Dear Parents, Caregivers and Students,

I love coming to school and seeing the smiling faces of children that are not only excited about learning but also excited about seeing the teachers that help them learn and excited about the environments they do their learning in.

 The staff at Our Lady of the River School is committed to helping your child grow in all aspects of their learning. In order to do so the staff continue to be learners themselves. It is important that staff are provided with opportunities for professional learning that will positively affect your children’s learning and development. Thursday 24th September and Friday 25th September (last two days of term 3) will be student free days to allow staff to engage in professional learning.

Over the holiday break staff have made improvements to the environments students learn in. Classroom environments are extremely important for both students and for teachers. Everything from the colour of the walls to the arrangement of the furniture sends impressions to students and can affect the way a student learns. Structuring the physical environment of a classroom means strategically placing furniture, strategically decorating walls and strategically placing learning materials to help improve attention, reduce anxiety, support emotional and behavioural regulation of students and enhance student learning outcomes. Creating a positive learning environment, where students feel welcomed, safe and willing to share is also essential for success in the classroom. Feel very welcome to visit your child’s classroom.

This week Mr Preece, Ms Roberts and Brad have presented the final showcase of an 18 month whole school inquiry for the Making Space for Learning project. Through the Making Space for Learning inquiry the four Catholic Schools in the Riverland have worked closely with The Australian Childhood Foundation, aiming to enhance responsive practices and increase learning outcomes for all children through providing students with teaching and learning about the brain.

At Our Lady of the River we belief that all our students are capable and competent people, learners and leaders. All students have capabilities that they can use to help them live, learn and lead. Through the Living Learning Leading Key Capabilities, A CESA resource, students learn to recognise develop, reflect, plan for and show evidence of these capabilities. The Living Learning Leading Key Capabilities resource enables students to become comfortable and confident in who they are as people and will get them ready to make a difference in our world.

We like to celebrate and share student learning with families as much and as often as we can. As a first step of students learning the practice of reflection and gathering evidence of the growth in their own capabilities teachers will send home one piece of evidence of your child, every fortnight via text. This is a great opportunity for you to enter into dialogue with your child about their learning. The hard copies will be added to individual student portfolios later in the term.

Another way to share and celebrate your child’s achievements is through Parent-Teacher interviews. These are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

On the 8^th of August we celebrate Mary MacKillop’s Feast Day. I often reflect on how Mary MacKillop would think of our school today. I think, like myself, she would have been delighted to see the smiles on the faces of our students and I actually think, like myself, she would also actively take part in firmly planting smiles there. It is often believed that the saints and those who immerse themselves deeply in their faith can’t have a sense of humour. In reality these beliefs can’t be more wrong. St Mary MacKillop had a wonderful sense of humour. The book “Memories of Mary- By Those Who Knew Her” holds the recollections of Sisters Patricia Campbell and Collette Lysacht. Their stories show Mary most certainly had a wonderful sense of humour. 

Sr Collette Lysacht writes, “On one occasion after having a sleep, Mother wished to be helped out of bed. There being only two Sisters present we thought we could manage without a third. However, instead of sitting her in the chair, we sat her on the floor. We were greatly distressed at what we had done, but when we looked at Mother she was shaking with laughter - she only treated it as a joke.”

Mary had the ability to see the big things in the little things and the little things in the big things. Isn’t that the secret of humour?

Have a great weekend.

Nanda de Winter