Dear Families & Friends,  

A quote attributed to writer Louisa May Alcott says, "Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again.” As I walked around on Wednesday, meeting all the beloved characters that our students had dressed as, I was instantly transported back to my childhood and the many hours I spent lost in the magical worlds of Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, Dr. Seuss, and many more. These timeless stories have a unique way of making us feel at home, no matter where we are or how old we become, and it is wonderful to see our students embracing the joy of reading with such passion. A huge thank you goes out to the P and F, who have worked tirelessly to prepare the Book Fair and to the staff for the Oscar-worthy performance of Shrek.  

Our Pre-Primary students had an energetic excursion to Jungle Gym last week as part of their Olympics studies. It was a great way for the children to have fun while developing their fundamental movement skills and from all reports it was a fantastic outing. Talking about Olympics, the Primary staff have been having their own Olympic competition and students may have seen staff competing in blindfolded races, cup stacking competitions or taking silly shots to submit for the photo challenge. At the time of publishing, de Vialar staff were in the lead for total medals, however Leonard have blitzed the field earning 4 gold medals in total!  

There are several community events coming up in the next week and I encourage parents of students in Year 5 and Year 6 to attend the Cybersafety workshop on Tuesday to learn more about how to support their children in the digital world. In addition, information regarding the Father’s Day Breakfast was sent out late last week and we look forward to celebrating the significant men in our lives on Monday 2 September. 

Spirit of Jesus moments: 

• Creativity in abundance during Book Week, with a special shout out to Helena and Ahana in Year 4 for coming as the main character from the book they self-published! 
• Observing wonder and awe in Year 1 and Year 2 students who discovered a frog in the Junior Corridor on Tuesday morning.  
• Reading wonderful suspense stories in Year 6 as part of their Writing. assessments 

Linley Waters
Head of Primary

Class in Focus: Year Three Blue

As part of our program on the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the students in Year 3 learned about the church sanctuary and the various sacred objects and symbols found there. To begin, we walked to Saint Joseph’s Parish Church to explore the real thing. Naturally, it started raining as we set out, but the skies cleared just as we reached the church door.

In the church, the students were curious yet respectful, asking plenty of questions about the different items they saw. The core content focused on the objects in the church sanctuary, such as the Tabernacle, altar and sanctuary lamp. However, the students' curiosity extended to everything from the symbols and inscriptions found around the church to the Christmas tree stored in the choir loft, visible from below. Overall, the visit was an engaging experience.

Over the next two weeks, the students applied what they learned to create dioramas of the sanctuary. They used cutouts of the key objects we are learning about, but added the surroundings to make beautiful sanctuaries decorated with stained glass, banners and artwork.

The experience culminated with the Feast of the Assumption where students once again walked down to the church with the rest of the school to celebrate the Eucharist. The activity deepened the students’ understanding of what was occurring during the celebration and was a great way to wind up our Eucharist unit of work.

Peter Matthys
Year 3 Blue Teacher 

Class in Focus: Year Four Blue

Term 3 has flown by for us in Year 4 Blue and we can’t believe it is already week 6. We have been very busy learning about writing recounts, the first fleet and understanding the different types of forces. We were also very busy practicing for our assembly and getting ready for our first Inter-house Athletics Carnival.

In Writing this term, we have been exploring recount writing with a focus on diary writing. We have been learning about using our first-person point of view, describing emotions, topic sentences and complex sentences to create in-depth diary entries.

This term in Mathematics we have been exploring number patterns, continuing to learn our times tables; learning about solving multiplication and division problems with different written strategies; and completing various different chance investigations and using our chance words to describe the probability of events occurring.

In HASS this term we have been exploring and learning about the journey of the First Fleet from England to Australia looking at the reasons for the First Fleet, the conditions faced by the convicts and the experiences of convicts when they first arrived in Australia.  We will also be tying our diary writing in with our HASS focus by writing a diary entry from the point of view of a child convict who is travelling to Australia.

In Science this term, we have been learning about Physical Sciences, looking at the different forces that act on objects in our environment.

We can not wait to see what the rest of Term 3 brings as well as the rest of Year 4!

Edward Ewing
Year 4 Blue Teacher

Primary Choir

On Tuesday 20 August, our Choir competed in the Catholic Performing Arts Festival Choral Category.

Our choir opened the session singing 'My City of Ruins' by Bruce Springsteen and 'Bow River' by Cold Chisel with great enthusiasm. The crowd was very appreciative of the performance and our students were thrilled to be able to get the chance to sing in front of a large captive audience and in the presence of 6 other magnificent choirs.

The choir thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon of choral entertainment and have vowed to be back next year, bigger and better.

Lloyd Reidy
Choir Master