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First Holy Communion
Last weekend, on the occasion of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, seven students from OLOR and two parish members celebrated their First Holy Eucharist at our parish. It was a beautiful moment of faith and communion as these individuals took a significant step on their spiritual journey. Congratulations to Anna, Lucia, Nicola, Van, Florence, Grace, Mitchell, Mia, and Jude, who received this sacred sacrament. May your hearts always be nourished by the love of Christ present in the Eucharist.
Please take note of the following dates for our sacramental program for the rest of this term.
First Communion
Commissioning Mass - 16th June 2024, 9:00am
Confirmation
Welcome Mass – 30th June 2024, 9:00am
Mini Vinnie’s
Our Year 5/6 class has teamed up with St. Vincent de Paul to pack boxes for the less fortunate in our community. With enthusiasm and empathy, they dedicate their time and effort to sorting and organising essential items. Their involvement exemplifies how they shine their lights of empathy and kindness, which we strive to cultivate in our school community. This reminds us of the profound difference we can make when we come together to support one another. We thank Mr. Fewster, who supports our students weekly to help our wider community. You can access this month’s Southern Cross with the following link.
World Environment Day
Each year, on June 5th, we celebrate World Environment Day, an important occasion dedicated to raising awareness about environmental issues. This year, the theme for World Environment Day 2024 is "Land Restoration: Desertification and Drought Resilience," accompanied by the slogan "Our Land, Our Future." This theme emphasizes the urgent need to protect our environment and underscores the importance of restoring land while addressing desertification, the process of land turning into a desert. Desertification can be caused by factors such as population growth, deforestation, overgrazing of animals, and climate change.
We all have a role to play in taking care of our common home, and even the smallest acts of kindness towards our Earth can collectively make a significant impact.
Divine Source of all creation,
Grant us the wisdom to see the beauty and wonder of the natural world, and the strength to protect it with compassion. Guide us in our actions, big and small, as we strive to be stewards of the environment, nurturing the land, the air, and the water for generations to come.
Help us cultivate gratitude for nature's gifts and recognise our responsibility to preserve them. May we act with integrity, choosing sustainability over convenience and harmony over exploitation.
Inspire us to work together in solidarity for the healing of our planet and bless our endeavours to care for our common home.
We ask this prayer in your loving name,
Amen.
Rosemary Perre
APRIM
Most of this week I have been away at a conference in Brisbane called Leading with Integrity for Excellence. This involves Catholic school Principals from all around Australia and looks at all aspects of school life, from governance and financial stewardship to ethics and leadership styles. One of the big talking points was school culture, which also was a focus of the recent SACPPA conference in the Barossa Valley that I also attended. Part of my reflection in the course was looking at what we can do to make OLOR a place that people want to be. I hope that it already is that place, but look forward to creating a future where everyone feels included, and students thrive in the culture that they become part of. We all have a part to play in creating the culture that we want to see at OLOR.
We had a wonderful celebration of First Communion last weekend. Students from our school joined with parishioners and their families to celebrate the further initiation into their faith of the Eucharistic candidates. I thank Mrs Perre for her leadership and organisation with not only the Mass itself, but the formation and preparation of the students involved. Receiving the Body of Christ for the first time is a big step in a person’s spiritual journey, but also one that can be repeated each time they attend Mass. Congratulations to all who took part.
As we head into the second half of the term, teachers have begun preparing for End of Semester reports. Over the next few weeks they will finalise assessing how students have improved and what they have achieved in all learning areas. This is also a great time for us to take a breath and realise how much students have grown in their learning journey. Reports are a formal way of recognising this and we encourage families to talk to their children about what they are learning at school and how they are going. They also are a great way to set goals for the future in terms of learning. What we hope that is that every child tries their best and achieves their potential, and reports are a good way to check this.
This week our Year 3 students had their overnight Monarto Zoo camp. This is a great learning experience and a great way to learn more about caring for all creatures in our world. Last year I was lucky enough to take part in the camp and have great memories of not only the zoo, but the behind the scenes life as students get to play the part of zookeeper as part of the experience. Thanks to Mrs Schilling, Miss De-Gregorio, Mrs Li and Brad Krollig for their support of the students on the camp.
Last week we recognised Reconciliation Week around the school. I shared my experiences with a number of classes about living in a remote Aboriginal community early in my teaching career. I spoke to students about the challenges that the children and families living in the community experienced, and the ways that we today can make a difference to the indigenous people of our country.
I want to thank Anna Strachan for all of her support for our students and staff over the last couple of years. Anna has made the difficult decision to leave her counsellor role at OLOR as her private therapy business grows. Her care, understanding and support was beloved by many and she will be missed. We hope to announce a new counsellor soon.
As we head into the long weekend, we look forward to the last few weeks of term coming up. I remind families to please keep children home if they are unwell. We have had a lot of sickness around the school and community the last few weeks, and know that the best way to stop the spread is to stay away when unwell. We thank families for their understanding and support of this as it keeps our students and staff safe.
Mr Michael Slagter
Principal
The Year 3s had a fantastic time on their camp at Monarto Zoo, where the students were involved in a range of different activities. They all enjoyed the safari tour where they got to see lions, giraffes, rhinos, cheetahs and many more animals. It was fortunate that lots of the animals were active and came up quite close to the bus. In the evening the students had fun exploring the campsite, built shelters using branches and other things found in nature, went for a night walk, and enjoyed some time around the campfire. In the morning they were woken to the sound of African drums and went for a morning walk. The Ladder of Life was a fun teamwork activity and then students got to be Bison and Wild Horse keepers and help shovel and collect their poo into buckets.
The camp was a great experience for all, with lots learning experiences and relationship building opportunities. The students will have lots of stories to share with their families and friends.
Choir Cluster Rehearsal
Last Friday, our choir headed to the Berri Town Hall for a cluster rehearsal. We had a great time singing with all of the other schools. We look forward to our performance in Term 3.
Miss D
Arts Coodinator
Term 2 Highlights from Year 5/6
Immersion Day
On Wednesday in week 4 the Year Fives and Sixes went on an immersion day to Saint Francis of Assisi College. You might be wondering what’s an immersion day? Well, an immersion day is when you go to a place to try out what it would be like there. And in our case, we were seeing what being at high school was like. There were tons of super cool and educational activities for the students to complete and learn about. First thing we did in our day, we arrived and had a tour from a group of the high school leaders. Straight after that we headed back, got our water bottles and went to P.E. For our warmup we played dodge ball. After we were all warmed up, we headed over to the oval and played some European handball. The teams for the game were their sports day teams. After P.E we ate our lunch and went off to play. When we came back, we had Science. In Science we had to mix a base or an acid with an indicator and it changed color, the indicator was red cabbage which was cool for the experiment but not cool to smell. After Science, we entered the Food Tech area where we partnered up and had our own tables to make some delicious food. The food we made was apple and cinnamon muffins. We had a recipe to follow, and while the muffins were in the oven you started to clean up your workspace. After cooking we had recess so everyone went out to play. When the bell rang, we all went back to our point where we could ask Mr. Cotter any questions about Saint Francis of Assisi. Shortly after the questions about the school, the bus arrived and after a long day we went back to school just in time for the end of the day.
Reconcilation Week - 27th of May to the 3rd of June
Reconciliation Week is a week about learning and recognising Indigenous cultures, and the first people of Australia as caretakers of the land, waters, and country. We strive to make everyone feel included, since back in 1960 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples didn’t have the right to vote, which is extremely unjust. Until 1967, they finally had the right to vote. Unfortunately, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples didn’t have a voice in what happens to Australia, and even though our society is more understanding and has evolved to be more modern, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples still struggle with the problem of feeling like they have less rights and respect than others till this day.
Our class did some activities to help us learn more about Reconciliation Week and have some fun. Firstly, we traced our hands on some coloured paper and cut our hands out of the paper. After we had only the paper hand cut-out, we wrote some words that relate to Reconciliation Week, for example, some people wrote: respect others, lift others up with your voice, take care of yourself, we are sorry, etc. Then we printed, cut out, and coloured on paper leaves. We also made acrostic poems of the word ‘Reconciliation’, and drew the letters that make up reconciliation, cut them out too and then we stuck the leaves to the reconciliation poster and made some people in our class whole different letters. Then, we took a photo of ourselves.
Rights and Responsibilities
In the year 5/6 class, we are learning about a children’s rights and responsibilities here are some examples.
RIGHTS:
Children have the right to medical care.
Children have the right to be heard and listened to.
Children have the right to be loved and respected.
Children have the right to have a safe, healthy and clean environment.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Children have the responsibility to listen to others and be safe towards others.
Children have the responsibilty to respect other thoughts and religions.
Children have the responsibility to respect others.
Fractions
In Maths we have been learning about fractions. Fractions are things you need to know in everyday life. So what is a fraction? A fraction (from Latin: fractus, meaning ‘broken’) represents a part of a whole, or more generally, any number of equal parts. Fractions can be turned into decimals and percentage. How are fractions used in everyday life? They can be used in cooking to measure the ingredients and cut pizza, money transactions and time management.
Science
In Science, we are learning about sudden and extreme changes to Earth’s surface. Some examples of Earth’s changes and disasters are earthquakes, tectonic plates, tornadoes, cyclones, floods, volcanos, etc. We will now provide a summary of some of the challenges to Earth’s surface. Firstly, an earthquake is a sudden shaking of the ground caused by the passage of seismic waves through Earth’s rocks. Seismic waves are produced when a form of Earth’s energy that is stored in the crust of the Earth is suddenly released. After being released, a violent shake occurs for a short period of time. Tectonic Plates are a scientific theory that explains how major landforms are created due to Earth’s subterranean movements. Earth’s outermost layer, made up of the crust and upper mantle, is broken into large rocky plates. Due to the convection of the atmosphere and lithosphere, the plates move to each other at different rates.
Religion
In the year 5/6 class in Religion, we have been reading and learning about the bible text, the rich young man in the Gospel of Matthew, and the three worlds of text. In the text the young man had it all; he was rich, young, and confident but he did not put God first. Jesus said to have eternal life he must follow the ten commandments, and the rich young man replied "I have followed the commandments what else am I missing lord?’’ Jesus said to the young man "You shall sell your many possessions and give the money to the poor”. As a class we thought that in today’s world it would be very difficult to survive due to the lack of money and other necessities. The three worlds of text are ‘World behind the text?’, ‘World of text?’, and ‘World in front of text?’
Written by Ally, Xanadu and Bode
We are sad to announce that Anna Strachan, our school counsellor, has finished working at OLOR. Her private business is going really well and she would like to dedicate more time to this. She will be greatly missed by all staff and students at our school. Her support and care for all has been fantastic. We wish Anna all the best!
The counselling position has been advertised and we hope to announce a replacement in the coming weeks.
June
Foundation - Georgia
Year 1 - Gurshaan
Year 5 - Emmanuel
Year 6 - Ruby
