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Students from OLOR will celebrate the First Sacrament of Reconciliation on Monday 29th March at 6:00pm in St. Mary’s Church.
Combined Parish Picnic
The Our Lady of the River Parish consists of six Riverland Parish Communities from Loxton, Waikerie, Morgan, Berri, Barmera, and Renmark. On Sunday 14th of March, each of these communities will unite to celebrate Mass on the Riverfront at Kingston on Murray, followed by a fun gathering for lunch. Please refer to the information below. It would be lovely if you could attend.
Year of Saint Joseph
It has been 150 years since St. Joseph was named a s the universal Patron Saint of the Church. To commemorate this anniversary, Pope Frances has proclaimed the current liturgical year as the Year of St. Joseph. There are many words to describe Joseph as a Father, he was loving, tender, accepting and courageous. St. Joseph gives us a shining example of how to love our children unconditionally as God wants us to.
We will be blessed with a visit from our new Bishop, Karol and Director of Catholic Education, Mrs. Nichi Marden on 17th March, which is the feast day of St Patrick.
Students are invited to attend school on Wednesday 17th March in a simple St. Patrick or St. Joseph costume. You should have received a flyer at the beginning of the week with some simple ideas for costumes. Alternatively, students may choose to wear red to honour St. Joseph or Green to Honour St. Patrick. We are intending to organise a special event to celebrate the Year of St. Joseph. Information about this event will be distributed in the coming weeks.
200 Years of Catholic Education in Australia
In 2021, Australian Catholic Education celebrates 200 years of Catholic schooling in this country. A virtual launch of the bicentennial celebrations was hosted on Thursday 18 February and can be viewed below:
The Pastoral Letter to leaders, staff, students and families from the Bishops of Australia entitled 200 Years Young in recognition of the Bicentenary of Catholic Education in Australia can be view by following the link https://online.cesa.catholic.edu.au/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-34482/Pastoral%2BLetter_200%2BYears%2BYoung_18022021.pdf
The bicentenary commemorates the anniversary of the first official Catholic school in Australia, founded in October 1820 by Irish Catholic priest Fr John Therry. The school, which Catholic historians believe was located on Hunter Street in Parramatta, taught 31 students. An Irish Catholic convict George Marley (also identified as George Morley), who was sent to the colony, opened the school for Fr Therry and ran it for three years.
Now 200 years later, Australia is home to 1,751 Catholic schools. We have grown from educating 31 students in our humble beginnings to 768 000 students. This is an outstanding achievement.
Celebrations will be held Nation Wide in the coming months. To keep up to date with celebrations or to view some of the stories of Australian Catholic Schools, visit https://200years.catholic.edu.au/
You will receive prayer cards today with the official national prayer for all Catholic Schools. I encourage you to pray this prayer with your families.
May God’s peaceful Spirit be with you always,
Rosemary Perre
APRIM
Please click on the link below for the latest issue of the Southern Cross.
It's that exciting time of the term when teachers have collated their findings from observations of student behaviours, formal year level testing in English and Mathematics and curriculum formative assessments in preparation for Parent Meetings over the coming weeks. Each class teacher will have sent out a booking sheet this week. I'm also pleased to let you know, that the Catholic Education Office SA is focusing on the area of contemporary learning and the effective use of data in all schools over the next few years. At a system level, they have engaged Lyn Sharratt, an educationalist from Canada, to work with schools, which I'm most excited about, having done some research last year with her work. Her most recent research-informed book, Clarity, will be the basis of school professional learning. In her book, Clarity Lyn Sharratt emphasises fourteen parameters needed to improve teaching and learning in a school.
One of the parts to our improvement is the appointment of a Leader of Learning who will mentor other staff. We are fortunate to have the expertise of Mel Steele, who has been appointed for our school. For the rest of the year, Mel will receive professional development in this role and how to support our staff to improve outcomes for our students. In alignment with our 2021 School Annual Plan, we will focus on improving teaching and learning, especially in the English and Mathematics curriculum.
Lyn Sharratt's research has identified the vital role parents play in their child's education as another key parameter. To support our families' involvement in their child's learning and promote meaningful conversations, the teachers are looking forward to speaking with parents about their child's education and their goals in 2021. In the letter sent out to parents regarding the Parent Meetings, you will see five questions that parents can ask their child's teacher to begin the conversation. There are also five essential questions that a parent can ask their child daily:
- What did you learn today?
- How did you do?
- What did you do if you didn't understand?
- How can you improve on your learning?
- What are you most proud of?
We hope that you find these Parent Meetings helpful. Please feel free to provide any feedback to your child's teacher, Mel or me on how you think these Parent Meetings support you to keep in touch with your child's learning.
This term already has been so rewarding to hear the excitement amongst teachers and students talking about their learning and how they are progressing. We will continue with this journey, working with Lyn Sharratt for the next two years as we further embed these parameters into our school culture.
Ros Oates
Principal
We have decided as a school if all students could please provide their own personal headphones for school, Bluetooth headphones are compatible and we are able to help students connect them, however Students must ensure the headphones are charged every day. If you require headphones the ones pictured below will be available to purchase for $7.00 from the front office, please let us know if you require any as we need to place an order as soon as possible.
The bell times have changed slightly this year, below is a list of the new times please note the school day starts at 8:50, anyone arriving after this time will be marked as late.
School photos will be rescheduled for a later date, we are working with Focus School Portraits to get the next available date. The school will notify parents and carers soon of the new rescheduled date, thank you for your patience.
CONSENT FOR THE USE OF PHOTOGRAPHS, DIGITAL IMAGES OR RECORDINGS
The school needs to obtain specific consent before taking photographs, digital images or recordings of an individual student for a particular learning or care reasons. Parents/carers are asked to return the consent form to their child's classroom teacher as soon as possible. These forms will be sent home with each child on Tuesday, March 9, 2021.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the School Board has decided to cancel our annual Chocolate Carnivale. It was agreed that this event would be replaced with an Easter Auction Night (for adults) towards the end of this term, and children will be involved in other fun fundraising events throughout the year.
We will also continue our tradition of having a 'Monster' Easter Egg Raffle and announce winners before we break for Easter at the end of the term. We ask each family to donate a chocolate product to the value of $15 - $20. The chocolates (Cadbury preferred) can be dropped at the front office from the beginning of March. Thank you to the families who have done this to date. If you wish to help with the organisation of the Easter Auction night, please contact Ros or Karlie in the front office. The next meeting for those interested will be Wednesday March 10 in the Multipurpose Room at 6pm. This meeting will confirm if we go ahead with the evening.
English
Maths
HASS
Science
Pat Perre
Don’t forget to pay fees in full by the 9th of April 2021 to receive the 5% early bird discount.
If you have any questions please contact the school on 0885821128 or email info@olor.catholic.edu.au
It has been brought to our attention that some students are crossing the roads at pick-up points without parent supervision and some students riding to school are arriving just on the 8.50 am bell or just after. We will be educating students about this to ensure that they are adhering to roads safety rules and being at school on time. If your child walks or rides to school, we would appreciate you also having this conversation with them to help keep everyone safe.
Hello everyone,
I would like to once again congratulate those OLOR students selected in the Riverland Swim Team who will compete in Adelaide on Friday 26th March (week 9). We wish them the best of luck as they begin training over the next few weeks at the Loxton Pool.
Thanks to those parents who have nominated their child(ren) to compete in the SACCA Swimming Carnival held at the Marion Swimming Centre on Friday 19th March (week 8). Hopefully we are as successful as we were at the SAPSASA Swimming Carnival held earlier this term.
Our next SAPSASA event is the Athletics Carnival held at Waikerie on Wednesday March 24th (week 9). A nomination form will be sent out soon for parents to complete. It would be great to have as many OLOR athletes as we can participate.
Kind regards,
Tom Charlton
Year 7/PE Teacher
Term 1 | Term 2 | Term 3 | Term 4 |
Tues Week 4 – SAPSASA Swimming @ Loxton |
Wed Week 4 – Cross Country @ Waikerie | Fri Week 1 – Basketball @ Loxton | Fri Week 1 – School Cricket Cup @ Berri |
Wed Week 9 – Athletics @ Waikerie |
Fri Week 5 – Soccer @ Renmark | Sun Week 2 – Golf @ Berri (students only) | Fri Week 6 – Softball (Year 5/6/7) @ Glassy Park |
Tuesday Week 11 – Football (Berri Districts)/Netball (OLOR) @ Loxton |
*Fri Week 8 – SANFL 9-aside football (TBC) | Thurs Week 5 – Tag Rugby @ Berri | |
Tues Week 9 – Hot Shots Tennis @ Berri (Year 3/4 |