Newsletter No.7 - Term 3, Week 3
Principal & Deputy Principal Message
Dear Families,
This week we celebrate the feast day of Australia’s first saint, Mary of the Cross Mackillop. St Mary found happiness in making other people happy and inspired curiosity, collaboration and creativity in all those she met. She spent her life helping children and striving to create a more caring world, her motto of “never see a need without doing something about it”, is one that we strive to bring into action at St Augustine’s school. This term we welcomed 42 new students and their families to the St Augustine’s Parish School community as we launched our first learner quality of curiosity.
Curiosity is an innate quality of children, they explore, question and wonder. By doing so they develop one of five qualities that we want to encourage all learners at St Augustine’s to have. Being curious makes learning more effective and enjoyable. Below are a few examples of learning that has taken place across the school over the past few weeks and we encourage you to be curious and ask your child what they have been learning in their classroom. As a family you may want to engage in activities that develop curiosity such as reading books, going on nature walks, visiting museums and playing with open ended toys.
In RTH an egg appeared in our classroom. The children all started asking a lot of curious questions about the egg. What kind of egg is it? Will it hatch? What kind of animal will come out of it? They investigated all the different animals that hatch from eggs, then we eliminated eggs that didn't look right. They are still patiently waiting for our egg to hatch.
2SP have also explored being ‘curious’ with a mystery egg. Throughout the day we used post it notes to ask questions and stuck them to our ‘curious wall’. As a class we shared our curious questions and used our 5 senses to wonder what was inside the mystery egg. To practice using question words, we played a game of ‘What am I?’
In 3LM Danny and Ace found a beetle while out in nature play. We used this as an opportunity to get curious about beetles! We each wrote a question that we were curious about on a sticky note and displayed them in our classroom. We then researched beetles and each student created a research map and had so much joy in finding out all about beetles.
5EB have been very engaged and interested in our exploration of curiosity so far. They read “Here We Are” by Oliver Jeffers and then the students shared something they were curious about. Some responses were "I am curious about living things and nature", "I am curious about who is going to be the next President".
6ML were shown the AFL Sydney Swans 2023 indigenous Guernsey designed by Wiradjuri woman Lua Pelligrini. They discussed what they saw in the guernsey including colours, lines, dots and images. They were curious to find out why she painted it and what the messages were in her wonderful artwork.
Dan Cowan, Principal & Michelle Thomas, Deputy Principal
Catholic Identity Updates
St Mary of the Cross MacKillop
There would be very few people who don’t know that Mary MacKillop is Australia’s first saint. Born into fluctuating and unstable times, Mary experienced poverty, stress and loss firsthand. Saints tend to experience great suffering, yet by placing their trust in God, they show us how to grow in faith and trust.
The Feast Day of Mary MacKillop is celebrated in Australia on Thursday 8 August.
St Dominic de Guzman
On the same day, (8 August) it is also the Feast Day of St Dominic de Guzman – founder of the Dominican Preachers. This day is also special in the life of our school and it was the Dominican Sisters who first opened up St Augustine’s Parish School in 1955 with only 2 Dominican Sisters! In those days there was only a red brick building to house the many children who attended: no library, no canteen/tuckshop, no school Office and no staff room. We are grateful to the Dominican Sisters for the legacy they left behind and honour their work of teaching so many children in those early years.
Feast of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven
Throughout the world, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is honoured in the Catholic Church. Her place is a very special one. Mary not only said ‘yes’ to being the mother of Jesus, she is also known as the Mother of God. This means that Jesus is God (the Son) who came into the world taking on the shape of a human and experiencing every emotion that people do. When we walk in another person’s shoes or skin, we know what it feels like.
Mary was especially chosen by God to deliver to the world a child who would be known as Jesus, the Son of God. This privilege comes with special honour. The Catholic Church teaches that Mary, as the Mother of God, did not die and decay in body as others do. The teaching is that Mary died and was taken up to Heaven at the moment of her death. We call this event the Assumption of Mary; or the Feast of the Assumption.
Every Church in every part of the world celebrates the Feast of the Assumption as a tribute to Mary. She is highly honoured.
We will be celebrating a whole school Mass in honour of this Feast Day on Thursday 15 August at 9.30am in the St Augustine’s Church. You are all very warmly welcomed to join us.
During this Mass, the children who made their First Holy Communion in June will be receiving Jesus for the first time at our whole school Mass. Please join us if you can.
Date claimer
On Wednesday 28 August it is our school feast day – St Augustine.
More details to come.
Fr Roderick O’Brien
Fr Roderick O’Brien was a former Parish Priest in Salisbury and left after many years to attend to another parish in Adelaide. We welcome him back again as he supports Fr Shibu in the running of the Parish. Some of the children have already celebrated Mass with Fr Roderick and have enjoyed his interactions with us. Welcome Fr Roderick!
Sacramental Program Update
Our Parish Sacramental Program has 81 children enrolled for this year. The first workshop was led by Fr Shibu as he explained the Mass and then celebrated it with our families. We welcome all of the families to this year’s Program and look forward to journeying together. If you have any queries about the Program, please email me at: rtullio@saps.catholic.edu.au
THOUGHTS
No human journey is ever smooth. It seems that there are many unpredictable twists and turns in life. These are the times when we need to rely on others. People are ushered into our lives to help and support us. Prayer is always about inviting God into our lives, especially when the going is rough. May your prayer for today be one of comfort and hope.
PRAYER
'Lord of love, we come to you with our cares and worries. Lift them from us and shower us with hope and confidence, trusting that you will always provide us with what we need. Amen.'
Dr Rachele Tullio,
Assistant Principal Religious Identity and Mission
Year 6: Rosary Beads for Mary
Ava - 6ZB
3SC: Lobethal Lutheran Excursion
Last Term, Year 3SC went on a bus to Lobethal Lutheran to visit their Pen Pals. We spent time exploring their nature space and learnt a range of new skills.
We began the day sitting around the campfire and making S’mores. They were delicious. After, we got creative and used a range of natural materials to create shelters to protect us from the rain. We loved exploring the river and searching for frogs.
We can’t wait to visit our Pen Pals again and learn more about each other’s diversity and school community.
Sarah Cakalci,
Year 3 Teacher
'Science Alive' Expo
The Enrichment children created some amazing work for the Mark Oliphant Science Awards. Some of these were displayed at "Science Alive" expo on the weekend at Wayville Showground.
These items will be on display at St Augustine’s in the library. The library will also be open on Teacher Parent Interview late night, Monday 12 August and any morning from 8:30 – 8:50 until the end of term. Please feel free to come in and have a look at these display.
The 2 entries below were successful in achieving recognition:
- A model “Farming” by Charlotte and Zoe received a Rowe Scientific award – Sponsors Prize award.
- An online game “The Anatomy game” made by Joel and Brianna received a highly commended.
Jayne Brown,
Leader of Learning - Numeracy & Year 6 Teachers.
SACPSSA Cross Country Carnival
On Wednesday 23 August, some of our enthusiastic students attended the SACPSSA Cross Country Carnival.
Our students showcased incredible determination and sportsmanship throughout the day. The 2km course, tested their endurance and grit. Despite the tough competition, our runners gave their all, and their hard work paid off with impressive results.
Highlights of the day included:
- Outstanding Performances:
Several of our students achieved personal bests, setting new records for themselves and achieving top 50 finishes out of over 150 runners.
- Medal Winners:
A special congratulations to Khai who finished in first place in Year 6 Boys Div. C.
- Participation and Effort:
Every student who participated deserves recognition. Completing the course is an achievement in itself, and each runner demonstrated remarkable effort and determination.
The success of this event would not have been possible without the support of our dedicated staff. We would like to thank Ms. Ricciuto, Mr. Boutros and Mr. Tullio for their support on the day.
Congratulations to all our participants and thank you to everyone who made this day a resounding success!
Bo Roper & Dylan Baker,
Health & PE Teachers
Book Week Parade 2024
Catholic Schools Music Festival
Canteen
HELP REQUIRED
If you are available to volunteer in the canteen, your help would be greatly appreciated.
Please contact us on 8182 7900
Uniform Shop
The school uniform can only be purchased from Belgravia Apparel which is located at:
Shop 16 Craigmore Village
170-190 Yorktown Road
CRAIGMORE
Phone: 8307 1801
Opening times are:
- Monday: 8.30am – 12.30pm
- Wednesday: 1.00pm – 5.30pm
- Friday: 8.30am – 12.30pm
Uniform fittings are by appointment only.
Collections of online orders are available only when the shop is open (see above times).
Please book an appointment or place an online order using the following link:
Diary Dates - Term 3
Week 4
Learning Conversations: Monday 12 August - Friday 16 August
Feast of the Assumption - Whole School Mass: Thursday 15 August
Week 5
Book Week Parade "Reading is Magic": Tuesday 20 August
Catholic School Open Week: Monday 19 August - Friday 23 August
SAPSASA Year 5 & 6 Soccer Carnival: Friday 23 August
Week 6
St Augustine's Feast Day - School Mass & Fun Fair: Wednesday 28 August
Week 8
Sport's Day: Thursday 12 September
Pupil Free Day: Friday 13 September
Week 9
Northern Cluster T-Ball Carnival, Year 4 & 5: Friday 20 September
Week 10
Choir Performance (Festival Theatre): Wednesday 25 September
Last Day of TERM 3 - 12.30pm finish: Friday 27 September