Term 2 Week 1 (29/04/2022)

What is On?

Week 2, Term 2 - Catholic Schools Week 

Monday 2nd May - Liturgy to celebrate our school 10am. Morning tea afterwards provided by Parent Assembly.

Tuesday 3 May - School Sausage sizzle- 4pm -6pm ish       ALL WELCOME 

Wednesday 4th May - Maclean Show Day - half day Public Holiday - school closes at 12pm 

Wednesday 4th May - Zone Cross Country - Grafton

Thursday 5th May - Netball Carnival - Maclean

Friday 6th May - Mother's Day Gathering,  7am

10th to 13th May - NAPLAN -Year 3 and 5 Students

Tuesday 24th May - Dio Cross Country 

Tuesday 7th June - Polding Cross Country

Friday 24 June - School Athletics Carnival

Thursday 30th June - Confirmation

Thursday 30th June - Last day term 2 for students

Friday 1st July - Staff Development Day - Pupil Free Day

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK

Welcome to Catholic Schools Week. In this week we have several events that represent who we are as  a community of learners. 

Community 

Care

Compassion 

Today a list of our events came home " on paper!". We hope to see everyone at some time in the week.

Dear Parents and Carers

Welcome back to Term 2.  This coming week we are excited to have families on site for prayer, morning tea, a sausage sizzle, visits to classrooms, Mother's Day morning and for any other reason. I have had a few parents ask if it is ok to come on site at any time.

Please know that the answer to that question is PLEASE DO.  

All schools are fully open once more, all schools are keen to have the community on site. 

See you somewhere this week on site! 

Can I thank and acknowledge the children and families who marched on Anzac Day. Thank you for your involvement. Today the rain beat us and we were unable to visit the cenotaph for the Call. We will reschedule this for later in the year on a significant date to maintain the connection.  (thanks Nadeen and Lisa for the photos)

Anzac March 2022

Wednesday we have a group of 28 going to Grafton for the Zone Cross Country. Due to the weather the venue is still to be confirmed. I am very glad we were able to hold our school event on Wednesday and have our families on site. Thank you Mr Dougherty and staff for the arrangements. On Thursday morning, I met lots of kids with sore legs, which tells me how much effort every child put into their runs. Well done!  

Tuesday and Friday are days when we are catering for our families. On COMPASS this weekend there will be a notice asking interested families to RSVP with numbers for catering, for both the sizzle and the Mother's Morning to yamp@lism.catholic.edu.au . We have ordered 400 sausages already but do not want to be caught short! There will be no cost for either event as we are so excited to actually have an event on site. 

We have had several cases of Covid notified late this week right across the school. Please remain vigilant as while these cases were not present all week there is still a need to remain careful and close contact adults( who do not hold an exemption) must wear a mask when on site.

Canteen remains closed as we need to readvertise the position for the remainder of the year. This will be done throught the CSO portal this week. 

At the moment I am in the middle of enrolment interviews for 2023. It is lovely to visit classrooms to celebrate learning. To see settled and engaged learners and busy classrooms is very gratifiying and we continue to focus on growth with  every child in our care. 

Have a wonderful weekend

Ann

COMPASS outage

This week we have had a significant outage with COMPASS. I have spoken at length with the manager at the CSO this afternoon, after looking at parent devices to see what is or isn't working. Our issues have been sent forward to cnet for resolution. The issues appear to be in several areas.

These appear to be

- not getting notifications on the app,

-not getting events notices in the app after receiving an email to say there is a task to complete

-and getting a message saying that you need to reset everything.

I did ask whether this had happened elsewhere but the events module issue seems new. I have been asked to find out what versions families are using ( 6.3.1 is the most recent) and what operating system is being used. (apple or andriod and what version). If I have missed any issues can you please send an email to yamp@lism.catholic.edu.au so that I can add these to the list. 

As in interim measure the advice is to open the menu ( 3 bars) and scroll down to

-open in brower-  and go online.

As staff, we can say that we have to " open browser "for some items in COMPASS but it is not as easy to read. It may suit some. The  laptop version is a very easy read, however we know many families do not use laptops as a default tool. 

As this is the diocesan system going forward, we need to get the system working for everyone. In discussion with CSO there will be a support plan put in place in the next 2 weeks. ( day and time  to be confirmed). 

Together we serve

Each year we develop a mantra which expresses our School Plan for the year. This year we have spent considerable time seeking to build understanding of the focus on service and you will have seen examples of this already. Our Mantra is used around the school or in our communications. 

There were 5 options to consider from suggestions to develop the mantra. These were-

Community of service 

We will serve

I serve

Working together to serve our community

and by consensus the 2022 mantra is expressed as

Together we serve

We will continue to work with the children and families on developing further opportunities to respond to this focus, with the mantra a great reminder of what we are seeking to achieve. 

Public Holiday

This Wednesday the school will close at 12:00pm as this is a 1/2 day Public Holiday. We  will have a team in Grafton at this time and on return the children will need to be collected from school as there will be no afternoon supervision. We ask that families make every effort to make arrangements for care at this time, as we have very limited opportunity to supervise. If you are unable to make other arrrangements please contact me directly. There will be no bus services in the middle of the day. 

Protocol for forms seeking teacher input

While the staff are eager to support children by completing forms from outside agencies who require school input for assessments, the protocol is that these are sent to the office and not directly to teachers or through other staff.  All documentation would be released by the principal or delegate to maintain privacy. In some cases (where appropriate) a copy may be retained. This is in line with the school's Risk Management Procedure underpinned by the Diocesan Risk Management and Privacy Policies. This week there have been several forms handed to staff which have not followed this process and as such this is a timely reminder. 

Sport Dates 2022

Cross Country

- Zone - Grafton, Wednesday 4th May

-Dio - Grafton, Tuesday 24th May

-Polding - Tuesday 7th June

Athletics

-School - Yamba, Friday 24th June

-Zone - Coffs Harbour, Wednesday 20th July

-Dio - Lismore, Friday 12th August

-Polding - Newcastle, Friday 9th September

SACRAMENTAL DATES 2022

Confirmation- Thursday 30th June, from 5:30pm at St Mary’s Church, Maclean.

Reconciliation- Wednesday 24th August, 11:40am in school hall.

First Holy Communion- Saturday 27th August, 5:30pm at St James Church, Yamba

Sport News

Cross Country

On Wednesday we held our school Cross Country races. Whilst there was some water lying around due to the early morning rain, we were actually lucky enough to have the sun come out to allow us to get all the races completed. There were a few slips and slides and a bit of mud but none of it dampened the enthusiasm of all those who took part. 

Our age champions were -

8/9yrs - Iyla Towner and Jake Seivers

10yrs - Isabel Duckett and Alfie Ison

11yrs - Marlie Zvatora and Kydan Jones

12yrs - Heidi Van Leest and Will Hutchinson

Winning House on the day was Turners!

A team will now be selected to compete at the Clarene Zone carnival to be held in Grafton next Wednesday 4th May. Parents of those students who are selected will be sent all the information via the Compass app.

Rugby Union

Eamon Mawn and Levi O’Shea were selected in the Clarence Zone Rugby Union team at the end of last term and will be travelling to Grafton next Friday, 6th May, to compete at the Diocesan Rugby Union carnival. Good luck boys.

2022 NAPLAN dates 10-13 May, 2022

2022 NAPLAN dates 10-13 May, 2022

For Years 3 and 5 students-

NAPLAN is not a test that children can prepare for in the same way they might prepare for an end of term test. NAPLAN tests skills that develop and improve over time. These are skills that should be continuously developed throughout the year and not just in the lead-up to NAPLAN.

The best way to get your child ready for NAPLAN is to continue to develop literacy and numeracy skills. Your child’s teacher will be able to give you advice on how to help encourage development of these skills at home.

Christine Jeffrey

Early Stage 1

What a busy first week back. ES1 enjoyed their first ever Cross Country. The children wore their new ‘Carnival Shirts’ and competed with big smiles on their faces! Students mentioned that a highlight was cheering on their friends and siblings! We have also been listening to Anzac stories and making a wreath to take to the local cenotaph.

Stage 1

It was so lovely to see the students smiling faces again as we returned to the classroom on Tuesday. We were even lucky enough to welcome Mrs Kelly (Miss Smith) back to our classroom after taking a break to get married. Students have settled into our classroom routines and are enjoying our new investigation stations. Some of our investigations this term include mini beasts, construction, fairy dough and a weather station. Some of our favourites will remain including our nursery, water play area, potions and painting. Stage 1 also took part in our cross country on Wednesday, fun was had by all - especially with the mud!

Stage 2

This week we visited the Yamba Cenotaph to learn about it’s history. We also had an opportunity to reflect on what ANZAC Day means to us. 

ANZAC day is important to us because the people who went to war sacrificed their lives for us so that we can live a free and happy life. ANZAC day is also important because it is a time to think about how lucky we are to have what we have. 

Zoe

ANZAC day is important to us because people went and served in the war and risked their lives. Some made it back but some were unlucky and did not. On ANZAC day we remember these people that died in the war.

Clarry

ANZAC day is so important to us because it is when we remember everybody who died in war. 

Billie

ANZAC day is important to us because soldiers sacrificed their lives for us. They saved our country and we should respect them and love them.

Levi C

ANZAC day is important to me because my Grandad was in the war. My family and I wake up really early and head down to Main Beach (Cenotaph). This day is special because the people that went to war served for us. At this time of year we need to pay respect to those who sacrificed themselves for us.

Lola

ANZAC day is important to us because people sacrificed to save their family and their country.

ANZAC day is important to us because we remember people with love. If I was in the army I couldn’t do what they did. ANZAC day is important to us because people we all love have gone to war.

Layla

ANZAC day is important to us because it helps us to remember the sacrifices that Australian soldiers made to keep our country safe. It helps us think about all the soldiers who went to war.

Dean

ANZAC day is important to us because our grandads and fathers went into the army to protect our land. Some kept going and died. Some people lost their Dads and Grandads but they should remember they died  as heroes. We are lucky to live in Australia.

Isabel

Stage 3

Geography

In Geography, we learnt about the United Nations (UN) and how they are in charge of very serious and important meetings to discuss global issues. The UN is an organisation between countries promoting international cooperation where nations send diplomats to meetings at the official (UN) headquarters which is located in New York. The diplomat for Australia is Mitch Fifeild who has a permanent position in the UN. Geography is very important in Stage 3 because students have a great interest in different countries, cultures and places. 

Cross Country

This week on Wednesday we had our Cross Country. Everyone ran extremely well despite the heat and water obstacles. There was a new part added to the track this year to include our bush playground. It was really exciting to use this section of land and made the course fun for everyone.

Our age champions included;

8 & 9yrs - Jake Seivers & Iyla Towner 

10yrs - Alfie Ison &  Isabel Duckett

11yrs - Kydan Jones and Marlie Zvatora

12yrs - Will Hutchinson and Heidi Van Leest

The overall winning house was TURNERS!!!!!!!!

Cenotaph Visit 

On Thursday, we caught the bus at 11:30am to go to the Cenotaph at Main beach.  We looked at it as archaeologists, look specifically at the old and new things on and around the Cenotaph.  Later, we practised the ‘Call of the Fallen’ which we will be doing on Friday. The ‘Call of the Fallen’ is when we read the names of the fallen soldiers from our local community, and we will respond ‘present’ to each name, honouring and remembering each individual. This custom is performed in France each year, with the local French people paying their respects to the ANZAC’s that also fought for them.

Birthdays

Fionn Mawn - 2nd May, Levi O'Shea - 4th May, Christopher D'Antonio - 7th May, Mrs Dougherty - 7th May, Pippi Short - 8th May,