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Our new liturgical year and the season of Advent will begin on Sunday.
Advent is a season of arrival, which symbolises the arrival of Christ in our hearts, the world, and God's extraordinary plan for our salvation. The Catholic Church has been using advent wreaths since the Middle Ages. Lighting candles as we prepare for Christmas reminds us that Christ is the light of the world. The evergreen boughs on the wreath signify new and eternal life in Christ. Each candle we light has a focus on hope, love, joy and peace, as we light each candle we reflect on how we can be signs of hope, love, joy and peace in our world.
To kick goals for good, our school hosted a Socktober Splash Day this year to raise money and awareness for children in impoverished countries.
With thunderstorms predicted for our day, we kept a close eye on weather maps to predict patterns throughout the day. Despite the intermittent showers, I was unsure of whether to continue. We decided to trust the weather maps and let teachers and students decide how wet they were willing to get. We are so glad we did because it certainly didn't put a dampener on what turned out to be a fantastic day!
Various water-related activities were arranged for the students to take part in. We also conducted a Catholic Missions lesson and a discussion to explain the purpose of our fundraiser and where the money we raised would be sent.
To show solidarity with children around the world who must walk kilometres to collect water for their families and communities and to nurture empathy in our students who are fortunate to have clean, drinkable water with the turn of a tap, some students volunteered their lunchtime to participate in the water-carrying challenge. Overall, it was a successful event that helped promote a great cause.
Thank you for supporting our Splash Day and helping to build a more just world.
Many children around the world are unable to purchase sports equipment to play with so they become resourceful and will use anything that works such as drink bottles or recyclable materials. That is how the idea of the first Sockball was born.
Thank you to the year 1 class who made the Sockballs from recycled materials to be used for our Socktober Splash Day.
If you would like to help out a local family in need this Christmas, you can purchase an unwrapped gift and place it under the tree in the front office. All presents will be given to St. Vincent de Paul, who will deliver them to local families in time for Christmas. A local Vinnies volunteer will be presented with our gifts next Wednesday 6th of December. I sincerely thank everyone for their contribution, big or small, it will mean the world of difference to a local Riverland child on Christmas morning.
SOUTHERN CROSS
The current edition of the Catholic newspaper put out by the Archdiocese called,' The Southern Cross,' is available at; The Southern Cross November 2023.
Rosie Perre
APRIM
The last few weeks we have has lots of great things happening around the school. From swimming lessons, to our Movie Night and Splash Day, as well as the Naturally Brave Showcase this week. These have all been a great way to have fun as we move towards the end of the school year.
Learning how to swim is so important in our region and our country. With water always a danger to those who haven’t learn the skills to keep themselves safe, we are so pleased that we are able to provide this opportunity to all of our students. We were pleased with the weather as well, as more often than not, swimming week is cold, wet and windy.
We finished last week with Splash Day. This was a great day with lots of fun had by all, and an important learning experience for everyone through its links to Catholic Missions and the great work they do all around the world. Fr Emil shared a story of how in his village in Tanzania, some children don’t get to go to school, instead having to walk many kilometres each day carting water for their village. We raised nearly $600, which may go to help a village like his get running water, so more children can go to school. We thank all families and students for their support for this amazing charity.
Our Movie night was a fun night enjoyed by around 50 students and their families. We thank those who came along and spent a wonderful evening enjoying each other’s company. The students who came all enjoyed themselves. I thank Woolworths Berri for their generous donations of the sausages, bread, sauce and popcorn.
The Naturally Brave showcase occurred this week and was a great event for our students to be a part of. Mr Dunn’s and Miss Stewart’s classes have been learning how to use Maker’s Empire this year to solve a problem, and their 3-D printed finished products were a great example of modern learning. We hosted the showcase at OLOR with 10 schools from across the region all sharing the learning they have done as part of this. Well done to everyone involved.
Next week we look forward to our end of year production of The Lorax. Miss De-Gregorio has been working hard with all classes and the cast this term and it is nearing showtime. We look forward to sharing this with our whole community next Thursday evening. It promises to be a night of fun!
Next week we also will be sending out End of Year Reports. Teachers have been finalising assessments and preparing reports for all students. I encourage all families to be mindful that grading has changed significantly since we were at school, and a ‘C’ grade means that a student is able to do what is expected of them at their year level. I also encourage families to focus more on the effort grades and comments, as these are a better indication of individual progress and how much a student has lived up to their potential. I thank our teachers for all of the effort that they have put into preparing our reports and all of the learning that has occurred beforehand.
I would like to announce that we have appointed Mr Thomas Smart to replace Mr James Canavan as the PE/Health teacher for 2024. Mr Smart will also be teaching at St Joseph’s Renmark. We look forward to welcoming him to OLOR in 2024.
Mr Michael Slagter
Principal
This year the Foundation class have used the Pevan and Sarah team to support our learning in lots of curriculum areas. On the 27th of October we were lucky enough to go and see them live on the stage in Gawler. The screams when they came on the stage were deafening and full of pure joy! The children were completely star struck but loved joining in on all the familiar songs – especially “I like it Loud!” After the show we head to the playground for lunch and a play before beginning the trek back to Berri. It was such a fun day. The children were amazing and represented OLOR exceptionally well! Check out a few photos of our big day out!
At this week’s assembly, the year one students shared a video of photo highlights from the year. They also each had a turn sharing a video and an illustration of their favourite parts of the year. Our year was full of so many exciting events that the students could choose from! Key highlights included swimming week, splash day, our excursion to the Loxton Historical Village and Sports Day. We were also lucky enough to participate in many exciting events for Book Week, which were also some student’s favourite days of year one.
We look forward to the final two weeks of term where we will participate in many Christmas themed activities. We are celebrating some of these Christmas activities the year 4/5 students, our buddy class. In week eight, we will perform in the school production of The Lorax, which students are very excited for!
Please enjoy reading the students favourite part of year one! What an amazing year of fun, learning and growth!
Miss Martin and the Year One Class :)
State SAPSASA Tennis Carnival
We had two students from OLOR representing the Riverland Tennis Squad at the State Championships. The Riverland team finished 2nd overall in the competition. Highlights for Bode Gates and Charlie Kregar were being credited as making their opponents earn every point, they had scored against them in their matches. The boys were noted as the most entertaining doubles partners demonstrating their high level of skill and comradery! Well done to Siri, Bode and Charlie for representing OLOR and the Riverland!
James Canavan
PE Coordinator
On Tuesday, students were treated to a performance by Australian television and theatre actor, Stig Weymss. Stig has appeared in popular shows like Neighbours, Blue Heelers, Round the Twist and Flying Doctors. He discovered that narrating audiobooks was another form of acting, and now he is known for his entertaining antics. Stig is passionate about promoting reading and books among children and teenagers in Australia. He narrates the books of many famous Australian authors like Andy Griffiths, Ahn Do and Paul Jennings. He gave the students an insight into the life of a narrator, inviting them to join in on entertaining auditions and hilarious challenges! We also learnt information about the awesome app “Borrow Box”. An easy and free way to access all of your favourite books in audio form.
Thank you to Mandy Smith and Peter Ison from the Berri Public Library for arranging Stig's visit. If you are interested in accessing all of your favourite audiobooks for free, visit your local public library, become a member and download the app.
It's that simple! Happy Listening!
Congratulations to the following students who had or is having a birthday in December:
Foundation - Frankie, Felix
Year 1 - Auriea
Year 4 - Adamantia
Year 5 - Bailey, Lilly A
Year 6 - Isaac
