Our Lady of the River School eNewsletter

A Prayer for our Confirmation Students,

Father in Heaven,

We ask for your blessings on our students as they celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation.

May their hearts be open to the
Holy Spirit to be their helper and guide.
And through the work of the Holy Spirit
may their life be a witness of
Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness,
Goodness, Generosity, Gentleness,
Faithfulness, Modesty, Self-control and Chastity.

Amen

Sacrament of Confirmation Important Dates

Sunday, 19th September 9:00am

Sacrament of Confirmation in the School Hall

If you have any questions, contact Ros Oates.

Dear Parents, Caregivers, Staff, Students and Friends,

"Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit".

This weekend, on Sunday, September 19, in our school gymnasium, there will be the special Mass and Confirmation of our Year 6 and Year 7 children from Our Lady of the River School, as well as other children from St Albert's School Loxton and Our Lady of the River parish.

The sacrament of Confirmation completes the sacrament of Baptism.
Baptism is the sacrament of re-birth to a new and supernatural life, and Confirmation is the sacrament of maturity and coming of age. It gives the strength to follow Jesus and become involved in the mission which Jesus left to the Church.

We were honoured to have Bishop Bishop Karol Kulczycki, Fr Paul, and Fr Hau guide us on Sunday through this special ceremony. Following the ceremony, we will have a confirmation cake outside under the veranda of the school gymnasium.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the children from our school and all candidates from the parish who will receive this sacrament. The students, assisted by their teachers, have been preparing throughout the term for this special occasion. We pray for them and ask God to bless them at this significant moment in their lives.

Thank you to all the teachers, especially Mrs Rosemary Perre, for her outstanding work and beautiful contributions to planning and coordination in her role as teacher and as our Religious Education Leader. Our school community is looking forward to a blessed and joyful day!

Staffing Announcement

Miss Lauren Harslett, our Foundation/Year 1 teacher, has been appointed as the Year 1/2 teacher at Redeemer Lutheran School, Nuriootpa. This appointment begins at the beginning of 2022.

We wish Lauren all the very best in her new position and thank her for her wonderful contribution to Our Lady of the River School these past two years.

Whilst 2022 may seem some time away; we start the process of planning staffing and class structures now. The school leadership team and school board work hard to employ staff, balance class sizes and support our planning for 2022. If you are considering a change in the enrolment status of your child/ren in 2022 (for work or other reasons), I ask that you let me know as a matter of urgency by contacting me via email at roates@olor.catholic.edu.au.

Parent/Teacher Meetings Term 4

Next week each teacher will send families a reply slip for Parent/Teacher meetings early Term 4. These second formal 'Learning Conversations' are an opportunity to continue understanding your child's progress. Meetings in Term 4 are not compulsory; however, a parent or teacher may request an appointment. The dates for a meeting are from Wednesday, October 13, until Friday, October 22. Each session will be 15 – 20 minutes. This meeting provides both parents/carers and teachers with an opportunity to meet and for the parents/carers to discuss their child's particular strengths and needs. There are five questions parents are encouraged to ask their child's teacher at these meetings:

What is my child learning?
How are they doing?
How do you know (how they are doing?)
How can they improve?
What supports can I provide, and can you provide if they are struggling? When will we check again?

Teachers may also use this opportunity to discuss what will happen in the class for the remainder of the year or consult with a parent about a Personalised Plan for Learning review for those children who require curriculum differentiation or learning space.

Year 6 and 7's Prepare for High School

Many families have decided or will be making the important decision of where their child will be attending High School in 2022. A survey to indicate your choice of High School will be sent to the Year 6 and Year 7 families next week.

If you are still considering your options, please contact the Principal of St Francis of Assisi College, Mr. Nathan Hayes.

M: 0417 696 480

E: principal@assisi.catholic.edu.au

School: 258 Twentyfirst Street, Renmark, 5341 (Opening Jan 2022)

Office: 129 Renmark Avenue, Renmark

W: cesa.catholic.edu.au/assisi

'Never see a need without doing something about it.' Blessed Mary Mackillop.

Ros Oates
Principal

Hi all,

Congratulations to Bella Gates, Tatam Hunt, Miley Mitchell, Madison and Mackenzie Pitt, Ruby Wishart and Emma Schubert for their amazing efforts at the Adelaide SAPSASA Basketball Carnival held on Wednesday 15th September. The girls ended up finishing in 8th position. I would like to give a big thank you to Rachel Gates, Naomi Mitchell, Steven Pitt and Nathan Wishart for all their help on the day.

On the same day, 16 OLOR students competed at the Hot Shots Tennis Carnival held at the Renmark Tintra Tennis Club. All students put on a fantastic display of tennis finesse and sportsmanship and achieved some commendable results. A special mention goes to Bode Gates and Kenzie Sweet, who each received a sportsmanship award for the OLOR team. I would also like to thank Bre Michalski and Phil Cresp for all their help.

SAPSASA Hockey / Soccer

Have a great weekend!

Kind regards,

Mr Tom Charlton
Year 7 Teacher/Sports Coordinator

Term 3	Term 4
Mon Week 10 – Country Track and Field Championships @ Adelaide	Fri Week 1 – School Cricket Cup @ Berri
	Week 4 – Cricket State Carnival (Year 6/7) @ Adelaide
	Week 5 – Tennis State Carnival (Year 6/7) @ Adelaide
	Fri Week 6 – Softball (Year 5/6/7) @ Glassy Park

In each class you will find Quick Write journals and on most days you can find our students enthusiastically recording a great new idea down or practicing a new writing technique that is being explicitly taught in the writing lessons.

So what are Quick Writes? Quick Writes are short 2-5 minute lightening writes prompted by a word, an image, an idea, an author technique, a possibility. The function of Quick Writes is to limit the time for writing to free the mind from thinking that it cannot 'do'. Once we get out of our own way, we are free to explore new territories, thoughts and ideas that can be otherwise halted by what every writers knows as 'writer's block'. We overthink it. Quick Writes give us no time to think, other than on what the prompt forces us to think about.

Quick Writes:

excite students
draw on and develop imaginations
free up the writer to write
live alongside a rich and extensive read aloud program
develop an awareness of the rich techniques that writers use
increase opportunity for volume of writing
undoubtedly improves the quality of writing

Examples of Quick Write:

Mel Steele
Leader of Learning

Last Friday was Footy Colours Day! The year five class worked together to make this event really special. They focused on a reading from Matthew 25:34-40 , in particular - when I was sick you took care of me and then split up into groups, they called action teams. There were four action teams each planning their own special event for the school to participate in to raise money for the Fight Cancer Foundation. Our school believes this is important because so many families have kids suffering from this horrible disease. So, this year the year fives decided to make it special and invite the whole school to get into the vibe of raising money for kids with cancer.

Action team one Evelyn, Mackenzie, Max and Kaiden’s idea was to sell cupcakes. They spent most of their play times and school lessons to make 142 delicious, mouth-watering cupcakes for 50c each. These cupcakes were vanilla with green icing (grass) and a red lolly on the grass representing a football. The group brought in their own supplies from home and Mrs Rayner provided the recipe.

Action team two Harsimran, Annasia, Eli and Tom’s idea was to make separate junior and upper primary PowerPoint slides about why this day is so important. Tom and Annasia made the junior primary slideshow and Eli and Harsimran made the upper primary slideshow. This group inspired the school to dress up and to donate and explained why it is so important to help raise money for the Fight Cancer Foundation.

Action team three Claire, Wavely, Will, Layla and Ella’s idea was to have activities at playtimes. At lunch they had a footy kick into the goals. At recces they had different groups of activities. Layla did an amazing obstacle coarse that everyone loved. Wavely and Will did an activity where the kids had to kick a football into a bin. Claire did an activity when the kids had to handball to a partner then after that handball it into a bin. The kids were packed with excitement when they saw the posters they used to advertise the special event.

Action team four Kenzie, Elysia, Charlie, Cruz and Latesha had the idea to give the class who raises the most money ice-creams. Since the classes have different amounts of people they decided to divide the amount raised by the number of students in each class, giving us an average ‘per student’ amount for each class. The year two class won the ice-creams and were so excited. This group also spent their time making a poster to put on the school toilet doors.

Altogether the school raised $338.50 ($102.50 from the cupcake group) and we are really proud of this achievement, and the way the whole school came together to help families dealing with cancer.

Written by Claire, Kenzie, Harsimran and Evelyn.

All classrooms at OLOR have a designated time for eating fruit in our morning sessions. We are currently finding large amounts of fruit, especially apples, discarded into the compost bucket with very little eaten.

Teachers will be instructing students to put large pieces of uneaten fruit back into their lunch boxes. Plenty of time is provided for eating the fruit, but if your child chooses not to eat a large portion of it, we ask that you check their lunch box and provide other alternatives. If possible, cutting up larger fruit into recyclable containers or bags would be appreciated.

Please ensure your child has their school hat with them daily and a leakproof water bottle. Recently, there are a large number of students coming to school without a water bottle and they are relying on our water taps for a drink. In these uncertain times of COVID-19 and especially the Delta strain, I ask that all students have a labelled water bottle at school to reduce any risks associated with drinking directly from the water fountains.

A reminder to all families that outstanding school fee statements were sent out on Friday 26^th of November.

please have school fees fully paid before the end of term 4 unless you have a payment plan in place, in which case they merely serve as a statement for your records. If you require a payment plan or have any difficulties paying fees please contact myself or Principal Ros Oates as soon as possible to organize a meeting. If you have any other queries or questions, please contact me via email or at school from 8:30 to 4:00 weekdays.

Regards

Pat Perre, Finance Officer

If you have any questions, please contact the school on 08 8582 1128 or email patperre@olor.catholic.edu.au