Our Explicit Improvement Agenda

Student Voice and Agency

Planning for Improved Student Learning

Celebrations of Learning

Celebration of Learning - Dress Up Day, Student Parade and Display of Student Learning from Term 2

Congratulations to all students for their participation in our Term 2 Celebration of Learning - Dress Up day and showcase of student learning.  The photos below speak for themselves.  Thank you to staff and students for a jam packed term where students had the opportunity to work through the design process in our Design and Technologies Inquiry and to test, hypothesise and experiment in our Science Inquiry.  It was great to see our students as engineers, inventors and scientists today.  Our Term 3 Inquiry focus is  Geography and History and we look forward to continuing student learning in these Learning Areas when we return for Term 3.

Semester One SIMON Reports and Term 2 Student Learning Portfolios

Student Semester One Reports were uploaded into PAM (Parent Access Module) and the Term 2 Student Learning Portfolios were distributed yesterday.  We encourage parents to write feedback for your child’s learning in Term 2 on the feedback sheet provided in your child’s Student Learning Portfolio.  Please return the Student Learning Portfolio at the beginning of Term 3 so your child can continue documenting their learning journey.  Instructions on how to access your child's report are below:

Semester One - Student Learning Conversations

Student Learning Conversations for Semester One Reports and Student Learning Portfolios will be held on Tuesday 18 July and Wednesday 19 July from 3.40 pm to 6.20 pm (Term 3 - Week 2).  Information will be sent home to parents this afternoon via PAM.  We strongly encourage students to attend the Student Learning Conversations as part of their student voice and agency in their learning, to share their learning from Semester One with you and their learning goals for Term 3. 

Celebrations of Community

Staffing updates

Our congratulations to Sensei Stapledon on her appointment to the Board of Education in Japan.  Sensei will move to Japan to undertake her sabbatical year for this very impressive appointment in developing curriculum.  It is with mixed emotions that we farewell Sensei for the remainder of 2023 and 2024 - we will miss her very much but also wish her all the very best as she undertakes this exciting development in her career.  We look forward to her return at the end of the 2024 school year.  We are currently advertising for a specialist LOTE teacher to replace Sensei for the remainder of the 2023 school year.

Thank you

From Monday to Wednesday this week I had the honour and privilege of attending School Review at another DOSCEL school as part of the Diocesan School Improvement strategy.  A big thank you to Lize Privitera for undertaking the role of Acting Principal in my absence and to our Collective Learning Leaders for supporting Lize while I was away.  

EMP Evacuation Drill

As part of our Emergency Management Plan and Student Safety, our school practiced an Evacuation Drill on Monday led by Helen Fourna our Chief Warden and Lize Privitera.  The plan for the Evacuation was to safely assemble to the Small Oval and to account for all student, staff and visitors in an efficient and timely manner. The Small Oval is our designated Assembly area.  If in the instance we are required to evacuate off school grounds, we can safely move students to our off-site assembly area via Lowry Court Gate and thus avoid the busyness of Ernst Wanke Road.  Congratulations to everyone who took part in the Drill.

School Dates and Events

• Wednesday 21 June - Semester One Reports uploaded into PAM and Student Learning Portfolios distributed
• Thursday 22 June - Last day of Term 2 for students
• Friday 23 June - Staff Term 3 Planning Day
• Monday 10 July - Term 3 begins

Sacrament of Confirmation - Parent Only Workshop

OLHC CDF Payment will be open on Monday, 19th June from 10.00am for parents wishing to organise a prepayment for their child to enrol in the Sacrament of Confirmation this year. There will be two workshops and parents/guardian will need to attend only one of these enrolment nights: Thursday, 20th July and Wednesday, 26th July 2023 starting at 7.00pm (please arrive by 6.45pm to sign-in).

Attendance is compulsory if your child is preparing to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation this year. Children should have been baptised in the Catholic Church and received the Sacraments of First Reconciliation and First Eucharist prior to 2023.  A prepayment of $50.00 must be made via olhc.cdfpay.org.au. This will open on Monday, 19th June and closes Friday 28th July at 3.30pm.  If you have any questions please contact Vea our Sacrament Coordinator at sacraments@olhc.org.au

First Communion celebrations

These will begin this weekend at Our Lady Help of Christians Parish. We keep in our prayers the following students who will be receiving Jesus in the most holy Eucharist for the first time. Congratulations to:

Ruben, Coral, Adiel, Cruz C, Chloe F, and Archer

Class/Whole School Masses and Class Reconciliation celebrations

These are now scheduled for Term 3. Please refer to the attached timetable:

SAVE THE DATE!  The Feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop 

On Saturday, August 5, 2023, at 6.30 p.m., a School Family Mass will be held at Our Lady Help of Christians Church. This Parish Mass invites students and families to take on important roles.  During this mass, students are invited to read and participate in particular roles. Choir members are asked to perform a reflective hymn. Please consider encouraging your child/children to participate actively in this Mass celebration. More information will be posted here in the coming weeks.

Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Sunday, June 25, 2023

Matthew 10:26-33
Jesus assures the Twelve that God cares about them.

We read in next Sunday’s Gospel in the context of last week’s Gospel in which Jesus sent the twelve disciples to proclaim the kingdom of heaven. In between last week’s reading and today’s reading, Jesus has predicted that the disciples will face difficulties in their mission. Jesus tells the disciples that God knows, loves, and protects them. Jesus tells us we do not need to be afraid because the Father knows us and cares for us.

This week brings our Semester of Music to a close. Students from Foundation to Year 6 have participated in a variety of lessons where they have learned to sing and and play songs from all different cultures, composed pieces of music and performed them to their peers. They also listened to different styles of music and discussed what they liked about it and how it made them feel. 

We are so lucky to have a variety of instruments at MMPS. Students have really enjoyed learning many different rhythms and tunes on the Djembe Drums, chime bars and other tuned and untuned percussion instruments. Our newest instruments, the Boomwhackers, have been extremely popular this term! Boomwhackers are coloured pipes which represent the 8 notes in music. Students have been learning how to use them correctly and played lots of fun songs including Sky full of Stars, We Don’t Talk About Bruno and Believer.

It has been so wonderful seeing the excitement and enthusiasm students have shown as they have explored these areas of Music over the past year. When reflecting on their learning this semester, the students shared some of the following: 

Juniors:

Florence and Charlotte - I liked singing La Cucaracha about the little cockroach with no legs and learning the game for the song Charlie Over the Ocean.

Ella - I liked making my own music to be played with the poem.

Noah B - I liked trying to guess if an instrument was tuned or not tuned.

Ally - I liked playing with the Boomwhackers and playing along with the video to learn songs.

Christian - I like playing the chime bars because they make soft sounds. They are tuned instruments.

Middles:

Noah - I really liked music because we got to  learn rhythms, patterns and beats. We listened to different songs and used the boomwhackers to play along. 

Latika- I liked doing the different Just Dances and playing songs with the Boomwhackers. 

Gurgeet - We got to use lots of different instruments like the drums. I liked doing the dances. 

Seniors:

Ashlee - I loved using the Boomwhackers because there are different colours of notes with different sounds and we used them in songs. I liked getting to know the different rhythms with high and low pitches. 

Kairos - We learnt about high and low notes and the letters that are linked with those notes. 

Jayden - I liked using the Boomwhackers to make different kinds of songs. My favourite part was getting to make our own beats. 

Milania - I love how we get to choose the song and use the drums to follow the beat of that song. 

Tyler - The best thing about Music this semester was listening to the songs and playing instruments to them, like the drums and rhythm sticks.

Three Good Things report by Amelia (6MV) and Taylor (6PF)

Last Friday Mrs Fisher, Mrs Fourna, Mrs Privitera and Mrs Jones heard about some amazing things that are happening in our School across Foundation to Year 6.The students who shared with the Leadership Team were acknowledged at Assembly last week. These students shared their 'Three Good Things' from their class. They spoke about their learning and what helps them learn in their classrooms. Then the students showed examples of their learning and the displays in their classrooms that helped them learn.  Thank you to the students who shared last Friday. We will be doing more of this next term.

For our parents and school community you can read more about the 3 Good things next term.  And don’t forget to view the photos too!  We look forward to next term sharing 3 Good Things.

5-SD - Hanisi

• Design & Tech: Making our Healthy Meal/Drink
• Fundraisers: We worked really hard on our student-led fundraisers. After our successful fundraisers, everyone got to share their fundraisers at assembly.
• Lightning Prem: Putting in our preferences for which sport we played

6-PF - Taylor

• Chelsea shared that she was enjoying the learning and  fun of this term’s inquiry units, where we have been making electricity and circuits, model houses with lights / fans / doorbells, and in science completing experiments and learning about chemistry and reversible / irreversible changes. 
• Taylor shared that our learning in Religion lessons has been important and interesting, as we have discussed what being made in the image of god means, and how this relates to all people. We have discussed human dignity and our moral compass to Aboriginal people and Reconciliation week as well.
• Adiel shared that she is enjoying our prayer times in the morning, where we discuss the meaning of Bless This Day and how we can apply these messages for that  day. And also that we have a special reading at the end from Mr Fearnley’s books where we learn more things about life and having a positive attitude.

6-MV - Amelia

• Annabelle shared that during Science we have been able to do experiments and practice our investigative Science skills such as make predictions, follow procedures, make observations and record our findings.
• Amelia shared that we take notes in our books to help increase our knowledge, help us to remember important information and is an example of the ownership of our learning.
• Sienna B - shared how we use the third teacher to help us in our learning. This was about the displays in our room but also the small handouts we get to paste in our books so we can refer to them during our learning e.g length conversion chart.

4-HF - Lilly

• Science experiments - how we investigated the changes in solid and liquids using water and custard powder.
• Assessments - how I am improving on my assessments.

4-CM - Casiana

• Taking notes in my learning to help me remember things.

2-EM - Zayden

• On a Monday, we get a choice of where we sit in the classroom. We need to make sure we choose to sit next to people who will not distract us.
• We get a choice of what activity we complete for mindfulness and skill and drill.
• We got to design our own raft/boat for the Gingerbread Man in Science. We had a choice in what materials we used and how we made our boat/raft.

2-SE - Allyson-May

• Violet - students were taking ownership of their learning by not getting distracted by other people talking.
• Mila - we got to choose an animal to write an information report on.
• Alex A - We used feedback from our teachers to write our good copy information report.

1ER - Elina

• We showed student voice by choosing a topic to write facts about for Information Writing.
• We shared what we knew about Baptism.
• We got to share and reflect on our learning from Term 2.

1-BC - Maya

• Taking ownership of our learning by bringing things from home to use for Share Time.
• Reflecting on the scripture after prayer and sharing our ideas about the message.
• Having a sway in what part of the farm we were going to design and create.

F-SL - Patrick

• After a gallery walk around the classroom, Dante made changes to his cart design by adding some improvements, such as an engine.
• Anja looked at the posters on her table and around the room to make sure she was writing letters and numbers the correct way.
• F-SL told Mrs Lane what they wanted to find out about Church. We are going to find out about these things, such as “Why do they play music?” “How many chairs does a Church have?”.
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Child Safe Standards

Our school is safe, student centred and animated by our school values.  

We aim to Inspire Hearts and Minds.

"Children are the future of the human family: all of us are expected to promote their growth, health and tranquillity." Pope Francis 2021

At Mary MacKillop Primary School, we believe that ensuring the safety of the students in our care is an integral part of who we are as a Catholic faith community. We adhere to Victorian Child Safe Standards and Ministerial Order No. 1359.  We embed a culture of child safety and the matter is taken very seriously.

MMPS Child Safe Standards

Catholic Education Commission of Victoria (CECV)

The updated CECV Statement of Commitment to Child Safety - A safe, nurturing and empowering culture for all children and young people in Catholic schools, is attached to this newsletter.  This statement has been updated in light of the revised Child Safe Standards coming into effect from 1 July 2022 and the supporting Ministerial Order No. 1359