2023 End of Term 3 Newsletter

Principal’s Report

Dear Families, and Friends,

Often the role of principal sees me buried under the obligatory desk duties and meetings. This term was particularly hectic and enjoyed the opportunities afforded to sneak away and witness the focus of our work – the children. This term Mel from ‘Galaxy Dance Company’, has been taken our ‘students out of this world’ with her engaging props and inviting music. Please see the photos of our infants students and their belly dancing bells and scarves enjoying their tutelage – they speak for themselves! The students are loving the experience and we will be sure to continue our relationship with Galaxy Dance Company.

We welcome Mrs Laura Collins and Mr Blake Sellers to St Dominic’s. Mrs Collins started with us thi term and is very familiar with the Catholic system being a local and attending Catholic and Primary high schools. Mrs Collins has a number of years experience in diverse learning teaching and will be teaching a very lucky Aqua class. Mr Sellers is a familiar face amongst our community. Mr Sellers has relocated from interstate and is rejoining us from week 10 on Green Class. Our wonderfully talented and flexible Mrs Shailey Biddle will move across to Yellow Class. We thank your patience as we continue to seek the best staffing for our classes.

Two major events at the end of this term included Perpetual Day of Remembrance and National Child Protection Week. Please see the letter of recognition from Bishop Michael Kennedy here: 

St Dominic’s has recently undergone a facilities audit including our buildings and playground spaces. This has resulted in nominated building works which we are hoping will commence over the September/October holiday period. Prior to this audit, we were required to cease on site activities, however we have been advised we can move forward with smaller events in Term 4. We miss our families being able to be engaged in our community and looking forward to celebrating again with you in Term 4.

Wishing our families and friends a warm and relaxing holiday period. Looking forward to seeing you all in Term 4.

Blessings,
Rachel

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Assistant Principal Report

Thank you to all the families and therapists who were part of our Semester 2 Personalised Planning Review meetings a couple of weeks ago. These meetings are a valuable opportunity to review students’ progress, achievements and goals as we move into the end of the year.  Thank you to parents for ensuring this paperwork has been returned by the end of Term 3.

At St Dominic’s our curriculum is modified and adjusted to meet the individual needs of students and links closely to students Personalised Planning Goals. During Term 3, Primary classes have continued to have a strong focus on phonic development through the morning PLD program. It has also been exciting to see many classes focus on developing and writing persuasive texts which have been related to a focus story each week or an event that may be happening within the school.

Secondary classes follow a Life Skills Curriculum for all KLAs, they explore many opportunities to embed practical skills in the delivery of the curriculum which form part of their community access including Café Club and weekly shopping trips to supply items for St Dom’s Bites.  Secondary classes have also developed a variety of pervasive pieces writing about English films, school events and even having a three-day weekend – which many staff and students were very supportive off!!!!

 Well Done to all our students and staff for another fabulous term. 

Coordinators Report

All classes have completed the second round of Personalised Planning meetings for the year, which has been a great way to share our students successes and progress with families. Please check your child’s bag to sign a copy and return to school before end of this term.

Secondary have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in weekly tennis coaching sessions at Empire Park which we have seen great skill development and enjoyment for both staff and students. This has encouraged more of our classes to come along during Term 4. Excursion information will be out soon.

Everyone is enjoying being back in the kitchen each week with our whole school cooking timetable, with plenty of scrumptious treats being whipped up. The cooking practice links across several KLA’s and helps build essential life skills for all our students.

Book week was a huge success, and we hope you all had a chance to join us through the live stream. The costumes were fantastic which made for a wonderful parade. Well done to all classes and to all you families for getting involved in a day which we know students (and staff) look forward to every year.

Yellow Class

Angela Morris
Primary Coordinator

Term 3 in Yellow Class has been full of excitement! We have been participating in gymnastics at school as well as dance classes through external providers. We loved hanging from the bar in gymnastics, and our favourite dance lesson was moving our hips with Turkish coin skirts on.  Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to Mrs N, and we thank her for her effort and contribution to Yellow Class’s learning throughout the year.

We have been completing PLD activities each day and working through a new book each week exploring persuasive texts. Students loved “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” and made alternate endings to the story. During Maths we engage in daily skip counting and then explore a different topic each week, such as data, chance, forming groups, shapes, time and location. We enjoyed cutting and pasting objects onto a map for location and made a farm scene using prepositions. Our recent theme for Religion has been exploring baptism. We have been looking at the symbols and objects associated with baptism as well as sequencing the celebration of being welcomed into God’s family.

We hope you all have a happy break filled with rest and fun activities with your families.

Aqua Class

The students have been engaged in lots of experiences this term including PLD tasks and handwriting. We have been listening to stories such as ‘Are We There Yet?’, ‘Walking with the Seasons’, ‘On Our Way to the Beach’, ‘Great Barrier Reef’ and ‘Somewhere in Australia’, to name a few.

Students have had the opportunity to participate in Maths, learning about counting 1-100, counting by 2’s to 100, 10’s to 100, addition, subtraction, fractions using a pizza, time, followed by  volume and capacity.

During Science we have been learning about the life cycle of a frog, bee, caterpillar and butterfly. The students have enjoyed the stories and art/craft activities associated with the topic.

In PDHPE we have been learning about healthy eating and preparing food. Our cooking experiences have included making cheese scrolls, pizza, honey joys, carrot cake, cupcakes, popcorn and green apple jelly. During fitness, the students have been engaged in T ball and tenpin bowling.

Religion - learning the school prayer, class prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. We have been discussing what we are thankful for – family, love, care, friends, food and the students have created their own poster.

Geography - we have been exploring the world map and learning about the continents of Australia and Africa.

Green Class

Green Class have had a wonderful term.

For English lessons we have been learning about rhyming words, reading lots of quality literature including all of the Macca the Alpaca books and enjoyed reading and dressing up as a pirate, Poh, Sonic, Harry Potter and Mario for book week.

In our Religion lessons we have learnt about the different parts of a eulogy and some of the different Catholic Celebrations such as a Baptism and First Holy Communion.

Green Class have enjoyed learning about odd and even numbers, addition and subtraction strategies, as well as informal and formal units of measurement as we measure distances around the school. A real highlight and the boys favourite lessons this term has been collecting data and making a graph of all of the different coloured teacher’s cars.

Green Class have loved our cooking lessons. So far we have made pancakes, cookies, French toast, pasta and garlic bread. 

Tennis on a Monday has been a real highlight this term, as has learning about the healthy food pyramid, five food groups and ways we can nourish our bodies. We have also enjoyed dance lessons on a Friday morning, especially using the scarves, tambourines, maracas and coin belts which move as we dance.

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Lime Class

Term 2 and 3 has seen the Lime Class learning through real-world experiences and outings. Outings are a great way to bring relevance to learning and strengthen engagement through hands-on activities. The students in Lime Class experienced learning across a variety of Key Learning Areas, including English, Maths, Science, PDHPE, and CAPA.

Lime Class has been collaborating with other classes for art activities, such as an art incursion in Term 2 Week 6, and a weekly art incursion in Term 3. Students have participated in workshops where they learnt about the basic shapes of a face and created face collages to express their feelings and creativity, and created mosaic art mirrors. The students did an amazing job of listening to instructions and working with peers from other classes. They showed maturity in being role models for other students and produced some wonderful pieces. We hope you love the art pieces as much as we do!

In Term 2, Lime Class walked to McDonald’s as part of our Mathematics content this term. Week 3 focussed on the distance to and from McDonald’s, and Week 9 focussed on measuring the weight of McDonald’s items through hefting. Students found this activity fun, measuring what drinks they thought were heavier and lighter and trying hard not to drop any! Great work Lime.

We were fortunate enough to be invited to watch the students from the Diocese perform a Music performance, Dio Sounds Week 7 Term 2, and Aspire ‘The Pirates Code’ In Term 3. Our stage 5 and 6 students performed in the music performance, and it was great to see the Lime students recognise the familiar faces on stage. Students enjoyed both experiences, with the students saying these two excursions were their favourite - we even had some interest in participating once they reach high school.

In Week 8 Term 2 we travelled to Newcastle Museum where the Lime Class explored the Supernova exhibition. This term students have been learning about different forms of energy and how they can be transferred and transformed, and developing their understanding to consider how essential electricity is to their daily life, and the lives of people in another country. The students showed excellent behaviour and it was great to see the students interacting with each other and talking about the different experiments.

The Lime Class does an amazing job of demonstrating the four Dominican pillars of Prayer, Study, Community, and Service when on outings. The students represent our school with pride and have shown this term that they can take on mature responsibility in a range of activities. The Lime Class have worked hard across Term 2 and 3 and should be very proud of themselves!

Ready for an awesome Term 4!

Lilli Kingdom

Secondary

Class Teachers          

Book Week

By Annie Boyle

On 24^th August St Dominic’s students participated in Book Week 2023. The theme this year was Read, Grow and Inspire.

Students from across the school dressed up as their favourite book character and had a wonderful time by being part of the book parade and also being cheered on by their friends.

Healthy Harold

By Nicolas Hatch

On Friday the 1st of September St Dominic’s had a visit from the Healthy Harold Team. Stage 5 and 6 met Harold the Giraffe and learnt about making good decisions.

Stage 6 Workplace Learning

By Xavier Scanlon

Over the last two terms Stage 6 has been attending workplace learning at Martha’s Café at the Cathedral Functions Centre. We have been learning skills and meeting different people.

As well, we have been given special jobs around the school such as, helping to organise the school sailing excursion and bus roster. 

Administration / Finance

Compass – Attendance

Attendance - Parents/carers are required to explain a whole day absence within 7days via the Compass App or written notice to admin@mayfieldsd.catholic.edu.au. 

Please add an attendance note if your child is absent from school for a whole day only. If arriving to school late or leaving early, this will be entered by the office. Please see instruction on how to add an attendance note via your smart phone. 

If you require any assistance, please contact the office on 4968 1295.

Volunteers -

St Dominic's Centre values the significant contribution volunteers make to our schools. Volunteers bring a rich and diverse mixture of culture, life experience and expertise from their communities.

Thank you to those who have expressed an interest in volunteering at St Dominic's. If you have not completed the registration process to be cleared as a volunteer at St Dominic's before, we require you to complete the form through the below link which will then be submitted to the Diocese for approval.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact the office on 4968 1295.

Finance

Thank you to all those who have paid the 2023 school fees in full, and to those who continue their regular payments. Finalisation of school fees are expected by the 30^th November 2023.

If you have not yet made any contributions, please contact our office as a matter of urgency on 4968 1295 as we have commenced and are following CSO procedures for the recovery of overdue or unpaid fees.