News
Principal's Report
Hi all,
It’s great to be back and enjoying the sunshine that this second week brings. There is a sense of excitement and energy on site at present with the new build underway and a new year beginning.
On a personal note, I’m feeling completely rejuvenated after a short break with family and friends, and ready to lead this community again in 2023.
We start 2023 with:
- 91 students – the most students SCMS has begun a year with this century.
- The redevelopment underway of all classrooms in the school that will leave us with the most contemporary primary learning facilities in Country South Australia.
- A 5-class structure allowing class numbers to be well under capacity in all year levels.
- The lowest fee structure of any fee-paying school on the YP
- The strongest Year 5 NAPLAN growth of any school in the SYP (fourth overall, for all private/Catholic schools in the state)
- Above National Average results in 9 of the 15 domains across our school in Year 3, 5 and 7 NAPLAN.
I’ll be completely transparent in the fact that we usually keep these milestones as internal achievements. It fits with our ethos at the school of being others focussed. To focus on humility. But there are times as a leader where I receive feedback, often from people outside of our school community that SCMS is a lovely community school, but doesn’t achieve the academic results as other schools in the SYP.
It's this rhetoric which is why I feel it is necessary to promote these milestones within our community. Our results in an academic space are, in most measurements, the strongest in the SYP.
I’m confident with the team we have assembled this year of Teachers and Education support officers, as well as our wellbeing team of Katie, Molly and Jo that we will continue to ensure that all students at our school are making academic, social and spiritual development as well as becoming ‘well-beings.’
Parent Teacher Interviews
Looking forward to seeing lots of parents through the doors next week as we run our Parent Teacher Interview evenings. We are holding these earlier this year in place of our Information Night.
Rather than an information night where the information received is a of a more broad and general nature, the parent teacher interviews will allow us to open the direct line of communication with individual families early, and learn how we can best help educate your child.
In Catholic Education we believe that a child’s primary educator is their parents. We share a responsibility between parents and the school for the spiritual, social, and academic development of your child.
OSHC
Included in this newsletter you will see a note that was sent out through Seesaw in January, detailing that will be discontinuing the commencement of an Out of School Hours Care on site at SCMS. While a difficult decision given that we had full approval, it’s a decision made in the best interests of the community to ensure we can have a viable service in Yorketown.
Our students will have full access to the Happy Haven OSHC and transport provided to them both in the morning, and in the afternoon.
In a lot of ways this is a preferred option for our site, as it allows the use of our hall not to be compromised during the day and it allows our sole focus to be on the education of the children in our care.
Assembly
Next week our Year 6/7 students will be leading the school in an assembly. This will begin at 2pm in the Hall and should finish around the 2:35pm mark. It’s a great way to come in and see what the children have been up to in the first few weeks. These will be held across the term predominantly on Thursdays at this time. No matter if you have a child in that class you are more than welcome to attend.
What’s going on with the build?
If you’ve been on site, you will be able to tell that it looks markedly different at present. The new toilet block is hopefully only a fortnight away from being in operation. At this point the temporary toilets will be removed (by crane which is always exciting for the children). This will allow the landscapers to come in and finish off the new nature play area. If you’ve been on site, you’ll see how impressive the stonework is. In this space will be a specialised sandpit, a new digger, a water pump, a sand sifting tray, and much more.
The new junior primary building is taking shape with the brickwork almost complete. The handover date for this classroom is the 1st of April at this point, but this is a flexible date. This is two new full classrooms, two outside courtyards, an intervention room to run our Minilit program as well as two JP toilets.
Looking forward to seeing a lot of you on site next week.
Kind Regards,
Scott March
RE News
Hello!
Welcome to our new families and welcome back to all the families continuing on with their St Columba’s journey. I hope you all had some time over the Christmas/New Year holidays to relax and spend some time with your family and friends.
This year has started with a little bump in the road for us at SCMS. Our wonderful parish priest, Fr John, has had to go back to Kenya for six months as there was a complication with his VISA. This has left us without a resident priest here on the peninsula. Thankfully our Sunday’s masses are continuing with the help of supply priests from Adelaide taking turns to come over. However, it has meant that our school masses are up in the air this term. We are hoping to have a priest for our Mass for Ash Wednesday but can’t confirm this just yet. We will keep you posted.
With that in mind, Lent is just around the corner. It starts on Ash Wednesday, February 22. What will you give up this Lent? What extra prayer could you start or incorporate? What act of charity will you complete? The list and ideas are exhaustive. 😊
If any parents are interested in your child making any of their sacraments this year (Baptism, First Communion, First Reconciliation or Confirmation) please could you make contact with me. You can either catch me at school on Wednesday or Thursday, or email me at mhonner@scms.catholic.edu.au.
Have a great weekend,
Miriam Honner
APRIM
Library News
Welcome back to the Library for 2023. We have a few areas created in the library for the children to explore. We also have new books arriving soon.
Could all issue 1 Book Club orders be in by Monday the 13th of February.
Looking forward to a fabulous year in the Library.
Many thanks
Julie Anderson
Junior Primary News
This week in Art we learnt about the ‘3 magic colours’. These are the colours that help us to make new colours: Red, yellow and blue!
From the Front Office
Welcome to 2023!
Uniforms
We have more unifrom in stock for those who have requested items or anyone looking to do a top up. We also have an abundance of second hand jumpers - if you would like one sent home please let the office know or feel free to pop in from 8.30am to 3.30pm.
Newsletter
If you would like to have the newsletter emailed to you, please send an email to info@scms.catholic.edu.au
Paperwork
If you are yet to, can you please return your child's signed permission form and ICT agreement. If you are needing a new copy of either, please let the school know.
Medical Care/Asthma Care Plans
If your child requires medication at school or has an Asmma Care plan, can you please provide the school with an updated copy.
Hats
A reminder that during Term 1, students are required to wear school hats at Recess and Lunch times and during PE. Can you please ensure that their hat is brought to school each day. If no hat, students will be asked to play in the shade.
Garden News
The sunflowers that we are planted for RU OK? day are past their peak now, so we will allow them to dry out and save the seed heads for the next summer season. Here’s Allie showing us just how big they grew!
We have also been busily harvesting tomatoes for use in our Home Ec and Food Science programs later this term.
