Dear Parents,

As mentioned last week, our Staff Spirituality Day looked at the influence of media on our younger generation. To encourage safety online and also a healthy online/offline balance the Australian Government has a website for parents and educators to access https://www.esafety.gov.au/ . Please bookmark this site for your easy reference if you like. There are some great tips and information that make this site a valuable resource for all adults and students as we engage in the online environment. We’ll showcase some points in our newsletter over the next term.

This week The Resilience Projects kicks off for each of our classes. This program has been developed over the last decade and developed by a young Australian educator, Hugh Van Cuylenburg.  It is a dedicated whole school approach to the benefits of resilience that builds meaningful daily practice in understanding gratitude, empathy and mindfulness. Although you may be thinking it sounds simply like a ‘feel good’ programme I want to emphasise that it offers a solid framework for developing a growth mindset for our students. If you have the opportunity to visit The Resilience Project website or want to download the audiobook it will give you a good insight into the programme we are unpacking here over the next semester and into 2021.

We received news last week that our application for a Commonwealth Bank Bushfire recovery Grant has been successful to a total of $50,000. Needless to say we are pretty pleased with ourselves and also very grateful. The grant will go towards the refurbishment of the ‘Top Room’ currently used as the uniform shop and Music/Teacher Resource room. The old building has been part of St Mary’s for some time and deserves some attention. With an upgrade it is planned that the room will be more of a multi-purpose room that can be accessed by parent groups and the parish as well, but will continue to be our Uniform Shop and Music/Teacher Resource room.

Have a lovely week everyone.

Jannine

International Day of Friendship  - 30 July

“This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command… Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.” - John 15:12-15, NLT

A Prayer for Friendship

Dear Lord, teach me to love others the way you first loved me. As I build relationships with others, let them see you in the extent of my generosity, the authenticity of my kindness, and the depths of my love. All of those things are only possible through you, the God who abides with me and calls me friend. 

Amen.

Sacrament of Reconciliation

The Sacrament of Reconciliation will take place this Sunday at 8:30am. We have three children from St Mary’s who will be making this Sacrament - Ethan, Thomas and Nace. Please keep these children in your prayers as they prepare for this sacrament. 

The Resilience Project

The Resilience Project began in all classes at St Mary's last week.  The Resilience Project is based on four principles - GEM principals:

Gratitude – Paying attention to the things that we have right now, and not worrying about what we don’t have. We practise this by noticing the positives that exist around us. 

Empathy – Putting ourselves in the shoes of others to feel and see what they do. We practice this through being kind and compassionate towards other people.

Mindfulness – Our ability to be calm and present at any given moment. We practice this through slowing down and concentrating on one thing at a time. This could be our breathing, completing a colouring sheet or noticing the noises we can hear. 

Emotional Literacy – Our ability to label our emotions as we experience them. Labelling our emotions helps us to manage our emotions (soften negative emotions and find positive emotions). We practice this by labelling our emotions as we experience different parts of our day.

This week we will introduce the students to the Principal of Gratitude.

For more information on the Resilience projects, please visit the parent page :

https://theresilienceproject.com.au/at-home/

This weeks Superstars are Layla and Emily. Interviewed by Catriona.

Over the holidays we have been blessed to receive some workforce support from Laing O'Rourke employees. They have completed many jobs around our school grounds voluntarily and Bunnings have donated some items as well. We have been so fortunate and thank James and his team with grateful hearts.

On Sunday Ethan,Thomas and Nace will make the Sacrament of First Reconciliation.

Please keep these boys in your prayers.

Library News

In Library this term the students across all classes are investigating the literacy features of the CBCA short-listed books for Book Week.

Years 4,5,6 got very creative on Friday and designed posters based on the Book Week theme – ‘Curious Creatures, Wild Minds’. They were able to chose from a range of mediums including water colour paints, wax crayons and textas to create their designs. Great work 4,5,6.

 Dymocks Donation

St Mary’s was selected by Dymocks to receive the generous donation of $5000.00 worth of new library books after the recent bushfires.

Teachers were able to choose a range of fiction and non-fiction books from a variety of publishers.  The books will be wonderful for staff and students to use in Literacy groups, as a Read Aloud or borrow during Library time.

4,5,6 were excited to open the packages and view the new books. They were thrilled with the new range of chapter and picture books and look forward to borrowing them soon.

Please remember that all classes have Library lessons on Friday and need to bring along their library bag to borrow books. I would love to see every child borrowing books this term.

Happy reading

Mrs Murray

Because of Covid 19 restrictions the bakery have advised that the reusable lunch bags are not to be used until further notice.

Please use paper bags to order lunches at this time.

WEEK 1 TERM 3

TERM 2 - WEEK 10

STUDENT OF THE WEEK

Birthday wishes go to Theodore who turns 6 and Joshua who turns 8 this Friday 31st July. Have a fabulous day.

CALEB & ISABELLE

Will be our radio announcers NEXT TUESDAY 4th AUGUST

Tune in to FM96.3 from 1.45pm to hear what is happening at St Mary's. 

In 2/3 during Spelling, we are creating a work wall of 300 most common words. These activities will help us with knowing where to look if we are stuck on spelling words during writing and don't know how to spell them correctly. We love these fun, new activities.

Please email any items you wish to put on the agenda for discussion to office.stmarysbatlow@cg.catholic.edu.au by Monday 3rd August

Private piano lessons are available at school each Wednesday.

For more information call Vanessa on 0448609479.

This term we are trialling breakfast options for our students on Tuesday and Thursday morning 8.30 - 9.00am.

Weetbix and toast provided at no cost.

Every child, every day needs to eat a healthy nutricious breakfast, but we understand it can be difficult sometimes to get your child to eat in the morning. We are here to help.

We are currently taking enrolments for 2021. If you know of a family with a child of school age for 2021 please let them know. Phone the office for an enrolment form or tour of the school 69491270, email - office.stmarysbatlow@cg.catholic.edu or visit our website - www.stmarysbatlow.nsw.edu.au