At McAuley, we are committed to an authentic partnership with families on their child’s learning journey.  Which is why it was so wonderful to welcome so many families to our Open Morning last month as part of Catholic Education Week.

We are also committed to strengthening our relationships with our school and local community.  Our Mother’s Day Gathering and Liturgy was an inspiring morning and helped to deepen our connection with each other and celebrate the role of mothers and significant women. Our Quiz Night last Saturday night was also a night of great fun with over 200 guests having made a huge effort to dress up and decorate their tables.  We are grateful to our sponsors and our dedicated McAuley Community Care team.

We deeply value the contribution of our amazing Class Parent Representatives and our hard-working Parents & Friends Committee. Your support of the families in our school community is greatly appreciated.

 As a school community, we are excited about what we can offer our learners across every facet of the Australian curriculum. Our strong focus on literacy and numeracy is core to our work. Incredible specialist offerings of Physical Education, Visual Arts, AUSLAN and Music further enhance the areas of the Australian Curriculum. 

We highly value that specialist educators can deliver high quality learning experiences to all learners across Reception to Year 6. We are also proud of the number of learners who participate in a range of instrumental lessons, one of our choirs, bands, our Drum Corps and McAuley Radio. Our vast range of extra-curricular sport relies on the valuable time of our coordinators, parents and volunteers.  This is a great entry level to sport backed by sporting associations.  In this issue you will see stories of learners successfully competing at SAPSASA carnivals.

Our Leadership Team has been enhanced by welcoming Mrs Bonnie Wansley into the role of Leader of Diversity and Inclusion. Bonnie brings a wealth of leadership experience to this role.  Her work across various sectors and in various states as an educator and leader, will provide families with confidence in working in partnership for leaners with diverse needs.  

Thank you for sharing in our excitement with the announcement of a Reception to Year 2 playground coming later this year.  We have engaged Adventure+ to design and install our new playground to be located on our school site near the grassed area of Mary’s Way and our Music Room. The full design is available to view at the Front Office, though here is one of the illustrations for your interest.

Our Mawson Oval playground will be for the exclusive use of Years 3 to 6. 

Looking forward to a wonderful rest of term.

Laudato Si Week  

In Week 4 we celebrated Laudato Si Week. At McAuley we have a strong focus on fostering the capacity of our learners to be stewards of our Earth.

Pope Francis reminded us of our responsibilities in his Laudato Si Encyclical, which continues to gain momentum throughout the world and we are encouraged to watch ‘The Letter – a Laudato Si Film’ which is available to view on YouTube. This film renews the calling of His Holiness to care for our planet. 

The theme for Laudato Si this year is ‘Hope for our Earth, Hope for Humanity’. It is in our learners we see this hope enlivened as they participate in the diverse projects and initiatives which McAuley Community School develops, nurtures and stimulates. 

Projects such as Beach School, our recycling and waste program and Adopt-A-Spot where learners affirm their connection to nature, our community and planet, immersing themselves in the beauty of God locally, and in turn, globally, answering the call and following in the Mercy tradition, responding with compassion and courage. 

We have included the Prayer for the Earth from Laudato Si and encourage families to contemplate this prayer with family over the coming year. 

Pentecost Sunday 

Sunday 28 May was Pentecost Sunday, also known as the Birth of the Church, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus’ disciples, marking their Baptism and empowering them with the continuation of Jesus’ mission after his ascension into heaven. 

The St Joseph’s Parish commissioned our staff at this Mass, and some of our Year 6 learners sang and assisted with readings.

Class Masses and Liturgies 

We continue to encourage families to attend our weekly Masses and Liturgies by year level, held in our Chapel, usually on a Thursday morning. We support our local St Vincent de Paul, by inviting learners to bring in a donation of a non-perishable food item which can be placed by the Altar before or after the Celebration. 

Sacramental Program 

Recently we celebrated the sacrament of Confirmation. We are very proud of the learners in the Sacramental Program, their time and commitment both individually and with their families embrace a spirit of celebration and achievement which will be sure to enrich their lives. Congratulations to William A, Saxon B, Caleb C, Hugo L, Santino L, Jack M, Harrison M, Elsie M, Leo M, Ravi P and Charlie T.

This sacrament will be followed soon by their First Holy Communion. We offer our best wishes and prayers to these learners as they approach this significant celebration. 

The new intake for the Sacramental program begins in Semester 2 and we will continue to support these learners and work with the Parish in this program. 

Prayer for the Earth 

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe 
and in the smallest of your creatures. 
You embrace with your tenderness all that exists. 

Pour out upon us the power of your love, 
that we may protect life and beauty. 
Fill us with peace, that we may live 
as brothers and sisters, harming no one. 

O God of the poor, 
help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth, 
so precious in your eyes. 

Bring healing to our lives, 
that we may protect the world and not prey on it, 
that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction. 

Touch the hearts 
of those who look only for gain 
at the expense of the poor and the earth. 

Teach us to discover the worth of each thing, 
to be filled with awe and contemplation, 
to recognize that we are profoundly united 
with every creature as we journey towards your infinite light. 

We thank you for being with us each day. 
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle 
for justice, love and peace. 

Amen 

Our school mission includes learning and growing holistically in a safe and nurturing environment.  Our specialist learning areas include Physical Education, AUSLAN, Music and Visual Arts to foster the growth of the whole child.  Through rich learning experiences, learners develop capabilities, skills and knowledge to understand themselves, others and their world more deeply.

The Australian Curriculum defines the importance of these learning areas:

Through the arts, people share stories, ideas, knowledge and understanding. The arts engage our senses and give us ways to imagine, celebrate, communicate and challenge ways of knowing, being, doing and becoming. 

Language learning provides the opportunity for students to engage with the linguistic and cultural diversity of the world and its peoples and reflect on their experience in various aspects of social life, including their own participation and ways of being in the world. 

Health and Physical Education enables students to develop skills, understanding and willingness to positively influence the health and wellbeing of themselves and their communities. 

See www.v9australiancurriculum.edu.au for further information

This term our pilot program ‘Beach School’ immerses our Year 2 learners in learning with and through nature.  The program also provides opportunities for learners to deepen their connection to God’s creation and engage with Australian First Nations Peoples’ values and perspectives.

Through McAuley Community School’s diverse and engaging curriculum, our learners become thriving people, capable learners and leaders for the world God desires.

I am very excited to begin my new role as Leader of Diversity and Inclusion. I am eager to get to know our McAuley families and support our learners with their Personalised Plan for Learning or PPL for short.

My role consists of working with our educators to support learners who require adjustments to enable them to access the curriculum on an equal basis as their peers. We share these adjustments and support through our PPL’s.

PPL review meetings for families who have a child with a PPL will be held in weeks 8 & 9.

These meetings offer an opportunity to reflect on a learner’s progress and reassess how we are supporting them with a range of needs.

Your child’s educator should always be your first point of contact regarding any questions surrounding your child’s PPL and if you have concerns about your child’s engagement with the curriculum.  Our educators work tirelessly to create experiences, routines and learning environments that cater to the individual needs of all learners.

Looking forward to meeting you.

As part of our Catholic Education Week celebrations, we held our first whole school Open Morning on Friday 19 May.

It was a morning filled with energy and excitement across the Learning Neighbourhoods.  Families had the opportunity to join in our regular morning Welcome Circle and participate in a learning activity with their child. 

We loved welcoming you to McAuley and look forward to seeing you again soon.

Our Reception learners have been continuing to experiment with ways to move with a ball using their feet, focusing on control while changing speed and direction to evade others in a range of games.

Activities have also progressed to identifying the most effective kicking techniques and contact points to increase kicking accuracy to different targets. They have enjoyed these activities.

Learners will continue to build on these fundamental skills and transfer concepts into the Ball Handling Unit as an introduction to Basketball.

Our Year One learners have been busy refining their dribbling and passing skills in adapted soccer games, also beginning to explore attacking and defensive strategies to maintain or gain possession of the ball.

Learners experimented using different amounts of force to kick the ball from a tee towards the hole/target in a Mini Golf game, and also verbal and non-verbal cues to communicate with teammates to give and receive passes. They were such good sports during this lesson as they followed Mr Siinmaa's instructions in the constant drizzle.

These concepts will continue to be explored as learners develop their Basketball skills in dribbling, passing, shooting and communicating with team mates later in the term.

Our Year 2 learners have been walking to our local beach on Mondays for Beach School this term.  They leave school at 11am and return by 2:30pm.

This exciting initiative has been developed by Ms Danielle Carr, our Sustainability Coordinator and Miss Sara Delaney, Reception Educator and has been over three years in the making.  It runs rail, hail or shine and fortunately, the weather has been good with only strong winds encountered.

Learners are prepared for the elements though in their Nature Play SA weatherproof onesies and facing inclement weather builds resilience and grit, a big part of the Beach School ‘why’.

Due to smaller backyards, safety concerns and the busyness of life, children have fewer opportunities for outdoor free play or regular contact with nature. A lack of time to explore, play and learn outdoors may negatively affect the ability to regulate emotions, socialise, self-direct tasks, assess risk and develop greater self-awareness.

At McAuley, we want to provide learning experiences in the great outdoors and that is why we are trialling this Beach School Pilot Program.  Data is being gathered about the benefits of being and learning in nature, to support an ongoing program for the whole school in the future.

Each week Abe, from Nature Play SA has joined us to run a maths lesson about forces with the learners creating marble runs in the sand.  They have also explored nature journalling, Christian meditation and in the final week, Senior Cultural Custodian Karl Winda Telfer is going to join us to share stories with us. 

We would love to know what you think of Beach School!

Learners have been inspired by a piece of work produced by printmaking artist Lidia Groblicka.  Born in Poland and living in Australia, she created a piece called ‘Bugs Tree 1988’.

Discussions were had on what insects live in trees and why, and then learners created their own imaginary bugs and developed a story behind why their bugs were in a tree. Learners applied key visual elements like creating a symmetrical tree shape and a linear pattern with the repetition of their bugs to give the sense of a rhythm within the art piece.  They drew each bug as a line drawing.

The materials used were black card, a black pen, a fluorescent paper or a watercolour wash for the background. All learners gave their work a title and wrote an artist statement outlining the meaning of their work, including the name of their bug and why the bugs were on the tree.

It was a delight to read their creative and unique stories.

AUSLAN continues as our choice of language, having been introduced in Term Three 2022.

All year levels are currently learning how to sign the days of the week and here we can see Year 4 learning with Miss Guthrie.  She loves feedback from learners that they are enjoying their learning and to hear that they are demonstrating the language to siblings at home.

Learners are still developing their skills and knowledge around Non-Manual features eg. raising your eyebrows as you sign.  The parameters of AUSLAN are determined by HOLME which is Handshape, Orientation, Location, Movement and Expression.

The focus they are concentrating on at the moment is handshape and being aware of how many different handshapes there are when someone signs that we can notice.

Moving forward, the rest of Term Two will focus on learning how to sign different emotions and sharpening fingerspelling skills.

Our Year 5 learners have been inspired to utilise the key features of Japanese cartoonist Toru Fukuda to create a series of trees with character. His style of work is humorous, colourful and meaningful.

As a class, Ms Clark discussed tree species, especially trees seen within the Adelaide landscape, followed by identifying these trees as a silhouette shape only. Learners then developed a meaningful piece that highlights a story and purpose of at least nine different trees within the composition.

They developed an understanding of collage and how to create shapes and images of trees using cut coloured paper. Decisions were made on how to add character to each tree using cartoon style faces in black pen and white posca pen. 

Great consideration had to be given to ensure there were a series of images and that the layout and composition enhances the story and idea. The application of colour has created interesting and thought-provoking pieces of work that make you smile as they are lots of fun to view.

The Year 6 learners have been developing their harmonic and rhythmic awareness through using the ukelele. 

This has involved discovering a wide range of chords and chord progressions across different songs of varying difficulty.

Following this, they are now creating their own songs through a song-writing unit, building on their current understanding of chordal playing and adding to this new discovery of form, texture and timbre to communicate ideas and meaning through music.

Our Concert Band features learners from Years 3 to 6 who meet to practice as a group every Thursday lunchtime.

We are grateful to Mrs Vanessa Saba for her expertise and guidance of these enthusiastic musicians. Mrs Saba has years of experience leading ensembles.  She leads the Concert Band made of learners playing the saxophone, clarinet, flute, recorder, bass guitar, keyboard, percussion and drums.

Our Annual Bands Showcase will be held on Thursday 6 July at 6pm at McAuley, featuring five of our extra-curricular ensembles.  More information is to come on our school app Audiri, though we are excited to see our Rock Band, Primary Years Choir, Early Years Choir, Drumcorps and of course our Concert Band, perform.

After a last gasp win over Concordia College in the first pool match of the South Australian Primary Schools Amateur Sports Association, the McAuley Knock Out Cricket team next took on Henley Beach Primary School on Mawson Oval.

After a gallant effort by our Year 5/6 boys representative team, they unfortunately were unable to progress to the next round of the competition. A big thank you to parents Adam Dawson-Sincock and Scott Pannunzio for assisting with officiating and coaching the boys.

Thank you for representing McAuley:  

Back Row, L to R:

Fergus A, Henry P, Harrison D-S, Caleb C, Tom P & Leo M

Front Row, L to R:

Judd C, Joel K, Mitch F (C), Will T, Seb Y and Tait J

Congratulations to Year 6 learner, Henry M who played in the SAPSASA Boys Football State Carnival from Wednesday 17 to Friday 19 May at West Beach representing the South-West District.

He was one of 35 boys who were invited to try out for the U12 boys’ team to compete at the Carnival.

As one of the 18 players selected, Henry and his ‘South-West’ team were undefeated in the nine games they played over the three days. Well done!

Tune in every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday morning from 8:20-8:40am to hear a rotating group of Year 6 learners broadcasting from our Radio Station near their Learning Neighbourhood.

Please click here to access the McAuley Radio page on our website with the connection to the programs.  Click on the play button to listen to our internet radio stream from anywhere in the world.  There may be a slight delay after you click play, though this is normal as it connects.

The stream can only be listened to live on the day.  We have listeners from all over the world including the United States, Greece and Brazil!

We are so proud of William C, Leo M, Livi M, Tom P, Jade T, Lenny V and Lincoln W who competed in the SAPSASA South West District Cross Country Carnival on Tuesday 9 May at Barrett Reserve, West Beach.

They gave it their all in their races to qualify to represent the South West District in the State wide Schools Cross Country Championships.

Well done to all, in particular Leo, Livi, Jade and Lincoln who earned a place at these Championships that were held at Oakbank on 8 June. Stay tuned for more details on their results.  Well done everyone!

L to R: Lenny V, Tom P, Jade T, Livi M, Will C, Leo M & Lincoln W

We are so grateful for the morning we shared celebrating Mother’s Day together.

It was a beautiful gathering of community in the Plaza and for our Liturgy.

We honoured mums, grandmothers, aunts and all significant women in our lives; with us on Mother’s Day or loved in our hearts.