Newsletter - Friday, 13th June, 2025
Prayer
The "Do It Anyway" poem, often attributed to Mother Teresa, encourages enduring difficult circumstances and focusing on positive actions despite negative reactions or outcomes. It emphasises the importance of doing good, being honest, and giving your best, regardless of how others may perceive your actions. The poem's final line suggests that your actions are ultimately a matter between you and God, not with the people who may not appreciate them.
From the Principal
Dear Parents,
Thank you to Sherryn for stepping into the Principal role while I was on Long Service Leave last week; I appreciate her leadership and support.
Today, our students planted over 300 trees at Grant and Elise Coxon’s property as part of the Red Tailed Black Cockatoo Project. The seeds used were collected by students last year, making this a truly meaningful, hands on environmental initiative. We hope you enjoy the photos.
This afternoon, our Year 5/6 students participated in the Edenhope and District Cultural Fusion Day at the Edenhope Community Centre. The students performed their dance extremely well and we enjoyed their artwork on display. Thank you Dani Irving for co-ordinating a great afternoon.
Next week, Gorgia, Sherryn and Helen and will be in Ballarat for the week completing Sounds Write Phonics training. Cassie will also be away from Tuesday on leave for a week. Cassie will complete the Sounds Write training the week of 21st July.
Sounds Write is a structured, explicit, and cumulative linguistic phonics program that effectively supports reading, spelling, and writing development. It is suitable for both beginning readers and those requiring intervention.
Our goal at St Malachy’s and across our Trinity of schools is to have all teaching and Learning Support staff fully trained in this approach over the next 12 months.
While the team is away, Bernadette Kirby, Cheryl Le Brun, and Gloria Freeman will be teaching the classes and following the teachers planned programs.
Kind regards,
- John
Winter Solstice Celebration - Friday, 20th June
The Winter Solstice is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. The Winter Solstice in Australia occurs when the Earth’s South Pole is tilted the furtherest away from the sun. The Winter Solstice marks the start of longer and brighter days to come!
The Year 5 & 6 class have planned a day to celebrate the Winter Solstice including games, delicious hot Milos, and the best part - students can wear pyjamas to school! Please make sure PJ’s are appropriate, warm (you could bring a dressing gown) or if PJ’s in public aren’t your thing, wear cosy clothes like tracksuits. Runners still need to be worn for outdoor play, but slippers can be worn inside. Pillows and sheets/blankets can be brought to school (totally optional).
Any questions? Please contact Sherryn or Anne-Maree.
Thank you Chris White
On the weekend, Chris White dropped off a trailer loaded with sand from Vickery Brothers for the school sandpit. The trailer was unloaded by Felix, Tommy and myself. This is a great chance for the young kids to play in the sandpit and have fun with all the Tonka trucks and sandpit toys. Thank you for all the stuff you and all of the other families do for our school. It is very much appreciated by everyone.
- Henry Flynn, Maintenance Leader
Around the rooms
Foundation - Mrs. Craig
The Foundation students have been loving working on tongue twisters as a part of their daily review. We have been reciting all of the Sally’s, Peter Pipers and Betty Botter’s to practise how we form different sounds with our mouths clearly. Try this one out yourself:
Betty Botter bought a bit of butter but, she said, this butter's bitter; if I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter so she bought some better butter, and it made her bitter batter better.
Year 1/2 - Mrs. Stringer
It’s been a busy and exciting term in Year 1/2! In Maths, we’ve been learning all about clocks and how to tell the time. The students now know that the big hand is the minute hand, the little hand is the hour hand, and the thin hand is the second hand that counts each second in a minute. We’ve also discovered that there are 60 minutes in an hour and 5-minute intervals between each number on the clock.
Our class has proudly taken part in the Push-Up Challenge, helping to raise awareness about the importance of mental health. The students have shown fantastic enthusiasm and teamwork while learning how we can take care of our bodies and minds.
In Literacy, we’ve been exploring informational texts. We now understand that these texts give us real facts about specific topics such as animals, mountains, or rainforests. Informational texts can come in many forms—books, newspaper articles, or even posters!
We also enjoyed a special visit from the Dental Van. The visiting dentist gave us some great reminders about keeping our teeth healthy - especially the importance of brushing twice a day.
In Reading, we’re halfway through our class novel The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. The students have been thoroughly enjoying the magical adventures and quirky characters - especially Saucepan Man, who always makes us laugh with his silly songs and misheard conversations.
It’s been a wonderful term of learning, laughter and adventure!
Year 3/4 - students
Year 3/4 have been working very hard in Maths, Reading, Writing and Inquiry. In Maths, we have been working on our times tables. We have begun a times table challenge that we complete at the start of each Maths lesson. We have completed reading The One and Only Ivan and also watched the movie. Most Year 3/4s enjoyed both the book and movie equally. Stevie-Belle said, "I liked when Ruby squirted water in Mack's face in the movie, because it was funny." Oliver said, "Ruby was my favourite character because she was funny and asked a lot of questions."
In Writing, we have been writing a persuasive letter to Miss Collins, M.P. about animals in captivity and how they should be free. Harvey said, "Animals should be banned from captivity because it's cruel and they need more space to roam around."
In Inquiry, we have been learning about the First Fleet and how the convicts were treated on the ship.
- Written by Year 3/4 students.
Year 5/6 - Ms. Simpson
Last Friday, the 5 & 6 class earned a reward for just being totally awesome! We spent our day turning pumpkins grown in our garden into delicious food. We made the obvious Pumpkin Soup and paired it with pumpkin scones with cream cheese and chives. Then we made pumpkin arancini balls - which did not remain on the plate for long. We finished with pumpkin snickerdoodles (a biscuit) and pumpkin pie. It turns out that despite initial fears, that 'nobody likes pumpkin', all students were able to find at least one recipe that they liked!
From Carine - Mental Health & Wellbeing
Sleep
We all know that we are not functioning at our best when we have not had enough sleep.
Recent studies are also showing that the lack of sleep can influence children’s mental health adversely and is becoming a prominent predictor of mental ill-health.
There are a number of things parents/caregivers can do to support their children to have healthy sleep routines (or as it is often referred to in literature: good sleep hygiene). Focussing on less screen time and none before bedtime, no screens (TV included) in bedrooms, darkness (to support our circadian rhythms), calm and consistent evening routines, to name but a few. Exercise during the day also improve good sleeping.
The App, Sleep Ninja®, is another resource available. This App is a free, evidence-based smartphone app shown to be effective in helping young people with sleep problems. It was designed and developed by the Black Dog Institute in consultation with young people, their parents/carers, psychologists, counsellors and sleep experts.
An additional strategy parents/carers can use to help their children to find calm at bedtime, that do not require extra time, energy, or a perfect routine, and that gives the brain a clear message: The day is done. It’s time to rest, is the following:
The 3-2-1 Calm Down Ritual
Once your child is tucked in, guide them through these 3 steps:
3 things you can feel
(“Your soft blanket… your pillow… the cool sheet on your legs…”)
2 things you can hear
(“Maybe the wind outside… or the hum of the heater…”)
1 thing you’re grateful for today
(“Something small—a smile, a snack, a silly joke.”)
This simple ritual takes less than 2 minutes, but it does something powerful:
It shifts attention away from busy thoughts and back into the body.
It activates the calming system in the brain.
It gives the day a soft landing and helps children feeling grounded.
(Source: MindfulKids)
A sidenote if you have read this and feel anxious:
Sleep does not always come straight away and waking up during the night is normal. Therefore, create good sleep routines with your children as a basis and reach out for support if they are consistently not sleeping well AND it is impacting on their mental and physical health.
Here are some links to follow if you want to source more information to support your child:
https://studentwellbeinghub.edu.au/resources/?currentPage=1&keywords=sleep
https://www.sleephealthfoundation.org.au/
Also see the next page for suggestions on how much sleep is needed for certain ages.
Tree planting for Red Tailed Black Cockatoos
On Thursday, the whole school travelled by buses to the Coxon's farm where we planted 300 trees that were raised from seeds last year.
We all wore gumboots, loved getting our hands dirty planting the trees for the Red Tail Black Cockatoos and loved feeding the pet lambs. We look forward to getting updates on how the trees are growing in the future.
Child safety - bus games
We have had reports this term of students being unsettled on school buses. We have spent some time on teaching acceptable bus use at school-sitting in our seats, talking quietly to the person next to us. It is a huge task as students are self-monitoring themselves on the buses, but it is important that they learn to do so to keep the bus trip a safe one.
We have also been learning some games that we can play on the buses to keep ourselves entertained. We encourage you to play these games at home to help learn them. Another option is having a blank writing book and pencil in school bags for bus use, an activity book can be fun, a pack of cards and of course, reading is a great option!
Games we have been learning:
Thumb Wars: The game is typically initiated with both the players uttering the rhyme "One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war", passing their thumbs over each other in time with this rhyme.
Mum's cuppa
The next Mum's cuppa will be held on the last week of the school term so Monday, 30th June @ 2.10 p.m. is pencilled in on the calendar. With these cold, frosty morning, it's hard to get out of bed and be organised so the next one will be held in the afternoon and you can take your child/ren home at the end of the day if you want.
Feel free to bring a friend or someone who might be thinking about enrolling at St. Malachy's for 2026 and they can join us when we do Sneak a Peek.
What's coming up this Term?
- Friday, 20th June - Winter Solstice Celebration
- Friday, 27th June - Jump Off Day
- Monday, 30th June - Mum's Cuppa @ 2.10 p.m.
- Thursday, 3rd July - reports go home
- Friday, 4th July - end of Term 2 @ 2.20 p.m.