Mary Queen of Heaven Newsletter – Term 1 – Week 5

As a school fundraiser for the first term, we are hosting an Easter raffle.  Raffle tickets will come home to families in the coming week.  We ask that you do your best to sell these to family and friends.  Please request more tickets if you are successful in selling yours.

In order to support this fundraiser we are seeking donations of Easter Eggs, chocolates etc. that we can make up into beautiful hampers as prizes for the raffle.  Please send these along to school with your children, there is a hamper box located in the front foyer.  First prize has been donated by Melbourne Chocolate, .  Many thanks to Sandra and Arthur for their support of our school.  Raffle will be drawn at our Easter Bonnet parade on Wednesday 27th March at 9:15am.

HELP NEEDED!

In order to support this fundraiser we are seeking donations of Easter Eggs, chocolates etc. that we can make up into beautiful hampers as prizes for the raffle.  Please send these along to school with your children, there is a hamper box located in the front foyer.  First prize has been donated by Melbourne Chocolate, 7 Assembly Drive Tullamarine.  Many thanks to Sandra and Arthur Doukas for their support of our school.  The raffle will be drawn at our Easter Bonnet parade (more information to come) on Wednesday 27th March at 9:15am.

Last Night we gathered together for a family sacramental evening to help prepare our year 3s and their families for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  It was a beautiful gathering, a time where we could reflect on the repair that can take place when we reconcile.  Please keep our Year 3s in your prayers as they prepare for the Sacrament of Reconciliation next Thursday.

School Tours for prospective families for 2025 are now complete.  Huge thanks to our current community.  Your word of mouth marketing of our school is really working.  We have a growing reputation in our community and Mary Queen of Heaven is now a sought after school for families in our community.  Some of the feedback we have received about our school:

‘The spaces are stunning, it feels like home’

‘Everyone is so calm, the children seem so happy’

‘The staff clearly love their job, they seem so content’

‘What a beautiful and welcoming place to learn’

With 5 weeks of learning and settling into school now passed, we are focussing on revisiting our school rules with the children and our continuum of response to these (consequences.)  Please chat with your children about the school rules, ask them how they follow them and why we have them.  Safety is our number one reason for having rules and it’s important that the children’s understanding of rules is around safety.  Your little ones can explain our continuum of response, it is really important that they understand consequences for choices and the fair way that we manage behavior and choices at MQH.  Our language around our school rules is the same language that is displayed in classrooms, when ‘reminders’ are given to redirect behaviour or choice we make connections to our school values.  Some examples of this might be:

‘Are you speaking with kindness?  When you speak with kindness you show our school value of love.’

‘I am reminding you to please listen to the speaker, when you listen to the speaker you show the school value of respect.’

Please support us in chatting with your children about our school rules and ways in which they can be their best by following them.

We strongly discourage children bringing personal items to school.  These items can be a distraction for the children, they can cause social issues in the yard and they have a habit of getting lost.  We have an abundance of play items for the children to use on the yard, lots of sand pit items and plenty of balls, hoops and skipping ropes.  Please chat to your children about keeping items at home, our staff will do the same.  We will support this at the front gate each morning also.

We love celebrating birthdays at school.  In order to ensure the safety of all, please limit birthday celebrations to either cupcakes OR trinket/lollie bags.  Please avoid large cakes that have to be cut up and shared.  At the end of the school day whatever is brought in to be shared will be handed to the children upon dismissal.  Children with allergies will be given something from their box of goodies which is allergy friendly.  Please be reminded, if your child has a birthday they can come to school in casual clothes so we can ALL celebrate them!

With our growing numbers comes a growing amount of traffic around our school at drop off and pick up times.  There are things we can do as a community about this and things that we need the council to support us with.

As a community we can:

• Keep to the 40km speed limit
• Be safe in all movement around school, looking out for children and pedestrians
• Be courteous and patient with other drivers
• Use the parking bays correctly and merge onto Hillview Rd with care
• Park away from neighbors driveways
• USE THE CROSSING where possible

Last year the Hume Council promised a school crossing along Hillview Rd, further signage around our school indicating a school zone and policing of the area at high traffic times.  We are consistently in contact with the council and share your disappointment that these items have not yet been actioned.  I implore you to reach out to Hume Council and rally for the safety of our school community.  Please be assured we continue to do so.  I encourage any family who wishes to rally the council to put their concerns in writing to:  josephi@hume.vic.gov.au

PLEASE label your child’s uniform pieces.  Items do go missing and do get lost in the busyness of school life, it is so much easier to locate if they are clearly labeled.

To celebrate Catholic Education Week our year 6s, accompanied by Pauline and Rachel will attend Mass on Friday 15th March at St Patrick’s Cathedral followed by fun activities at the Botanical Gardens.  Back here at school we will celebrate by having a Sausage Sizzle and wearing our school colours of Blue, Yellow and White to school.

Earlier this week order forms for a sausage sizzle were sent home, please ensure you return them to school with the correct money so your children don’t miss out.

HELP NEEDED

We are seeking volunteers to help with the BBQ on this day, please contact the office if you are able to assist.

We come together to celebrate Harmony Day on 21 March. Created in 1999 to celebrate unity and diversity, Harmony Day was originally an Australian celebration but is now marked worldwide by conscientious citizens. Whether you want to be better friends with your neighbors or stand in the shoes of another, we’ve got some harmonious habits and unifying ideas to make your Harmony Day a picture of peace.

Traditionally, orange signifies social communication and meaningful conversations. It also relates to the freedom of ideas and encouragement of mutual respect. Australians can choose to wear something orange during Harmony Week to show their support for cultural diversity and an inclusive Australia.

On Thursday 21st March we are celebrating our Italian Program.  Our children can wear their school uniform with a splash of orange (ribbon, head band, scarf, socks etc) and they will take part in a fun and engaging Tarantella Incursion to celebrate cultural diversity through our Italian Program.

Wellbeing

Working on gratitude helps us to be thankful and appreciate what we have in our lives. When we practice being grateful, we start to scan the world to look for positives- research suggests that this only takes 21 days. Practicing gratitude every day increases our levels of energy, helps us to feel happier and more focused. 

Here are some ideas of what you could do at home: 

• Gratitude Scavenger Hunt- as a family create a list of things you are grateful for. Such as something you enjoy looking at, something that makes you happy, something you like in nature, 
• Family Habit Building- every night at dinner, have each person talk about their favourite thing about that day

‘Pop-its’ Maths. So many families would have ‘‘Pop-its’ at home. While they have our children engaged, it is the perfect opportunity to use them to explore maths! Here are some simple ideas you might like to try with ‘Pop-its’: 

• Create a pattern- down up, up down, down down up 
• Roll a dice and pop it- eg roll 2 and pop 2 circles 
• Forwards Counting- 1, 2, 3 
• Backwards Counting 30, 29, 28 

Take Home Reading

Children in 1-2 have started to bring home ‘take home readers’.  Our Preps will soon commence bringing books home, too.

For young readers, one of the most effective ways parents and carers can offer additional support at home is by spending as little as 10 minutes each day on supported book reading. In addition to sharing a wide range of books, in which you explore together the joy of reading – delving into imaginary worlds, exploring playful language, and investigating special topics of interest – we recommend also including our home readers. These are books designed specifically to offer plenty of opportunity for children to practice the skills they are learning at school. 

1. Look at the front cover together. Read the title and then the description on the back cover to your child. Ask them questions to engage their interest and talk about what the story might be about.
2. If there are any vocabulary words listed, you can discuss their meaning and where they might have encountered this word before.
3. Now you are ready to start reading the story. As your child reads, encourage them to use their finger to follow along the text.
4. Leave your child time to sound out words and self-correct rather than jumping in quickly to correct them, which may chip away at confidence. If they are having trouble with a word, offer specific feedback and encouragement such as, “Sound out through the word.” If this is unsuccessful, you can demonstrate for them, and then do it together. If your child struggles to recognise a tricky word, you can provide the word for them.
5. Be specific when offering praise. Decoding is about learning letter-sound correspondences, so provide positive reinforcement focused on this – for example, “That’s right, that’s the /g/ sound we have been learning about.”
6. Make the reading experience rewarding through frequent praise, when your child sounds out a difficult word, self-corrects, or when they use good expression.
7. If you are using a shared reader, you are alternating reading with your child to model fluent reading. You read the pages with smaller text, that are marked with a coloured triangle in the corner, and your child reads the opposite page.
8. When you finish the reader, ask questions and talk about the story together. This is an important step to improve reading comprehension.
9. Don’t be afraid to come back to the same readers again, so that your child can read it several times, developing fluency and expression.