News
Garden News
We have been using the Green Space for plenty of outdoor fun this past fortnight.
The Junior Primary classes (R-2) gathered for a garden tour, created an art collage and finished by decorating two beautiful gingerbread garden sheds.
Students spent voluntary time in the garden during breaks drawing on chalkboards and helping with important jobs like weeding and composting.
You may have seen a wheelbarrow full of produce available at the school gate for a gold coin donation - there will be more!
Platters of fresh, organic fruit and vegetables that we have grown together have been on offer in the yard for all to sample - great to see students trying new things, straight from the ground.
Netball Carnival
Netball carnival @ Kadina
Last Friday, I was one of the lucky ones to get picked to be part of the YP zone team at the carnival in Kadina. My team was a year 7/8 team with girls from schools in the Area. The Four teams were, YAS, MLS, YP ZONE, and KMS (Kadina Memorial School). Overall, we won two games and lost one. So, we came runner-up. Our coach was really nice and so were my teammates. I loved the experience and hope to do it again next year.
Jada
Middle Primary News
On Thursday the 8th of June the Middle Primary Class travelled to Lake Fowler to work with the Yorke Peninsula Council. The students travelled by coach to the council land surrounding Lake Fowler to plant a variety of native trees in their revegetation area. Students worked in groups to dig holes, plant trees and install tree guards. The students battled through the challenges of the gusty winds and a sudden downpour of rain to successfully plant over 150 trees.
All the students reflected positively on the day and were very grateful to be given the opportunity to plant new trees in a bushfire affected area. It was fantastic to go back and visit the trees planted by the St Columba's students in the previous years.
Reception News
Last week for Science, the Receptions experimented with different materials to investigate whether they were waterproof or non-waterproof. To do this, we experimented by wrapping our class teddies up in different materials and testing whether or not the material kept them from getting wet. We experimented with fabric, plastic, alfoil, tissue paper and newspaper. We observed through our experiment that the materials that weren't waterproof would absorb the water, which meant we could wring out the water from them. They then recorded their findings in their science books.
Literacy Coaching
The Year 2 students have begun working in 2 small groups each Tuesday afternoon, on extending their writing skills. Currently we are looking at how to create an exciting beginning from a Picture Prompt. We are examining 3 different approaches, namely 1. using a long list of interesting describing words, like “Colourful, shimmering, intense, this beautiful…..” 2. an instruction to the reader, like “Tell me what do you see!’’ 3. Rhetorical Question, like “Do you love a beautiful sunset as much as I do?”
Here is how 1 group of Year 2 students described this strawberry ice-cream:
Cold, pink, white, waffle-coned, delicious, huge, messy-making, tempting, beautiful, expensive; this is my ideal ice-cream. It has lots of ice-cream right down to the bottom of the cone. It contains many red strawberries. The ice-cream sits around the centre scoop like a lion’s mane.
They have done a fine job together, of describing this treat!
Regards,
Mandy Thompson
Upper Primary News
In English, the Year 5's studied the text 'The Arrival' by Shaun Tan. The Arrival is a wordless book told entirely in pictures. The story follows a man as he packs a trunk of possessions and travels by ship to a foreign land. The Year 5 students have been working an English task influenced by this story and the way that it is told. Students thought about a significant moment in their lives and were to represent this moment and 'change' through symbolic images. Symbolic images were evident in The Arrival text; 9 images represented the first chapter; 9 images represented the last chapter and how these symbols had changed in the mans life. Students accompanied their first chapter with text, leaving the audience to understand the change in their life through analysing the change in the last 9 symbols. Whilst the writing component is complete, students continue to work on adding tone and depth to their images in Art.
Principal's Report
Hi all,
What a busy two weeks it’s been as we’ve transitioned into our new/temporary classrooms. It has been an incredible amount of work by the staff here to make these spaces work, without causing any disruption to the children’s learning.
Our Junior Primary classes have settled into their spaces beautifully, and we can already see the benefits for the inside/outside spaces, and the breakout spaces for our intervention work. Please feel free to pop in at morning drop off and check them out.
Early in Term 4, once everything is completed on site there will be an official opening. Stay tuned for information in this space.
Whole School Assembly
On Thursday the 6th of July at 9:15am (Week 10) we will be holding a whole school assembly. This will be led by our Year 7 students and will feature work from all the classes. We don’t have access to the stage so it will be a technology free assembly, but there will be a variety of work on show from all students. We’d love you to come along and stay for a coffee afterwards and have a look through our new facilities. The pictures, while impressive, don’t do them justice.
Enrolment Tours
Over the next two Mondays I will be running two Principal tours for new and prospective families from 9:10am. If you know of young families in the area with toddlers or babies, we’d love to chat to them about St Columba’s being an option for their children going forward.
Scholarships
Over the past two years many of our graduates have won scholarships at prospective Catholic Schools in Adelaide to continue their education going forward.
Students when leaving Year 7 at SCMS have traditionally gone to one of three schools, Yorketown Area School, Minlaton District School and Maitland Lutheran School. We know that then some families at around Year 10, then decide to send their children to boarding options in Adelaide whether that be Catholic (Rostrevor, Sacred Heart, Loreto), Lutheran or Independent options. Please always keep in mind that we have strong relationships with the three Catholic options and can advocate for your child to receive a scholarship.
God Bless,
Scott
RE News
Hello!
Next week we have our final mass for the term and have the wonderful Fr Anthoni back to celebrate it for us. The year 3/4 class will lead us for this mass, celebrating St Peter and St Paul. St Peter being the very first pope, the rock on which Christ built his church, and St Paul one of the greatest apostles and writers in the New Testament. Below is one of St Paul’s most famous pieces of writing taken from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. I was once encouraged to replace my own name wherever ‘love’ was written. It made for a difficult self-reflection but also filled me with hope as I saw these attributes being lived out daily in the lives of those around me. When the world can seem a bit upside down and crazy, it is a hopeful and wonderful thing to focus in on those around us and see that, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
You are all most welcome to join us for Mass, Thursday June 29 at 9:15am.
Over the next few months two of our students will be preparing for their Confirmation. Please keep Angus and Leo in your prayers as they start this journey.
Have wonderful week,
Miriam Honner
APRIM
“Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.”