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This week we celebrated the Feast of the Assumption. Coming together as a Catholic Community is difficult, so we thank the efforts of our Year 5 teachers and students who prepared the celebration.
Last week we had our first session with Dylan Wiliam, connecting with him from Florida. We had three schools on the presentation with St Augustine's in Yarravile and St Margaret Mary's in Spotswood joining us. Dylan's expertise is 'formative assessment.' That is, looking where a student is at and teaching from that point. Dylan is an excellent speaker and our teachers went away very enthustically to try some of the techniques he talked about.
Dylan spoke to us a lot about feedback. His main point was that most feedback that students receive is actually counter productive. I know from my own teaching that students rarely go back and study the mistakes they made in a piece of work. We know that some parents worry if every single mistake is not corrected in a piece of work or homework. A teacher correcting every single mistake in a piece of work, the question has to be asked, who is it serving. As Dylan puts it, feedback should move a student to the next level, rather than just looking in the rear view mirror at the work they have done. For example, rather than circling every single spelling mistake and writing the correct spelling next to it, a teacher would be much better off choosing one mistake, reminding the student of the spelling rule so they can improve it for next time is a much better strategy to improve learning. Correcting every single mistake is too overwhelming, most of us can only work on one or two things at a time. We also do not want to build a culture of students relying on teachers to correct every mistake, we want students to be independently improving their own work.
Our teachers are really looking forward to trying some of Dylan's techniques before our next session on September 11.
Our building project continues, trying to work around the limitations on how many people can be onsite. Our builders have pressed ahead with our classrooms and they look to be running on time, however the underpinning will now be slower. The contaminated soil cost over $60000 to remove. We knew, because of the age of the building, we would need a large contingency budget, but that certainly has dug into a fair chunk of it.
Traffic plan. I also touched base with council with the traffic plan. The good news is that it is still looking to go ahead with most of the works planned for over Christmas. So hopefully, when we return in 2021 we will be surrounded by great traffic paths which will make our students safer and unltimately healthier.
Schoolzine: We have stopped using the Schoolbag app and will only be using Schoolzine. You will need to download Szapp, search for the school and put in this code 2951.
CDF Pay: We now have a new option for online payments. With the addition of CDF Pay. It is easy to set up an account. You will be able to pay for things like the jogathon, the uniform shop and hopefully lunch orders once we get it fully operational. Go to https://smwilliamstown.cdfpay.org.au
Stay Safe and God Bless.
Anthony
Loving God, we give thanks
for the extended family of local communities
assisting with the needs of both frail and elderly confined to their homes.
May everygift of love, every encouraging word, bring
hope into lonely lives and a blessing to the giver.
Amen
Way of the West
The St Mary’s school and Parish community are joining forces to respond to the needs of asylum seekers in our community. During the month of September, our Way of the West campaign is urging us all to respond to this need by donating various goods outlined on the flyer attached.
These goods are donated to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) in Footscray and dispersed to families in need from there. Due to the current Covid 19 restrictions, donationed items can be left on the presbytery porch (beginning Monday 31st August).
If you are able to help this year then below are possible suggestions for you to start stocking up on:
Week 1: Sunday 6th September - Saturday 12th September
Dried Food: healthy breakfast cereals, dried fruit, nuts, healthy snack food for lunch boxes, tea (both black & green) and instant coffee.
Week 2: Sunday 13th September - Saturday 19th September
Tinned Food: Fish like sardines, tuna or salmon. Vegetables such as tomatoes, corn, peas, lentils, chickpeas, beans (not baked), tomato paste, small jars of honey, long life milk.
Week 3: Sunday 20th September - Saturday 26th September
Toiletries: Shampoo, soap, toothbrushes, sanitary products, shaving items.
Week 4: Sunday 27th September - Saturday 3rd October
Other Household Goods: Dishwashing detergent, washing powder, nappies (especially larger sizes), gift cards (Kmart, Woolworths, Coles).
Items will then be taken to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Footscray to be distributed to families in need. Thank you for your amazing support of the past.
Class Representatives
The Class Representatives have been doing a wonderful job with their role during remote learning and it has been lovely meeting with them each week to hear what they have been up to during the week.
The Class Reps have come up with some great ideas that we could do during our remote learning and the one idea they decided on was a Drawing Competition.
Check out the poster created by our 5M Class Rep Charlotte Petersen!
Each child can submit one entry to the drawing competition. The competition closes on Monday 24th of August.
St Mary’s Jogathon – Reimagined for 2020
As you would all know St Mary’s much loved Jogathon was planned for the end of term 1, but with Victoria’s various lockdowns the P&F have been working on ways that students can participate – just a little differently in 2020.
The P&F have worked with Karoline Cooke and Michelle Ristovski to plan an event that you can participate in at home as a family. Each student will be shortly invited to add a new google classroom – Jogathon, here Ms Cooke has provided all the material and instructions that you need.
This year the St Mary’s Jogathon will take the form of a scavenger hunt – with a special bingo card able to be accessed in the Jogathon classroom. As a family you are able to seek out special items that you can find on your everyday walk. Once students have found all the items they are able to upload their entry. Entries are open from 31 August – 12 September.
Thanks to the generosity of TreeHaus Williamstown, there will be a sponsored prize – a Sportspower voucher, valued at $30 for a student in each class. Each student that completes and submits their entry will go into the random draw to win the voucher. Winners of this year’s Jogathon will be announced on the last day of term 3.
There is no obligation to participate, there is no obligation to provide a donation. We would like to thank all the families and friends that donated earlier this year as part of the Jogathon, however, we also recognise that life looks and feels quite different to the start of 2020, and that financially some families may not be in a position to donate funds at this time. If, however, your family still wishes to donate you able to send through a one-off payment via our new CDF pay, which is an online payment system: https://smwilliamstown.cdfpay.org.au
On behalf of the P&F we also send a special thank you to Lisa Kirby and Karoline Cooke for their commitment to continue this activity under such unusual circumstances and bring something that is familiar and valued by our kids back, using this opportunity to focus on the importance of physical activity, health and wellbeing. We hope that you enjoy Jogathon Iso style.
Thanks
P&F Committee