CONGRATULATIONS and THANK YOU

Congratulations and thank you to all in our school community for making it to the end of Term 3.  While we were not planning on being in lockdown and remote schooling for the majority of the term, we give thanks to our students, parents, teachers and support staff for their enduring spirit and dedication throughout the term. 

Being in and out of lockdown can be draining to say the least, but we have made it through and have so much to celebrate – our students’ adaptability and resilience, our parents' love and support, our staffs' passion and commitment.  Thank you to all.  We wait in hope for the Premier to outline the roadmap out of lockdown this Sunday and look forward to our school community being back on site - hopefully in the near future.

We have finished off the term with a specialist focus.  Thank you to Mr Tim and Sensei Marshall for the amazing activities and celebrations of learning provided to our students.  Footy Day was a highlight of the week and we are looking forward to celebrating our Japanese Cultural Day tomorrow.  In this edition of the newsletter we share our students’ learning in the specialist subject areas – thank you to all our specialist teachers for their creativity and talents and for providing opportunities for our students to thrive in these learning areas.

YEAR 6 STUDENT LEADERS – CHILD SAFETY MESSAGE

We are very proud of our year 6 School Leaders and the production of their Child Friendly version of our Child Safe Policy.  Our students’ commitment to this work, ensuring our school is a child safe school and everyone understands the importance of, and enacts Child Safety is imperative to embedding a Child Safe culture.  We will be uploading our Year 6 leaders work on our School website this week - please take the time to view their exceptional work. We look forward to sharing this very important message with all our students when we return to school.

STAY SAFE and HAPPY HOLIDAYS

We wish our families and staff a safe and relaxing holiday break.  We will communicate with families over the holiday break as soon as we know what the road out of lockdown looks like.  At this stage, we are not sure if Remote Schooling will be continuing into Term 4 and will inform families as soon as this information is to hand.

Term 4 begins Monday 4 October at 8.45 am 

A lovely ‘Thank you and Certificate of Appreciation’ was received from Mary MacKillop Today for our fundraising efforts held earlier this term. Student engagement and contribution in the level activities give witness to social justice and faith in action, as we make a difference to others in our world living in poverty and helping them to realise their dignity and full potential.

Fan the Flame

Towards Plenary Assembly One October 2021

‘Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me;’

Mark 9:30-37

Our parishes, in particular, are challenged to renew the formation of children, young people and families who may not be strongly connected to the Church but who still have an ‘instinct for the faith’ which prompts them to seek the sacraments or engage in part with of the Church’s life.

(Instrumentum Laboris #133)                 www.plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/fantheflame/

Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Sunday, September 19, 2021

 Mark 9:30-37

In next Sunday’s Gospel, we learn that some of Jesus’ first disciples argued about which of them was the greatest or the most important. Even they wanted to be famous! Jesus teaches them something surprising about what it means to be great in God’s eyes. Jesus teaches us in the Sunday Gospel that God does not care how popular we are. There is only one thing that is important in God’s view of us: Have we served others generously with love?

Term holidays are just around the corner! Take the time to get ready for those sunny days ahead and by spending your time in the garden, walking, riding or watching a movie together.

Hoping by now most of the students received a special mail drop from the Staff as well as a special bookmark provided by The Diocese of Sale Catholic Education Limited (DOSCEL).

Wishing all our students and their families a safe and relaxing next two weeks.

OLHC Parish

Our Lady Help of Christians Parish Information

Mary MacKillop Primary School is one of the three Parish Primary Schools belonging to the Parish of Our Lady Help of Christians, Narre Warren within the Diocese of Sale. Fr Brendan Hogan is our Parish Priest and Fr Isuru Weliwatte is our Assistant Priest. We are grateful for their ongoing prayers, involvement and support of the students, families and staff of Mary MacKillop School. 

Parish Bulletin

Click on the link below to download the weekly newsletter.

Parish-Bulletin

In Foundation to Year 2 Discovery Centre, students have been collecting, soring and exploring ways to represent data in digital environments. It has been a very exciting few weeks using google sheets to creatively display and share our work online safely. 

Middle Level  - ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Interactive Story

Over the last few weeks the Year 3 and 4 students have been making their own Information System for entertainment. They had to plan their story using a tree diagram to help make different decisions and a storyboard to help the story flow and find appropriate pictures. Once planned, they used Google Slides to create their stories by using pictures, backgrounds, fonts and animations and the links provided to make them interactive and entertaining for an audience. Here is what some of the students have to say about the task:

Mila V - 3AS The activity was to create slides for an information system to entertain an audience. We learnt how to create slides, links, creating a plan, backgrounds, pictures and animations. I enjoyed this activity because I learnt something new, making slides and entertaining an audience. I found this challenging because the animations did not work but I fixed it in the end.   

Xavier G - 3AS The activity was about choosing my own adventure. I went to the beach and zoo with my sister.  I found adding the pictures and backgrounds challenging. I really enjoyed making up the story.

Taylor N - 4HF The activity was to create a story to entertain an audience. I learnt to plan and create a narrative story using google slides. I also learnt how to animate a picture. I enjoyed finding different ways to animate the pictures and I also enjoyed making my slides colourful. I found that the links weren't working and I had to try and fix it.

Seniors - Data Collection and Sorting - Travel Budget Project

The Year 5 and 6 students are currently completing a project on data by gathering, sorting and calculating information.  They used Google Sheets to create a Travel Budget to the continent/s they are currently learning for their Geography Inquiry unit. Here is what some of the students have to say about the project:

Alanna S 5SD  This activity was about learning how to use different functions and formulas to calculate data in Google Sheets. I enjoyed using the formulas because they have saved me a lot of time. I found it challenging to do 5 different places to visit, but I was still able to get my work done. 

Sienna H 6RJ  Throughout these past weeks the Year 6's have been planning a trip to places in Europe and North America. We have been given a budget of $20,000 to plan this trip and have been using Spreadsheets, Google Slides, and Google Maps to present our information. During this activity I most enjoyed collecting information about different places around the world. I particularly found some cell formulas hard to do and paste on my work but I got there in the end.

MMPS Japanese Cultural Festival!

Friday, September 17th 2021

 こんにちは！Konnichiwa!

All students will have the opportunity to participate in a range of language and cultural-based activities tomrrow, Friday 17 September 2021. Students are invited to dress up in Japanese inspired outfits to celebrate the day.  Some dress up suggestions are listed below.  Some materials useful for the day include - chopsticks (or pencils substitute), paper cups (or yoghurt tub substitute) tin foil, string, cotton balls, paper (for origami, games) and some food items (such as uncooked pasta, cereal, rice).

Dress-up suggestions:

• Karate/Judo outfit
• Kimono Dress
• Characters such as Pikachu or other Pokémon, Hello Kitty, Nintendo characters such as Mario Brothers,
• White T-shirt with a red circle (Flag)
• White or pink T-shirt with cherry blossom cut out (Sakura)

 ありがとう！Arigatou! 

FOOTY DAY TUESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER

Well done to all students for their participation in remote footy day activities on Tuesday. It's a shame we couldn't celebrate together at school, but we were all impressed with the enthusiasm from the students at home and on site. Students participated in various activities on the day including skill challenges, footy related maths, literacy, art and inquiry activities and various other quizzes and games.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all children for their work with remote learning PE activities this term. Reading the emails, seeing the photos and watching the videos sent in on a Wednesday really puts a smile on my face and makes my day.

Thank you also to parents and families for your support with the students for these activities, I hope some of these  have given you the opportunity to interact with your child during their learning. 

Enjoy the holidays with your family and the AFL  Grand Final. GO BULLDOGS!!!!!!

This has been another unusual year, with plenty of challenges. We had hoped that the second part of the year could be devoted to Reader’s Theatre, but COVID had other ideas! However, students have had a chance to give free rein to their creative impulses. They have chosen to write poems in a variety of forms - from acrostics to odes to diamantes. Some of the poems are funny, some introspective and some very serious … they are just as diverse as our students.

We hope you enjoy the offerings of our budding poets!

What a busy rerm this has been with both onsite and remote learning continuing at home!

All students should be very proud of their efforts during this difficult time, especially when sending me photos and pictures of their work that they created. I hope that all the students have enjoyed the tasks that they have had a go at and completed while we haven’t been at school, and hopefully we can all be back soon, creating works of art.

From Foundation students creating birds nests and bubble art to the Year 6’s who have created print paintings and symmetrical snowflakes, here is a sample of some of the work that has been created.