Our Explicit Improvement Agenda

Student Voice and Agency

Planning for improved student learning

New date for School Photos

Due to circustances beyond our control,  school photos will now be held on Thursday 7 April (last day of term).  Please ensure your child is dressed in their SUMMER UNIFORM.  If your child has sport on this day (4-HF & 5-SD & 5-AB), please send their runners in a separate bag so they can change into them for their sport lesson.  Year 6 students are permitted to wear their Year 6 polo shirt for the photo.  To help prevent outbreaks of headlice, all students with hair longer than collar length, must have it tied up. 

Family photo orders will need to be placed by Wednesday 6 April and all other orders received by 9am Friday 8 April.

Student Learning Portfolios - Term 1

We have had considerable disruption to our staffing with COVID-19 isolation rules over the course of the term.  Therefore the Term 1 Student Learning Portfolios will be sent home to parents in the first week of Term 2.  As Term 2 is considered a ‘short’ Term, the Term 2 Student Learning Portfolios will be sent home in the first week of Term 3.  Semester One Student Reports will be uploaded into PAM at the end of Term 2 and the mid year Student Learning Conversations will be in Week 2 of Term 3.

End of Term Dates

Term 1 for students concludes on Thursday 7 April at 3.15 pm.  Friday 8 April is a student free day - Staff Professional Learning Day.  

Road Works Duplication

Updated information on the Road Works Duplication of Narre Warren North road is attached below, for your information:

Vaccination Clinic - Narre Warren North Community

A vaccination clinic will be set up at school for students and anyone in the Narre Warren North community who would like to be vaccinated.  St. Mark’s Medical Centre will administer the COVID-19 vaccinations at school on Saturday 9 April, 2022 from 3.00 - 4.00 pm.  Bookings can be made via the link below.  Children must be accompanied by their parent.

https://www.hotdoc.com.au/medical-centres/cranbourne-north-VIC-3977/st-marks-medical-centre/doctors/mary-mackillop-primary-school-covid-19-vaccination

Stations of the Cross Liturgy will be celebrated during our whole school morning prayer time on Thursday 7th April 2022 beginning at 8.50am. Each class has been allocated a station of the cross and will share a portrayal of the allocated station via a Google meet presented in the classrooms remembering the story of Jesus’ last few days.

All classroom Project Compassion will be returned to the school office by Thursday 7th April 2022. Your generosity to Caritas Australia  improves the livelihoods of vulnerable communities, supporting them to flourish and create opportunities for future generations to live to their full potential and thrive.   If you missed donating you can donate online via the Caritas website at lent.caritas.org.au

ANZAC APPEAL

The Anzac Appeal raises funds to support former and serving members of the Australian Defence Forces and dependents when in need. Most of the funds are raised through RSL  Appeals with the sale of Anzac merchandise. The Berwick RSL has supplied a number of items for purchase. School leaders will visit each classroom to let students know of the Anzac merchandise available for purchase. Items range from $2-$5

STUDENT FUNDRAISING

Alexia:

Hello everyone, My name is Alexia from 6PF.  You may remember me from my Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal last year when I sold badges. I have decided to do my fundraiser a little bit differently this year by doing it together with my mum. 

My mum and I have both put our love of art to good use and have done a painting that we enjoyed doing. We both used acrylic paint on stretched canvas and they have both been sealed with varnish. My mum and I want to do this for the same reason as last year and that is to help the kids get better and get out of the hospital and to raise money for research and equipment to help them do so. It is also our family tradition to give back to the hospital for the help they gave mum when she was younger.  The paintings have been professionally framed and donated by Framing to a T in Hallam.

I would love it if you could please place a bid and not only own the original artwork but know that you are supporting a worthy cause at the same time.  For more information and to start bidding please click on this link

 https://shoutforgood.com/auctions/alexiasmagicalappeal

Donations are also welcome.

Thank you - Alexia and Trish

Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

Sunday, April 3, 2022

In next Sunday’s Gospel, we will hear about a woman who has made a poor choice. The people who bring her to Jesus think the sin is so bad that it cannot be forgiven. Jesus says that only people who have never sinned can judge the woman. The people walk away because they have all sinned. Only Jesus is without sin. God knows us well, and he does not judge us. God sees the big picture, not just one puzzle piece. He always forgives us and shows mercy toward us. When we look at other people, we can try to see all the puzzle pieces, not just one. We can show others love and mercy.

Parent Education

Webinars for Parents

As part of your school's membership with Parenting Ideas, all the parents and carers in your school community can attend our webinars for parents at no cost. This year, we’re thrilled to be able to connect your school community with some of Australia's most respected parenting speakers and authors:

•   Dr Justin Coulson
•   Michael Grose
•   Dr Jodi Richardson
•   Michelle Mitchell

Download the annual program

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 Ajin Albarnas 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

Year 3 Prayer Mats

The Year 3’s shared their prayer cloths last week at assembly, that included some thoughts and ideas behind why they chose the Mary MacKillop quote and the special images that they added. 

3BE - Students made the following comments:

This is 3BE’s prayer cloth. In 3BE our class quote is - “Trust in God who helps you in all things.”

We worked hard on our prayer cloth to show our love for God. We know that he would be pleased with our hard work.

Our message from Mary MacKillop is to always trust God. In 1874 Mary MacKillop said, “Trust in God who helps you in all things.” We chose this quote because we believe that God will always guide us to do the right thing. We need to listen to him.

We chose the symbol of the cross because it reminds us that Jesus died for us. It also shows our love for Jesus and his love for us.

We decorated our crosses with flowers and many vibrant colours to remind us that God has created such a lovely, colourful world for us. We also thought of Andrew Chinn’s Rainbow Song as it reminds us of our colourful world that is a gift from God. We also used love hearts to remind us of God’s love for us.

3RJ - Students made the following comments:

This is 3RJ’s prayer cloth. In 3RJ our class quote is - “Never see a need without doing something about it.”

We read through lots of Mary MacKillop’s quotes, but this one was our favourite because we think it’s important to always make sure we take care of others when they need it. 

Our prayer mat was designed by Abyei. It has crosses to represent Jesus and hearts to represent the love we have for God and each other. 

To represent each person in 3RJ, we have all coloured in a heart and cross and written our names on our design. 

EARTH HOUR

Last weekend was Earth Hour. Earth Hour is when people turn off their lights and stop using power to show that they care for and want to help the environment. The whole school turned off their lights from 10-11am last Friday, to save power. We hope this can influence people to help the environment in the future.

It has been a busy few weeks in the Art room where we have been finishing off our drawing pieces and now creating collage pieces. 

Foundation

To finish off our learning about drawing the students created self portraits using lines, shapes, colours and patterns. They used these things to create interest to their drawings by adding details such as patterns on clothing and jewellery. They also learnt to add a background to their drawings. These are on display in the art room entrance, come and have a look. 

In the past few lessons the students we have been discovering how we can create pictures using paper, glue, scissors and glue to create lines and shapes. We also enjoyed a lesson outside where they worked in groups and used natural materials such as leaves, sticks and gumnuts and used their imagination to create animals and creatures such as butterflies, caterpillars and dragons. 

Juniors

To finish off our learning students created a background of a place of their choice such as a the beach or the mountains and used lines and colour to add interest and fill the entire space of the page.  They then chose an object of choice that would fit in their setting and used lines, shapes, colours and pattern to add lots of details to their pictures. 

Over the last few weeks we have been studying the work on Pete Cromer and how he uses collage, in particular different shapes and colours  to create a range of different animals including birds. The students then created their own birds inspired by his work.

こんにちは、

This week in Japanese class, Foundation students learnt how to write konnichiwa in hiragana characters. Konnichiwa means ‘hello’ in Japanese. Foundation students also learn about traditional Japanese dress called kimono.

SENIOR LIGHTNING PREMIERSHIP   

Congratulations to all senior students who participated in the Berwick District Lightning Premiership Day. The vast majority of students did a wonderful job representing the school by being outstanding role models, displaying great sportsmanship and skills and achieved great results. Special congratulations to our Boys/mixed tennis team who were premiers on the day and will go on to compete at Division level later in the year.

YEAR 3 -6 CROSS COUNTRY 

All year 3-6 students will participate in our school Cross Country day on Wednesday April 27 (2nd day back of Term 2) The students will run the following distances:

• Year 3 - 1.2 km
• Year 4- 1.8 km
• Year 5 /6 - 2.4 km

Students should wear their sports uniform including a T shirt , the same colour as their house colour.  If students are unsure of their house colour, they should ask their class teacher.

• Portland - Blue
• Fitzroy - Red
• Penola - Green
• Eden - Yellow 

The event will take place at school at the times below.  Please note, all times are approximates and may start earlier or later than stated.

• Year 6 - 09:00am
• Year 5 - 09:45am
• Year 4 - 11:20am
• Year 3 - 12:00 pm

The students in these year levels have been doing some training in Physical Education lessons. It would also be beneficial if they were to do some training over the holiday period if it is possible. Please note that this is a compulsory event. If your child is unable to participate for a medical reason, please provide your child’s class teacher with a note. The school Cross Country team will be selected from the results on this day. The team will participate in the Berwick District Cross Country Day on May 10.

Years 4-6

The students have been very busy learning about input and output devices. The Year 4’s have also been using circuits to power globes and motors. Through exploring the use of a Makey Makey circuit device they have discovered they can turn anything that is conductive into an input device. We have been having lots of fun playing banana and carrot pianos and turning our graphite pencil drawings into a working circuit to make music.