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Catholic Education Week
We have just had a fantastic week at Our Lady of the River School. Last week we and all Catholic Schools across South Australia celebrated Catholic Education Week. Seeing the smiles on the children’s faces was lovely as they participated in all the fun. Thank you to our OLOR community for supporting each event every day. Each day we have celebrated a unique aspect of how we honour our Call to Community, from celebrating and sharing God’s word to outreach towards our common home and the poor.
We hope you enjoy the video of our week that was.
‘These Hands’ © Andrew Chinn/Butterfly Music 2000. Used with permission. www.butterflymusic.com.au
Olor Share The Warmth Blanket Appeal
I’m sure you would agree that our cold weather has undoubtedly begun to set into the Riverland this past week. With winter just around the corner, the days are expected to get quite frosty and the nights even cooler. As a part of our Catholic Education Week ‘Call to Community’ outreach, the OLOR community have generously donated blankets and money to support our local St. Vincent de Paul Society in warming the lives of those doing it tough in the Berri community. We extend a heartfelt thank you for your donations. If you would like to contribute to our appeal, you can send recycled blankets in useable condition, new blankets or cash to the school throughout the following week.
Mr John Fewster, president of the Berri, St. Vincent de Paul Society, will join our assembly next Friday, 2nd June, to accept our donations.
Grandparents and Special Friends Day
Last Friday, we spent time honouring the amazing people who warm our hearts daily. Our Grandparents and special friends always have a warm hug to offer and love us unconditionally. They lift our spirits and want nothing more than our happiness; we say thank you for this. We kept those who could not attend in our prayers and thanked them for their gentle ways that have helped shape our values and lives. The morning was a huge success, and we thank all of the Grandparents and Special Friends who made our day one to cherish. We hope you have fond memories of your time at our school.
‘Deep in My Heart © John Burland,2002. https://johnburland.net/
National Reconciliation Week
National Reconciliation Week celebrates the respect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians of all cultures. We think about how to create a more just Australia for all of us, and we acknowledge our history as an act of healing broken relationships. The celebration dates remain the same each year; 27th May to 3rd June. These dates commemorate two significant milestones in the reconciliation journey— the successful 1967 referendum, and the High Court Mabo decision, respectively.
This year’s theme, ‘Be a Voice for Generations’, invites us all to consider how we can be a voice for Reconciliation with our families, friends and communities. The students have been exploring our shared histories and cultures and investigating ways to honour their Call to Community in Reconciliation.
God of Peace for all people,
We thank you for the survival of Indigenous Cultures.
Our hope is in You because Your son Jesus Christ came to reconcile the world to You.
Empower us, through the Holy Spirit, to be people of action that work to respect the dignity of all human beings in our communities.
Walk with us as we continue our journey of healing and Reconciliation to create a future of harmony and peace for all.
We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord,
Amen
May you walk gently on this land and live in the spirit of Reconciliation.
Rosemary Perre
APRIM
What a fantastic couple of weeks we have had at OLOR! Catholic Education Week was a great celebration of all of the things that make our school unique. We celebrated with other schools, welcomed Grandparents and special friends into our school, raised money and donated blankets for those in need, and thought about how to make the world a better place. Our students enjoyed being involved fully in these activities, the first time since 2019 that we have been able to run the activities without restrictions. A big thankyou to Mrs Perre for all of her organisation and initiative with the week and making it the great celebration that it was.
With the cold weather setting in and winter coughs, colds and flu coming, as well as another COVID wave gripping the country, we remind families of the need to keep each other safe. This means sometimes keeping children home until they are symptom free. As a school, we are lucky to have been awarded a grant of $23,160 from the Australian Government’s Schools Upgrade Fund, which has been provided to enable us to purchase air purifiers to put into every classroom. We have ordered Hospital Grade air purifiers and look forward to their arrival to help support keeping everyone healthy and safe.
In this week’s newsletter you will find a parent info sheet about keeping your family safe online. Increasingly students are exposed to online dangers, and often parents aren’t aware of the issues, or don’t realise that their children would be involved in possibly dangerous and inappropriate activities. There are lots of great tips, articles, websites and videos available at https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/resources for parents looking to gain or manage control of their children online. I encourage all families to look at the resources and take charge of what their children do online. We need to remember that we are responsible for our children’s safety and behaviour online, as they often don’t know the dangers or how to navigate issues when they arise.
I also encourage all families to have a talk to their children about the way they treat others and the things they say. In recent weeks we have had a number of students using hurtful words and exhibiting negative body language to others in the playground and sometimes in the classrooms. Sometimes this comes from Social Media they have seen (which none of our students should be on) or movies or TV shows they have watched. I urge families to monitor the appropriateness of what their children engage in, what they do and what they say, as well as their reactions to others. We want to create a school environment where everyone is treated with respect, everyone is valued and we can all feel safe. Parents have a huge role to play in this by modelling appropriate interactions, setting boundaries for their children at home and encouraging their children to make good choices in the way they talk, act and react at school.
This upcoming week is National Reconciliation Week, a time to reflect and build on creating respectful relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders people and other Australians. This is something which I personally have strong feelings about, having lived and worked in a remote Aboriginal community for two years and seen firsthand the struggles and difficulties that many of our Indigenous people face on a daily basis.
This year marks the 56th Anniversary of the referendum which recognised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in our Australian census. Before this many of our Indigenous people were not allowed to vote in state elections, marry whomever they chose, move to wherever they chose, own property wherever they chose, be the legal guardian of their own children, receive the same pay for the same work or drink alcohol. The census allowed them to have equal rights as other Australians in these areas. As Catholics, we are always focused on ‘loving one another’ as Jesus loved us. As a nation we need to acknowledge the truth of our history. It has not always been a positive history and there have been many instances where our indigenous people have been discriminated against and treated badly. The theme for this year’s Reconciliation Week is Be a Voice for Generations. We are all called to do our part to ensure that all Australians live together in harmony, and recognise that in many ways we can make a difference to the process of reconciliation in our wonderful country.
As we head towards the middle of Term 2, teachers have started preparing end of semester reports. This year they will look a little different as all Catholic Schools will be producing them through our system-wide program SEQTA, which we are using for many things across the school. As always, we encourage families to get in contact with teachers if they have any concerns about their children and their learning. More information about the reports will be included in future newsletters.
Mr Slagter
Principal
SAPSASA Netball
Friday 12th of May OLOR competed at the Riverland SAPSASA Girls Netball Carnival. We were in Division A and played our games against St Joseph’s Renmark, Loxton Lutheran, Berri Primary and Monash. We had a tough competition and were unsuccessful in winning any of our games. We as a team improved throughout the day as we became more familiar with our positions and each other’s strengths. Highlights for our team were All Sweet receiving the Most Valuable Player award for our division and Lily Marsden’s true sportsmanship checking in on an injured player from the opposition after a game against Berri. The girls constantly displayed sportsmanship and worked well as a team supporting decisions of umpires and coaches.
Thank you to the parents who came and cheered the girls on. One of our students was given the opportunity to be a part of the Riverland Netball squad. Congratulations to Ally Sweet for having the opportunity to trial for the Riverland squad!
Riverland Football
Congratulations to Lily Marsden and Charlie Kregar who represented the Riverland district at State Football. The Girls football coach Megan Petersen commented that Lily improved over the three days of competition and demonstrated growth in her confidence and skills. The boys coach Peter Safralidis was very impressed with Charlie’s skills throughout the carnival and is to be congratulated in his role as vice-captain.
Cross Country
This year we have had 16 students represent OLOR at Cross Country. We wish all the best to our 10 y/o representatives in their 2km run and the 11 and 12 y/o representatives in their 3km run. Thank you to Mr Perre for driving the students on the bus and Kayla assisting in supervising the students. We will be able to share more of our results in the following newsletter!
10 Year Olds
Catie Camilleri-Turner
Grace Heuzenroeder
Adamantia Dalamagas
Jaxon Curyer
Van Koch
Thomas Morgan
Troy Howie
Emmanuel Exarheas
Mitchell MacGregor
11 Year Olds
Lily Marsden
Charlie Kregar
Bode Gates
12 Year Olds
Charlize Camilleri-Turner
Harley Martin
Isaac Martin
Regards,
James Canavan
PE & SAPSASA Coordinator
This term, several of our dedicated choir students attended auditions for soloist and compere roles for the Riverland Music Festival. All students are to be commended on their efforts and courage to sing and speak in front of an audition panel.
Congratulations to Grace Heuzenroeder who has earned a soloist position and Siri Gudipati who will be a compere.
We look forward to our upcoming cluster rehearsal in Week 5, where we will have the opportunity to once again sing alongside the other schools in our cluster.
Miss De-Gregorio
Arts and Music
On Wednesday, we celebrated National Simultaneous Storytime, which is an annual event put together by the Australian Library Information Association. Each year a picture book is choosen and read. The picture book is written and illustrated by an Australian author and illustrator. Libraries, schools, pre-schools and others come together to read the book simultaneously at the same time, 11.00am. This year's book was 'The Speedy Sloth', by Rebecca Young and illustrated by Heath McKenzie. At lunch time, some of the students enjoyed doing colouring and making sloth activities in the library.
Congratulations to the following students who had or is having a birthday in May:
Foundation - Addison, Savannah
Year 1 - Angus C, Axel, Theodora
Year 4 - Jaxon C
