to read that some convicts were as young as nine. We have also been discussing hut day, which will be held at the end of the term. Notes will be going home explaining what is required. We are looking forward to preparing the Mary Help of Christians Mass next Friday. Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

Year 5 has been working super hard this week. We have been working hard with Kinder preparing our Pentecost Mass this Sunday. Thank you to all those who are coming to celebrate this special time when the Holy Spirit filled the hearts of the disciples. We have continued working on our discussions this week, with writing our own. First we went through and planned three different topics jotting down the for and against points before picking one and writing about it. We are going to write one more discussion on,  “Watching television is a waste of time”.  In our book study we looked at the journal accounts in the book of the journey and discovery of Macquarie Island and what life was like on the island. We also explored the official Macquarie Island Conservation Foundation website to expand our knowledge of the island.  I look forward to  seeing you all at our Pentecost Mass on Sunday. Have a wonderful weekend.
Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 6

This week we welcomed Mrs Barry, who will be teaching Year 6 for the remainder of the year while Mrs Morrissey is on maternity leave. A big thank you to Mrs Morrissey for being a fantastic member of the Year 6 team and our best wishes to her and Jake for the safe arrival of their newest family member. In Religion, we spoke about the Ascension and its significance to Pentecost - the first confirmation and the appearance of the Holy Spirit. During Maths we applied ‘PEDMAS’ to the order of operations and consolidated our knowledge of verbs and verb types in Grammar. In Text Types we wrote simile poems about ourselves and then adapted them to become metaphor poems. As a concluding activity for our class novel, "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief", we spent the afternoon snacking on popcorn while enjoying the movie version of the book.  Have a great weekend.
Mrs Meichelle Schier, Mrs Haylee Barry & Mrs Donna Colwell

ALTAR SERVERS

CANTEEN ROSTER

NOTICEBOARD

GILGANDRA SWIM CLUB - PIE DRIVE FUNDRAISER

The Gilgandra Swim Club is holding a winter pie drive fundraiser.  The pies will be delivered to Gilgandra fresh and can be kept in the fridge for up to 7 days or frozen for months, making them fantastic for easy midweek meals or an easy grab for sowing, harvest, Christmas, etc.  Pies will be delivered to Gilgandra on Thursday, 20 June.  Please contact Penny on 0439 425 699 or email pennyandgrant@bigpond.com with any questions.

Please click the below links for further information and an order form.

GULARGAMBONE SHOW JUNIOR JUDGING

Please click on the below link to view information about the Gulargambone Show Junior Judging to be held at the show this Saturday, 18 May.  Please direct any queries to Henry Taylor on 0427 251 457.

CHILDHOOLD 6 MONTHS TO 12 YEARS INFLUENZA VACCINATION CLINIC

There will be a further Vaccination Clinic for children aged 6 months to 12 years held on Tuesday, 21 May from 3:00 - 5:00 pm at the RFDS Medical Centre.  See flyer below.