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In this season of rebirth,
may you feel your faith renewed and your heart made new
with the hope Easter brings.
Dear God,
Shine your light in us, through us, over us.
May we make a difference in this world, for your glory and purposes.
Set you way before us. May all your plans succeed.
May we reflect your peace and hope to a world
that so desperately needs your presence and healing.
Amen
The staff at Our Lady of the River School sincerely thank our school families for their wonderful support during Term One. We pray that every member of our community experiences the peace of Jesus this Easter and lovingly spreads this in our households, workplaces and across the Riverland.
Easter Services across Our Lady of the River Parish
Holy Thursday |
Mass in Loxton & Berri 7pm |
Good Friday |
Stations of the Cross: Jarret Gardens Renmark 1.30pmPassion Mass: Renmark & Barmera 3pm / Waikerie 5pm |
Easter Saturday |
Easter Vigil Renmark 7pm |
Easter Sunday |
Easter Sunday - Morgan & Berri 9am /Loxton & Waikerie 11am / Barmera 6pm |
Lenten Focus
Due to current C-19 restrictions and the impact of the virus upon classrooms, the Annual OLOR Easter Plays will be recorded over the remaining days of Term One and the link will be distributed to our community via SZapp/Seesaw. I applaud the creativity and flexibility of our staff and their children in preparing meaningful reflections of the Easter story amidst the dynamic conditions of staff and student absences. Likewise, many thanks to families for responding generously to costume requests and assisting their children learning lines…. it’s a team effort!
I also recognise the patience of families as they yearn to return to the ‘good old days’ when we could have terrific community events at Our Lady of the River School. God willing this starts to occur during Term 2.
The Resilience Project – 3rd Presentation to Families
Empathy & Kindness
This year our staff are implementing The Resilience Project at OLOR. This Australian based program has a focus on three core pillars:
- Gratitude
- Empathy
- Mindfulness
Every child from Foundation to Year 6 has a workbook that they are using during their Resilience Project lessons.
Parent/Caregiver Information
Throughout 2022, we will be working closely with The Resilience Project to support the wellbeing of our school community.
The Resilience Project delivers emotionally engaging programs and provides evidence-based, practical strategies to build resilience.
This program is an important part of our school’s effort to look after the mental health of our community.
This week’s third presentation from The Resilience Project focuses on Empathy & Kindness.
Empathy is our ability to put ourselves in the shoes of others to feel and see what they do. We practice this through being kind and compassionate towards other people.
Brain imaging data shows that being kind to others registers in the brain as more like eating chocolate than like fulfilling an obligation to do what’s right (e.g., eating brussel sprouts)!
Research shows that practicing empathy, such as performing acts of kindness, taps into our brain’s ‘mirror neurons’, builds compassion and our behaviour becomes more social and community-based.
View Part 3 of the series here - Empathy https://theresilienceproject.com.au/parent-and-carer-hub/
Here’s an activity to practice empathy and kindness:
- Reflect on someone in your life who could benefit from an act of kindness today. It could be a friend who would love some affirmation about their work, your pet who deserves an extra treat, or a family member who would love a phone call or text message.
- Make a plan for who you are going to gift an act of kindness to, and what you are going to do.
- If you want to add accountability to your plan, share it with someone else and encourage them to do the same thing.
- Follow up with each other in a few days time, to ask how it went!
Sources: Psychology Today, UC Berkeley, Greater Good Science
For mental health resources and support information, visit The Resilience Project’s Support Page.
Parent – Teacher Interviews
Thank you to our families that booked a time to meet with their child’s teacher during the recent P-T Interviews. These meetings are significant in enabling school and home to be united in assisting our young people to set achievable goals and to consolidate areas of strength and address ongoing challenges. Your commitment to this partnership is valued.
Sport - Hockey Players Shine!
Hi all,
Our Lady of the River fought gallantly to take 2nd place at the recent Riverland SAPSASA Hockey Carnival held at Glassey Park in Berri on Friday, 25th March. With a whopping 16 goals scored for the day, the OLOR hockey team was a force to be reckoned with! In fact, the only goal scored against us all day came in the dying minutes of the final against a very strong Cobdogla Primary School team. Overall, I was super impressed by our students’ efforts on the day, and the teamwork they demonstrated. I would like to sincerely thank Ryan Vallelonga for taking the coaching reigns on the day as well as Carina Turner and Brad Krollig for all their help.
Please note that all SAPSASA events have been postponed for the remainder of Term 1. I will upload an updated calendar at the beginning of Term 2.
Have a great weekend!
Kind regards,
Tom Charlton
OLOR Sports Coordinator
Sporting Quote of the Week: |
“The only one who can tell you ‘you can’t win’ is you and you don’t have to listen.” – Jessica Ennis-Hill |
Year 5/6 Art
The Year 5/6 class made collages inspired by Pete Cromer and Gareth Lucas. They used painted paper to create an animal of their choice. They included a background that matched the habitat of their animal and added abstract details.
Important Dates
Term One Concludes |
Wednesday 13th April 3.15pm |
Staff Planning Day (Please use SZapp to book in children if supervision required) |
Thursday 14th April (Student supervision concludes at 12.30pm) |
Term Two Commences |
|
Staff Planning Day (Please use SZapp to book in children if supervision required) |
Monday 2nd May (Student supervision concludes at 3.15pm) |
Children return to school |
Tuesday 3rd May |
Staff Professional Development Day Pupil Free Day – no supervision available |
Wednesday 4th May |
Parent Education Session: Mark Le Messurier: The ART of Managing Tricky Behaviour (Please use SZapp to book in number of adults attending – light supper provided)
|
Wednesday 4th May 4.30pm – 6.30pm |
Uniform
The upcoming holiday break is a wonderful opportunity to ensure your child’s school uniform is in good condition and reflects the pride your child displays for themselves and their school. A reminder that our uniform can be purchased through:
- Tri-State Graphics, 216 Renmark Avenue, Renmark Ph: 8586 5815
On Friday of Week 9, the Year 4/5 class hosted a whole school assembly on Teams. We had lots of fun looking back at all of our learning this term, brainstorming two items that we would like to share with the school. This term, the school has been exploring the anagram R.O.C.K. This stands for R –being Respectful and Responsible. O –being Optimistic and Organised. C –being Compassionate and Capable. K –being Kind and Knowledgeable, which are qualities that we demonstrate as part of the OLOR community. As a class, we have been focussing specifically on K for Kindness, which is reinforced by our Read Aloud Text, Wonder, written by RJ Palacio. This text explores the concept of showing empathy, and the importance of doing small acts of kindness in an effort to make those around us feel good. Every day, we each set one kindness goal to focus on, and reflect on this once its completed. We brainstormed ideas of what kindness would look like around the school and made a video. Please see the video attached. We also shared our learning from Harmony day, which was celebrated on Monday the 21st of March. As a class, we learnt about both the history and significance of Harmony day. We explored the importance of feeling that we belong and identified our differences from one another and what makes each of us unique. We each created a mini outline of ourselves and filled it in with the things about us that made us different and unique in our own way. We then joined them together to signify how we all belong together.
Easter Raffle
An enormous thank you to our school community for their generous support of our Easter Raffle. The provision of eggs, bunnies and assorted chocolates enabled us to create amazing 10 prizes.
Our congratulations to the following winners:
1st | Penny P | 6th | Miss Roberts |
2nd | Thomas Morgan | 7th | Simone Treloar |
3rd | Jacqui Young | 8th | Anonymous |
4th | Wishart Family | 9th | Dolheguy Family |
5th | Perre Family | 10th | Aurora Lacey |
Funds from the raffle will assist in the purchase of sail shades across our play spaces at OLOR.
Fit to Fly
OLOR participants: Charlize, Evelyn, Lily, Catie, Harriet
Ever wanted to run away and join the circus? Well these Riverlander kids did just that (minus the running away part). They attend Fit to Fly Circus Arts in Berri where they learn skills like aerial silks, aerial lyra, juggling, plate spinning, diablo and more.
After only two terms of circus classes, they performed at the first ever River Fringe Festival in Waikerie. An incredible achievement, and they are already hard at work training for our next show in October.
If you or your children (yes, we have adult classes, too!) are interested in giving circus a try, check out our website at www.fittofly.com.au. We offer weekly classes and have school holiday programs coming up at the end of April.