Dear Families, 

It is hard to believe that another year is coming to a close and we would like to thank all families and friends of the school for their support throughout the year, we certainly appreciate the strong partnership we have with you all. This year has certainly challenged us and along the way! We have had to adapt and be flexible, learning news ways of doing things and ways of being, but we got there, and I must thank all the staff and students who have shown great resilience and determination. I think we will not forget the year that was 2020! 

On Tuesday, Semester Two Reports were emailed home to all families. We hope you have been able to celebrate the growth you child has made throughout the year and talk together about goals for 2021.

As we close the school gates on 2020, we wish everyone in our school community a happy, safe and holy Christmas and look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday, 27 January when we return for 2021. 

Yours in Faith, Growth and Unity

CMS Leadership Team -

Belinda, Angela, Linda and Courtney

I liked to finish the year on a high and congratulate our entire school community for again, such generosity. For the Christmas Care Packages we were able to send 28 boxes off, all nearing the 2kg maximum weight, to our defence forces. Christmas time is a fabulous time of year for giving. A wonderful opportunity for helping others. One of the main reasons why Christmas is a time for giving is to remind us of the Christmas story. Jesus is considered, by many, to be a gift from God to the world.

Christmas giving provides us the chance to help those who are less fortunate and need support. Charity donations are often more popular during the festive period. This is perhaps once again because we remember Jesus and how he helped those around him, particularly the marginalised. Christmas is also about celebrating what and who you have. So, it’s important to remember those who may have very little or who could need our help.

On behalf of our students and school staff, thank you for helping us make a difference to the many who serve our country with passion and dedication, and they do so with such sacrifice. We trust the care packages will be received with much heartfelt thanks and offer some comfort of home.

As a Mercy school, we believe in giving back. It is with anticipation that the Catherine McAuley gifts each of the receivers with Faith – spiritual support asking God to watch over them and that they never lose faith in what they believe and do, Growth – that they continue to help the world grow in peace and live in harmony and Unity – that they, and their comrades, stand united together in solidarity as they protect us all. We hope our service personnel know we are praying for them all.

Can I take this opportunity to wish every single one of you a very blessed and holy Christmas and may God bless you with health, wealth and prosperity as we head into 2021.

God Bless.

Mrs Caldinez

APRIM

Mercy Award

At the conclusion of each year we award students in the Middle school with our Mercy Award. This is not an academic award but one which reflects the Spirit of Mercy alive and present in the daily actions of our young people. This year the recipients of the Mercy Award are:

Year 6 - Emily and Micheila

Year 7 - Caitlin and Evan 

Congratulations to these students who have provided consistent modelling of the Spirit of Mercy in all their endeavours.

 Graduation

On Tuesday night the Year 6 and 7 students celebrated the end of their primary years with a Graduation Liturgy, dinner and disco held in the Joan Haren Performing Arts Centre. This is a wonderful way for the students and their teachers to bring to a close a very successful Senior Year at Catherine McAuley. Whilst this is a time of great excitement for these students and their families, it is a time of mixed feelings of pride and loss for our school community as we send these students on to the next stage of their life journey. We pray for our Year 6’s and 7’s and their families that they will be successful, safe and happy in their lives, filled with the gifts of the Spirit and nourished by the love of God. We also pray for families who are leaving our school, may the Spirit of Mercy be with you always and may your lives be blessed.

Teacher for the Day

During the last two weeks, our school has been taken over by some 'Teachers in training'. As part of our outreach programs and to raise money for Catholic Charities our student leaders ran our 'Teacher for the Day' raffle. Children purchased raffle tickets and placed them in the envelope of their chosen staff member and anxiously awaiting the announcements at our Week 7 Monday morning prayer. These students were then invited to dress like the teacher, share the role for the day and enjoy recess and lunch in the staff room. Congratulations to everyone who contributed as we raised $270 for our charity. We have so much fun with 'Teacher for the Day' we hope to be able to expand it further in 2021. So keep your eyes on the look out for some more imposters around the school next year! 

This week we celebrated the Spirit of Christmas with a beautiful concert event. We were all sad to not be able to welcome our families to share this special event, but we hope these photos will help you see how well our students performed and what a fun time we had!

On Wednesday of Week 7 5GC were lucky enough to have a video call with local celebrity Ethan White from the Channel 44 TV show ‘Off the Couch with Ethan’. 

A show all about encouraging kids to get off the couch and explore the great outdoors. Originally Ethan was going to visit our class but due to restrictions Ethan easily adapted and contacted our very excited class of fans via Zoom.

During the call Ethan shared with us a bit about himself and even showed us a sneak peak of an unreleased episode! The class asked many great questions especially a few that would help them with their own project on planning the perfect ‘South Australian Holiday’.

At the end of the session Ethan ran a ‘Kahoot’ game about his show which the students absolutely loved. As the winner Lyla received a special ‘Off the Couch with Ethan’ hat which she thought was pretty awesome. 5GC were the perfect audience and are now hoping to be the next stars to appear on the show, possibly as special guests!

This term Years 5, 6 and 7 have learnt about Pompeii and volcanoes. They have worked very hard on creating dioramas of volcanoes and kept children in the younger years entertained as the volcanoes went up.