ABOUT - Term 2 Week 4 - 22 May 2025

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

"Because she's one of us, a mother to us, we turn to her in our need;
but because she's the best of us, mother to Our Lord, she gets those prayers answered.
So Mary is holy yet human and attracts our devotion as "Help of Christians".
-Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP

OUR LADY HELP OF CHRISTIANS MASS

A Mass in honour of Our Lady Help of Christians will be celebrated tomorrow, Friday, 23 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.

DIOCESAN SPELLING BEE

Best of luck to our super spellers, Isobel B and Tiffany F (Years 3/4) and Neve W and Ryan F (Years 5/6), who will take on the best in the diocese at the Diocesan Spelling Bee to be held in Wellington next Wednesday, 28 May.

PENTECOST MASS - CHANGE OF DATE

Due to the long weekend, the Pentecost Mass that our Kinder and Year 5 classes were preparing for Sunday, 8 June, has been brought forward to Thursday, 5 June at 10:30 a.m in St Joseph's Church.  Everyone is invited to attend. Please bring a plate to share for morning tea, which will follow the Mass.

CITY OF DUBBO EISTEDDFOD

All students from Year 1 to Year 6 will be participating in the verse speaking choirs at the City of Dubbo Eisteddfod on Wednesday, 18 June at the Dubbo Regional Theatre & Convention Centre (DRTCC). The order for the verse speaking choirs is as follows:

Commencing at 10:00 a.m.

Section 5300 – Years 1/2 – Infants (we are competitor no. 5 of 5 competitors), followed by

Section 5301 – Years 3/4 – Junior Primary (we are competitor no. 3 of 3 competitors)

Section 5302 – Years 5/6 – Senior Primary (we are competitor no. 3 of 3 competitors).

We would love to see many family and friends in attendance at the eisteddfod to watch our wonderful choirs perform. 

Tickets go on sale TODAY, Thursday, 22 May - see below for instructions on how to purchase tickets.

PRE-PURCHASE TICKETS TO THE EISTEDDFOD

As mentioned above, tickets to the eisteddfod went on sale TODAY, Thursday, 22 May at 9:30 a.m. 

Tickets are $6.00 each and can be purchased from the DRTCC Box Office or ordered online by following the below instructions:-

1.  Visit drtcc.sales.ticketsearch.com/sales/sales
2.  Type in Search - Eisteddfod
3.  Select which session you wish to attend
4.  Payment of your tickets (Please note: you will have 20 minutes to complete your transaction).

TRAVEL TO THE EISTEDDFOD

We have today sent home a permission note, with children from Years 1-6, for your child to attend the City of Dubbo Eisteddfod on Wednesday, 18 June in Dubbo and advising us how your child will travel to and from the eisteddfod.  We need this information as soon as possible so that we can organise transport.

The cost for the bus to travel to Dubbo will be $5.00 per student.  Please ensure the tear-off slip and if your child/ren are travelling by bus, the money is returned to the school office by next Wednesday, 28 May.

UNIFORM FOR THE EISTEDDFOD

At this year's City of Dubbo Eisteddfod, girls are again wearing MAROON TROUSERS, NOT the tunic as has been worn in previous years. 

Just a reminder that children are required to wear full winter uniform which is as follows:

Boys:  Grey trousers, blue shirt, school jumper, grey socks, black shoes.
Girls:.  Maroon trousers, fawn shirt, school jumper, brown socks, black shoes.

NO CANTEEN ON WEDNESDAY, 18 JUNE

Due to the times that students will return to school on the day of the eisteddfod, we have made the decision to close the canteen on Wednesday, 18 June.  Please ensure you pack both morning tea and lunch for your children on the day of the eisteddfod. 

ENROL NOW FOR KINDER 2026

We are now taking enrolments for our Kinder class of 2026.  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.

FOOD HANDLER TRAINING LINK FOR CANTEEN VOLUNTEERS

Please click on the below link to undertake the Food Handler Training required to be completed by all of our canteen volunteers. 

www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/training/food-handler-basics-training 

MERIT AWARDS

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

KINDER: Harrison Hammond for writing a super story about a lion, Adelaide Robinson for clearly identifying the difference between living and non-living things in Science and Max Godber for carefully ordering the weight of objects using hefting.

YEAR 1: Teddy Kelly for always listening to instructions and working hard in all tasks, Kyro McKenzie and Eleanor Foran for lovely illustrations of Easter Sunday and Jazmyn Aberley for her care and attention to detail while writing the letter ‘Mm’ in Handwriting.

YEAR 2: Jock Cruickshank and Flynn Weston for outstanding work changing the orientation of shapes and describing quarter and half turns.

YEAR 3: Grace Johnston for an improved effort in all areas of learning, Evie Adams for valued contributions to our class discussions based on the novel, “Wandi”, John Erick Badon for working hard whizzing through his Literacy Pro reading chart and Edward Woodrow for making fantastic contributions in Grammar.  

YEAR 4: Kenzie Dollaga, Tiffany Fong and Harper Wykes for well written letters to the newspaper from Ned Kelly. 

YEAR 5: Alice Peart for a wonderful 'Mental Model' description of a showground and Will Luckie for accurate identification of concrete and abstract nouns.

YEAR 6: Oscar Medd for being a kind, courteous and conscientious class member and Mitchell Beaton for consistently being on task and completing work diligently.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

Kinder has had another wonderful week of learning! In English we read “Wishy-Washy Day” and completed activities where we sequenced sentences from the story and answered comprehension questions to show our understanding. We are getting more confident with our reading and writing each week. During Maths we learnt how to identify one more and one less than a given number. We played fun games to help us practise, including using our bodies to jump to the left for one less and to the right for one more - it was a great way to get moving while we learnt! In Religion we were introduced to the new Pope, Pope Leo, and had some great discussions about his special role in the Church. One of the highlights of our week was our visit to Healthy Harold! We were so excited to step inside the Life Education Van and learn about what makes a good friend and how we can work together kindly and respectfully. We hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs Alison Newstead & Mrs Julia Jeffery

Year 1

This week we explored the concept of representation in English by examining how the ants are represented in Ursula Dubosarsky’s, “March of the Ants”. We talked about how the ants are represented as characters in an ‘imagined world’ with human characteristics such as; they can talk, they have feelings, they walk on two legs and they can read. The students were asked to create their own ‘imagined world’ illustration of an ant and write short captions around it to identify the features they were representing. We explored “March of the Ants” further by retelling parts of the story. Students were each given a picture of one part of the story and were asked to write what was happening in their own words. We also imagined we were another ant going on the journey and used quotation marks to write a complex sentence about something we would take on the expedition and why we might take this item. Interesting items include: unicorns to fly on, caravans with microwaves to heat food in and a buggy to sleep in the back at night time. During Maths we focused on measuring mass. We compared the mass of different objects by hefting them and then testing our predictions using an equal arm balance. We also worked in groups to find things heavier than, the same as and lighter than a 1000 MAB block. It was quite the challenge to find something equal to. We’ve also begun completing some summative assessments so we can gather data for reports. In Religion we’re finishing up our Easter Season unit by reading the Bible stories of “The Ascension” and “Pentecost”. We answered some comprehension questions about the Ascension and sequenced the story of Pentecost. Healthy Harold was a hit on Wednesday. We learned how we can be good friends to others. Have a great weekend!

Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Haylee Barry

Year 2

We enjoyed catching up with our old friend Healthy Harold at the Life Education Van yesterday. We learnt about safety rules, which coincides with what we have been discussing in Personal Development with Mr Gibbons. This is important to talk about with your children and it was great to hear that many families have discussed their fire safety plan at home, so they know what to do in an emergency. We also spoke of the importance of knowing phone numbers such as ‘000’ and mobile numbers of family members. During Writing we watched an information clip about fur seals, wrote brief notes in a concept map and are now using that information to create our own information reports, which we will share in our portfolios at the end of the term. In Maths we have continued to look at the orientation of shapes and have made symmetrical patterns. During History we looked at ancient Chinese utensils and compared them to our modern day ones, such as insulated cups, goblets, ceramic plates, terracotta bowls, chopsticks and cutlery. Have a lovely weekend, see you in Week 5!

Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

Another fantastic week has flown by! In HSIE we completed our information reports on famous explorers who are significant to Australia. Everyone worked hard to research and discover how these explorers played a part in Australia’s history — especially how they found or explored parts of the land we live in today. On Tuesday, we had an exciting visit with Healthy Harold! This year we learnt all about the human body and how it works. One of the highlights was when Harold shrunk down and went inside someone’s body to show us how everything looks and functions. We especially enjoyed the fun games and a hilarious video about how digestion works! In Maths we explored inverse operations. We played a fun game to help us understand the concept and filled our books with lots of examples to show our learning. Our preparations are well underway for First Holy Communion, which will come around quickly. We've been practising our Liturgical movements and learning all about how the Mass is structured. It’s been very meaningful and important. Well done to everyone for another week of great effort and learning. Have a wonderful weekend!

Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 4

This week we have been reading, “Ned Kelly: Hero or Villain”. We have considered the arguments from both Ned’s perspective and those of the newspaper articles. We watched a clip of Ned giving his side of the story which did have many of us considering our viewpoint. We learnt how to structure a paragraph for the argument and the impact of including high modality words. We’ve also learnt about salience -  a strategy used to highlight what is important in a text. In Art today we recreated our own version of Sidney Nolan’s famous Ned Kelly artwork. During Maths we have been revising many addition strategies including the jump strategy, the regrouping strategy, the compensation strategy and the bridging to ten strategy. We are looking forward to celebrating our Mass tomorrow and I hope to see you there! Have a lovely weekend!            

Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

On Monday, we enjoyed our visit to the Life Education Van, where we discussed the harmful effects smoking and vaping have on our bodies. We are now using this as the topic for our independent exposition, ‘Smoking Should be Banned for Everyone’. In Maths we are looking at expanded notation and have explored the use of an area model to calculate 2-digit by 2-digit multiplications. During Religion we discussed and drew the symbols of the Easter Vigil with a particular focus on the Paschal Candle. We are consolidating our knowledge of adjectives this week in Grammar and created a WordArt using ten adjectives we would use to describe ourselves. In Geography we are now looking at maps and have endeavoured to label each of the capital cities on a map of Australia. We have also enjoyed perfecting our field event skills in Sport as we prepare for the athletics carnival in a couple of weeks. Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Meichelle Schier

Year 6

It certainly has been a cooler week! Nonetheless, we have been working very hard in Year 6 with minimal disruptions. On Monday we enjoyed our final experience with Healthy Harold in the Life Education Van, where we learnt all about how we ‘Relate, Connect and Respect’ others. We talked about characteristics of positive relationships, strategies to help maintain positive online and offline relationships and how to recognise, react and report unwanted contact, bullying or predatory behaviours. In the classroom we have continued learning about representing numbers and multiplicative relations in Maths. During English we experienced our class novel via an audio book which has been very engaging. Our Geography unit has also been very interesting with our current focus being ‘Environmental Changes’ and ‘Human Impacts on the Environment’. We wish you all a restful weekend!

Mrs Jess Morrissey & Mrs Donna Colwell

ALTAR SERVERS

CANTEEN ROSTER

NOTICEBOARD