32 - 24th October, 2025 - Term 4, Week 3

Principal's News

Dear Families,

Today the school was full of excitement as the grandparents and special friends of our students joined us for the morning! As always, our mass to celebrate the important place that grandparents play in our lives was a beautiful occasion, with all students singing their hearts out and the grandparents taking home something special in their pockets to remind them of their grandchildren! The students enjoyed hosting their grandparents in their classrooms with a fun activity, then escorting them to the Multipurpose Room for a lovely morning tea.

Grandparents are important in a child's life for many reasons:

• they provide emotional support through unconditional love
• they serve as role models and act as trusted caregivers 
• they share wisdom and life lessons, help preserve family history and cultural traditions, and contribute to a child's development by fostering social skills, academic curiosity, and emotional well-being 
• their presence offers a sense of security and continuity, which is especially beneficial during family disruptions.  

If you are lucky enough to still have your own grandparents in your life, you will know that all these things are true! Thank you to Mr. Breewel for his organisation of the mass, and all staff for hosting our visitors in the classrooms and at morning tea.

Our Grade Three and Four classes spent Tuesday tripping around Mildura, enjoying ten-pin bowling, lunch in the park and fun at the Wave Pool before returning to school to set up their tents for a night of camping on the oval. After tea at the Merbein Club, the students watched a movie before heading for bed and thankfully missed most of the wild and windy weather that arrived on Wednesday morning! After packing up and eating breakfast, the students enjoyed some fun with the boys from “Wildside Adventures”, who ran the kids through lots of energetic activities. Thanks to Mrs. Phelan, Mrs. Garraway, Mrs. Courtney, Mrs. Lohmeyer, Thel O’Shea and Grant Finlayson for their organisation and supervision throughout the camp.

Next week, due to the pupil-free day on Friday, assembly will be held on Thursday afternoon at 2.45pm. The Grade Five and Six students will be letting us know more about their school camp to Adelaide last week through their presentation. Friday 31^st October will be a pupil-free day with staff engaging in professional development on Structured Literacy, then beginning their report writing on Monday 3^rd November. Tuesday 4^th November is Melbourne Cup Day, meaning families will have a five-day break from school! We hope you can use these days off as a chance to rest up for the busy weeks to come. Students will return to school on Wednesday, 5^th November.

Our 2026 Preps joined us on Wednesday for their first Transition visit! All children were brave and resilient as they made their way into the classroom and said goodbye to their mums and dads, and it wasn’t long before they were playing and experiencing life in the classroom with Miss Appledore. The new Preps will visit again in a couple of weeks, and we hope they are looking forward to this as much as we are!

As we begin to plan for the 2026 school year, we announce that Mr. Michael Breewel will be leaving us in 2026 to take on a role at Merbein P-10 College. Michael has worked at OLSH for 12 years, during which time he has held many roles, including classroom teacher, Religious Education Leader and PE Leader. We will miss Michael around our school but wish him well in his new position. We are currently finalising Michael’s replacement and will announce this in the coming weeks.

Have a great weekend!

Narelle Gallagher

Links:

Enrolments at OLSH:

OLSH Calendar:

Religious Education News

Sacrament of Reconciliation (Year 2 & Above)

Registration forms should now be completed and returned to the parish office with payment.  

Below are the details of the celebration of the sacrament.  

• Celebration of Sacrament - Wednesday November 26th
• Mission Mass

Our annual Mission Mass will be held on Thursday November 20th beginning at 9:15am. All families and parishioners are welcome to attend. 

Grandparent's & Special Friends Morning

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Christmas Hampers

For our Christmas Raffle we are asking for donations of groceries to put together a number of Christmas Hampers.  Each grade has been allocated different items to bring to ensure we have a good variety. There will be a basket in each classroom to place the donated items in.  The following is a list of food suggestions to donate which will be put together to make up the hampers for each class (no home brand products, thank you):

Student Leader News

Recycle Bottles & Cans

The Student Leaders have organized an account for donated bottles and cans. If you have refundable bottles and cans, you can recycle them at any CDS container refund depots in Mildura and scan the barcode below. This will donate the money directly to the Student Leaders to go towards new equipment for the students!

Thank you, OLSH Student Leaders

Happy Birthday

We wish the following students a Happy Birthday:

Month of October:

• 2nd - Pippa P - 9 yrs
• 3rd - Hazel W - 6 yrs
• 4th - Rubee S - 8 yrs
• 6th - Zali B - 12 yrs
• 12th - Phoenix M - 13 yrs
• 14th - Kai L - 7 yrs
• 17th - Lachlan C - 8 yrs
• 17th - Levi P - 9 yrs
• 18th - Savannah F - 12 yrs
• 21st - Frankie R - 11 yrs

OLSH Canteen

Orders need to be completed by 9.15am every Friday.

CDF Community Fund

Prep News

We had a wonderful day today celebrating our Grandparents and Special Friends. We hope they had a great time, too.

Show and Tell- Week 4’s Show and Tell is : ‘Free Choice’. Please let me know if you need a new note.

Concert- We have started practising our dance for the concert which students are picking up very quickly. A note will come home about what they will need to wear in the coming weeks. The concert is on the 11th December.

Assembly- The Preps will be presenting at assembly on Friday 14th November.

I will be away on Wednesday and Thursday next week. Students will have Mrs Milani.

This week in Prep:

Literacy- We have been learning some long vowel sounds- oa, ow, ay, ai, igh. Students have been reading and attempting to write words with these sounds.

Writing- We have continued learning how to expand sentences by adding extra information to a base sentences.

Maths- We have been learning 2D shapes and how to draw pictures using these.

Science- Students explored how different objects move by sliding or rolling. Students used a ramp to work out if objects rolled or slid.

Religion- Students listened to a story from the Bible and then wrote why they are wonderful.

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Grade 1 News

In Writing, students have been busy finishing off their narratives and focusing on the important step of editing. We have been learning to check our work carefully, especially making sure that full stops are used correctly in our sentences. We also revisited conjunctions, exploring how they help us join ideas together, and practised identifying them in our take-home readers.

In Maths, we have moved on to learning about half-hour time. Students are becoming confident in reading both digital and analogue clocks, and we have enjoyed using hands-on activities to practise telling the time in real-life situations.

In Art, students created beautiful portraits of their grandparents, putting a lot of care and detail into their work. These lovely artworks are currently on display in the church, and they look fantastic! We are very proud of our efforts!

Just a friendly reminder to continue supporting your child’s spelling homework and nightly reading at home, as these regular routines make a big difference to their progress.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Grade 2 News

It was wonderful to see so many Grandparents and Special Friends at our Mass and morning tea today.  Many thanks to everyone for coming - we even had some special visitors all the way from South Africa and India!

This week in Literacy we wrote topic sentences and supporting details to support the argument that 'All Schools Should Have a Therapy Dog.' We have also been working on a new text on the topic 'Grandparents are Special'. The students have been doing a great job learning about the structure and language features of persausive texts.

In Religion, the students have been learning the Bible story of 'Jesus Heals a Blind Man'. We have talked about way people can be blind other than in the physical sense for example, being blind to other people's needs.

In Mathematics, we have been learning about area and how to calculate area using non-standard measurement. 

In Art, we will be beginning an unit learning about the life and artworks of the artist Paul Klee. He was a Swiss artist who painted abstract art works that were influenced by the Cubist style. 

Have a great weekend!

Lisa

Grade 3 News

What a huge week it’s been with the Year 3/4 Camp finally happening on Tuesday and Wednesday.  The students had a fantastic time and I was proud to see them demonstrating our school values of respect, resilience, and responsibility as they enjoyed the excursions to Ten Pin Bowling, Park for Play, and The Waves. After spending the night in tents and experiencing rain and wind overnight, they bounced out of bed and engaged in a full day of team building challenges with Tom and Eli from Wildside Adventures. Lots of fun memories were made. There are some photos in the gallery and together we’re preparing a special book of stories and photos. Each child will bring a copy home in the next few weeks. 

Special thanks to the Cory, Grayson, Parker, Bell, Williams and O’Shea families who loaned us their tents and to Thel O’Shea and Grant Finlayson who stayed overnight to help with supervision. Our camp would not have been possible without your support.

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Grade 4 News

The Grade 3/4 students enjoyed an exciting and memorable camp experience at school. They had the opportunity to sleep in tents, set up their own beds, and experience a real camping adventure close to home. The camp included a fun session of ten pin bowling, a refreshing trip to the wave pool, and an action-packed day of outdoor activities with the Wildside team.

A huge thank you to all the parents who supplied and helped set up the tents — your support made the camp possible! Special thanks also go to Thel O’Shea and Grant Finlayson for staying overnight, assisting with breakfast, and helping with the huge job of packing up..

All students had a fantastic time and, after two busy and exciting days, went home happy and very tired!

Grade 4 have been working very hard on mastering Single Paragraph Outlines (S.P.O.'s).  Below are some examples of S.P.Os about camp.

CAMP FUN!

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Single Paragraph Outlines

Grade 5 News

Grade Five have been working hard this week. They have been learning about natural, human, and capital resources in Economics, and about decimal fractions and nets in Mathematics. We have also started reading our new class novel, Holes. Students have begun their preparations for the Christmas Concert — a big thank you to Mrs Lawrence for helping with the dance moves! Next Thursday, Grades Five and Six will sing a song and present a PowerPoint about camp at Thursday’s assembly. 

Grade 6 News

It's been a very busy week this week settling back in to the classroom after camp! In Maths we have been looking at converting millilitres to litres both ways. We have started our Religion unit on Solidarity. We also began reading our class novel 'Us Mob, Walawurru' which is about a girl named Ruby who lives in central Australia during the 1960s. We are very excited to dive deeper into this text and learn more about Indigenous culture. 

A reminder that there is no school next Friday 31st October. Staff will be here completing some work around Literacy. Students also get an extra, extra long weekend as the following Monday 3rd November is also a student free day, and Tuesday 4th November is the Melbourne Cup Public Holiday. 

With so much happening this term, please ensure you are reading all key dates throughout the newsletter! It's very busy! 

Have a great weekend! 

Breanna 

Other News

General News

School Advisory Council Members:

Thel O’Shea, Hannah Mills, Courtney Portaro, Sandra Hammet, Lana Borchard, Sara McClelland, Jennifer Wilson, Jordan Wade, Adam Lawrence (Staff Rep) & Narelle Gallagher (Principal). 

Change of details:

Please contact the office if you have had a change of details. Phone: 50252258 or Email: admin@olshmerbein.catholic.edu.au

Bell Times

SIMON Everywhere App

This can be downloaded from either the Google Play Store or the Apple Store.  The app has been updated earlier this year and an email was sent out to parents.  If you are having issues with logging in, can you please contact Mia in the office. 

Student Medical Profile

Medical Profile: Please make sure that the school has been notified of any changes that have been made to your child’s Medical Profile on PAM and to also include this on the pink Parental Authority and Consent Form each year. 

IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PARENT TO MAKE OLSH AWARE OF ANY CHANGES.

Parent Notified Absence

If your child is unwell and will be absent from school, you are able to complete a Parent Notified Absence (PNA) on the SIMON Everywhere App or Parent Access Module (PAM) which will automatically notify the teacher and a text message will not be sent.

Newsletters

These are distributed every Friday on SIMON Everywhere and the OLSH Website. Please contact us if at any time you have any queries or require any further explanation about events, dates etc. Any items for the newsletter are asked to be handed in at the office by 9.00am on Friday.

Attendance & Sign in

A reminder to parents that the school needs to be notified of a student absence by 10 am on the day.  This can be done by calling the school office or by using SIMON Everywhere or sending an email to admin@olsmerbein.catholic.edu.au.

Second Hand Uniform

Please contact the school if you require any second hand uniform.