Author: Jo Dunn

St John Henry Newman Buddy Day 

The St John Henry Newman Buddy Day began with a wonderful whole school mass, in celebration of this special Feast Day. Students then worked with their Buddies on a STEM activity, centred around the 2023 Science Week theme of ‘Glass’. Students learnt about the process of how glass is made, and the history and origins of stained-glass windows. Following this, they designed and created a stained-glass window design that represented the Marist theme ‘Known and Loved: dignity for all’. 

Little Telethon Star Carnival 

The College held a very successful Carnival, as part of last week’s Buddy Day celebrations. Newman College Year 3 student, Emily Siew has been selected as one of this year’s Little Telethon Stars. Emily was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia at just 3 years of age, and bravely endured years of intensive chemotherapy at the children’s hospital. Emily also has bilateral hearing loss. 

A massive thanks is extended to our families for their support of this fundraising initiative. You may like to watch Emily on Telethon this weekend. Newman College Year 3 students Samantha Glyde, Christopher Kacperek and Lucius Van Zyl, along with our 2023 College Captains, will present a cheque to Telethon on behalf of Newman College. This cheque presentation will be on Sunday afternoon. To donate to the school’s telethon page, click here

Indigenous Literacy Foundation Book Swap 

The Marian Book Swap will take place on Thursday, 10th November.

The Lavalla Book Swap will take place on Friday, 11th November.

We hold a Book Swap each year to raise funds which the Indigenous Literacy Foundation use to buy books for disadvantaged indigenous children in remote indigenous communities. 

 Donations of good quality chapters or picture books can be dropped off at the Campus libraries or to reception.  There will be boxes provided for the readers to be placed in.

On the day of the Book Swap, the students will bring to school one dollar and can choose a book to take home from those that have been donated. Students are welcome to bring additional money if they would like to purchase several books.

Class Allocations 2023 

In Term 4, teachers will begin looking at class groupings for 2023. Many factors are considered when selecting class placements for students and each child’s best interests are the main priority when these decisions are made. Class placements are made in consultation with all year level teachers and significant time and consideration is given to this task. Students will be asked by their Classroom Teacher to nominate five friends, of which at least one will be placed in their 2023 class.  

Class placements are made with due consideration of gender, pastoral needs, social and emotional needs, special learning needs, and relationships.  Every effort is made to place children where they will have the greatest opportunity to succeed.  

If your child has specific issues which may need consideration, then you are asked to arrange a meeting to discuss this issue with their classroom teacher early this term or contact me via email at lisa.mcclue@newman.wa.edu.au . Parents should be aware that requesting a certain teacher is not a consideration in the class allocation process.  

Once class allocations have been finalised by the leadership team, they cannot be changed. Class lists will be published to families at the conclusion of our Move-up Day. Further information will follow in the coming weeks regarding the particulars of Move-up Day. I thank you in advance for your understanding and support. 

Lavalla Assembly 

This morning, the 5 Red class put on a very lively and entertaining assembly titled ‘5 Red’s got Talent’. Hosted by Ella and Gatano, students were treated to a showcase of 5 Red students ‘let their light shine’ with all of their amazing gifts and talents. We had everything from singing, dancing, drawing, and footy! Well done to Miss Heaver and to the 5 Red students for putting on such an excellent show. We also recognised a number of merit award winners today, including those students who took part in our ‘Write a book in a day’ challenge, and the Ethics Olympiad. It was great to see so many students have so much to celebrate this early in the term! 

Grandparents Day 

If you are able to assist by bringing a plate to share with Grandparents on the Marian Campus Grandparent day event, that would be greatly appreciated. Please click on the following link and complete the form to indicate your assistance and what you will be bringing. 
 
Please bring your plate of food between 8.20am – 8.45am to the hall where Parents Helpers will assist you. 

Scitech Challenge Day 

Scitech Challenge Days provide students with a fantastic opportunity to represent their school in a friendly competition with like-minded peers. In this year’s competition students used their interest of science, technology, engineering, and maths to solve space related challenges.  
 
This years ‘Space Race’ involved teams of Year 6 students taking part in multiple challenges throughout the day. 

Student Wellbeing – goal setting  

Thank you to everyone for the very warm welcome as I transition into my new role this term as Leader of Wellbeing. It has been wonderful to see an abundance of smiling faces (new and old!) at both campuses and getting to chat to the many students and families over the last two weeks. 

On Monday, I had the pleasure of watching 3 Green host our weekly Prayer Assembly at Lavalla Campus. The focus of this assembly was to remind ourselves to give our best effort in everything we do, so we can strive to achieve to the best of our ability… or put perfectly by one of our students, ‘so we can go ahead and smash goals’! 

Goal setting is critical for developing perseverance and building confidence in children to achieve what they want in life.  It teaches them to take responsibility for their own behaviours and learning and forms a powerful lifelong habit. 

How do we help children to set goals? A big part of it is teaching children to reflect on things they do well and things they need to improve on. Having daily conversations and regularly checking in with your child increases their ability to reflect on their day and perhaps what they can do better tomorrow. Celebrate the achievements – no matter how big or small they appear.  

I wish all students and families a fantastic start to Term 4 and hope that many a goal will be ‘smashed’ as we head towards the end of another school year!  

(Mrs Battersby – Leader of Wellbeing PK-6) 

Marian Assembly 

Year 2 Blue took us through their wonderful narrative about the gingerbread man, that had been co-authored by the class. Their dramatic retelling of the story was certainly an indication of the wonderful talents of the class and their enthusiasm for bringing the story to life. Well done Miss Ferris and 2 Blue on a wonderful assembly.  

STEM Festival / St John Henry Newman Buddy Day 

As part of the celebration of St Joh Henry Newman, Kindy to Year 6 students will be involved in a day of STEM activities on Friday 14 October. 

The STEM activities will be designed to complement the National Curriculum in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths by demonstrating the link between what’s taught in the classroom with the wider world. 

Students will be given the opportunity to put their creative thinking into action, learn how to collaborate effectively, challenge their designs and celebrate successes and failures. Across the day, students will live out our Vision for Learning “Shine through Discovery” with hands on STEM challenges.  

This year we have focused on incorporating the following areas into the STEM Festival. 

• 2022 National Science week theme. “Glass: More than meets the eye.” 
• 2022 Marist theme “Known and Loved: Dignity for All”. 

Each class will work with a buddy class and complete a design thinking activity throughout the day. The challenges will be focused on the integration of the above areas.  

Information regarding drop-off and pick-up for the Buddy Day, will be distributed on Monday 10 October, 2022.

Grandparents Day

The College is hosting two events to celebrate our Grandparents – Thursday 27 and Friday 28 October. Please click here for details.

Athletics Carnival 

The Athletics carnival was held on Friday 9^th September and it was a wonderful day for all of the Pre-Primary to Year 6 students. The winning Faction and the Athletics age champions were announced on Monday. Congratulations to all of the students that received an award. 

The winning faction was Knox, captained by Livia Bogdanov and Roman Vladich. 

The Spirit award went to Brigid, captained by Emersyn Duck and Hamish Macgregor. 

The final placings were: 

1^st– Knox 

2^nd– Brigid 

3^rd– Delany 

4^th– Marcellin 

AGE CHAMPIONS:

RECORDS:

There were also a number of records broken on the carnival day, many of these records had been held for a number of years so it is an incredible achievement.

IPSHA Athletics Carnival 

On Thursday 15^th September, the IPSHA Athletics team competed against other IPSHA schools. The students showed tremendous sportsmanship and athleticism and should be very proud of their efforts. 

Some of the IPSHA records were broken on the day, a remarkable achievement. 

Student Wellbeing 

A few weeks ago, I attended the first of our Zero2Hero presentation evenings which was on resilience. The seminar discussed a number of topics including skills parents can use to help their children through life’s challenges and develop resilient young minds. The evening was well received with hundreds of our parents in attendance. There were three main things that stood out for me on the evening. 

The first thing that Claire Eaton mentioned in the evening was around ‘The Big 6 questions’ which are the questions young people and adolescents are starting to ask themselves as they grow and develop: 

• Who am I? 
• Where do I fit in? 
• Who am I important to? 
• What’s important to me? 
• What am I good at? 
• What is my purpose? 

It is good to know what is on the minds of our children. These questions can often pop up for kids at bedtime, when the busyness of the day has washed away, and we are finally alone with our thoughts for the day. We are encouraged to normalise these questions, and talk about them with our children to lessen the fear they may have around some of these topics. It is also ok to model to our children that is ok not to now the answer to these questions yet, but that in time, these answers will come. 

We also heard on the night, how critical thinking interrupts resilience building, which in turn can increase feelings of fear and worry. To avoid this, Claire spoke about ‘above the line’ and ‘below the line’ thinking – different ways of approaching an obstacle or difficulty, saying that “the next thought is where the power is”. Sometimes as parents, it is really easy to jump in the pit with our children, but by redirecting their thoughts, or exploring other ways we can look at what’s happening, we can help our kids to develop their resiliency, and the way they could approach problems in the future.  

Finally, and simply, the most important gift we can give our children is our time. This means being present with our children every opportunity we get. Not just physically, present, but emotionally and spiritually present too. Turning off the phone or our own devices, and really spending quality time listening to, speaking with, or simply being with our kids. This time spent now will pay off in the future – much like a bank account every moment we are present to our children now, will pay off for us in the future.  

It was a wonderful, informative, and good humoured evening, and we look forward to hosting the team again soon. 

Stuart McClorey 

Leader of Wellbeing PK-6