17 - 6th June, 2025 - Term 2, Week 7
Deputy Principal's News
A REMINDER THAT THERE IS A PUBLIC HOLIDAY ON MONDAY.
Dear Families,
Today, the Grade Five and Six students took part in Winter Sports, competing in soccer, netball, and for the first time, AFL 9s against Merbein P–10 and the Lake School. A rundown of the day will be included in next week’s newsletter.
Congratulations to Jacinta Wagner, Anastasia Cory, Layla Portaro, Sophie Barnes, and Ivie Mazza, who received the Sacrament of Confirmation last weekend.
Forms for the Pie Fundraiser went out last Friday and are due back on Thursday, June 19th. Orders will be delivered to OLSH on Thursday, June 26th. Cowards Cakes will once again be supplying the pies. Having a few in the freezer is always handy for a quick and easy tea when you are too exhausted to cook! A portion of the proceeds will go towards purchasing extra resources for our students, so please consider supporting us by buying and selling pies and pasties to family and friends.
The upcoming week is a relatively quiet one, with staff taking part in a follow-up session from the James Anderson day held a few weeks ago. Grades One and Two will be heading off on an excursion to Wentworth on Thursday.
Narelle remains on leave for the next two weeks and will return on June 24th.
Wishing you all a great long weekend!
Adam Lawrence
Links:
Enrolments at OLSH:
OLSH Calendar:
Religious Education News
Holy Communion: This will be celebrated on the weekend of June 20th - 22nd and we keep the following children in our prayers as they prepare - Isaac Lohmeyer and Morgan Dowling.
* Children making their first commuion need to ensure they have the passport and attend 3 Masses before making the Sacrament of Holy Communion. These need to be handed into the parish office the week before the sacrament.
* There will be practice sessions for both sacraments the week before the sacrament. Please contact the parish office for further details.
* Lessons are online and need to be completed before making the sacraments. It's encouraged that students complete one lesson a week with their parents.
Sacrament of Reconciliation (Year 2 & Above)
There will be an opportunity for children in Grade Two or above to make their Sacrament of Reconciliation. Below are the details of the parent information night and the celebration of the sacrament. Please contact the parish office for further details if you are interested in making the sacrament.
- Parent Information Session - Wednesday October 15th
- Celebration of Sacrament - Wednesday November 26th
Sacrament of Confirmation
Congratulations to the following students on making their confirmation on Sunday at the Merbein Church: Ivie Mazza, Layla Portaro, Sophie Barnes, Anastasia Cory and Jacinta Wagner. Thank you to Cheryl-Anne, Tana and Adam for coming along to the Mass. Thank you also to Fr. Matt for celebrating the Mass with us. We now continue to pray for Morgan Dowling and Isaac Lohmeyer as they prepare to celebrate the sacrament of Eucharist in June.
OLSH Pie Drive Fundraiser
Orders and money are to be returned by: Thursday, 19th June, 2025
Payment can be made by:
Cash
Eftpos (school office)
Direct Debit: Merbein Catholic School/NAB, BSB: 083-764, Acc: 515871761.
These pies/pasties from Coward's Cakes are yummy and a great idea for the freezer when you need a quick dinner as we are heading into the colder months! There are quite a few varieties to choose from.
Please note the return dates for the order forms. Let’s all support this fundraiser as it will benefit our students through the purchase of much needed equipment.
Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD)
Student of the Week
| Class: | Awarded to: | For: |
| Grade Prep : | Hannah Burns | Her great work during writing this week when turning fragments into sentences. |
| Grade Prep : | Samuel Mazza | His growing confidence when sounding out words. |
| Grade 1 : | Hunter-Rose Kelly | Always showing kindness, care, and compassion to her classmates. |
| Grade 1 : | Haylee Pluckhahn | Amazing handwriting and great listening skills. |
| Grade 2 : | Romeo Dichiera | Working hard to improve his reading skills and demonstrating excellent growth in his assessment results. |
| Grade 2 : | Indiana Williams | Showing kindness and maturity when playing and working with her peers. |
| Grade 3 : | Meila Goodger | Having a positive attitude towards learning and always completing work to a high standard. |
| Grade 3 : | Ivy Libchard | Her enthusiasm for learning and always being willing to help others. |
| Grade 4 : | Savannah Williams | Demonstrating a positive attitude in all learning areas. |
| Grade 4 : | Tommy Field | Consistently displaying excellent sportsmanship when playing team games. |
| Grade 5 : | Lily Barlow | Showing great effort in Mathematics this week and working hard to improve her understanding of angles. |
| Grade 5 : | Ariana Mazza | Showing great effort in writing and working hard to improve sentence structure and ideas. |
| Grade 6 : | Libby Giddings | An amazing start to her new school |
| Grade 6 : | Izobel Matulic | Always trying her best at all learning tasks. Well done! |
Happy Birthday
We wish the following students a Happy Birthday:
Month of June:
2nd - Isla Mc - 8 yrs
3rd - Alexis F - 9 yrs
5th - Archie M - 8 yrs
7th - Shelby J - 10 yrs
7th - Esther S - 10 yrs
8th - Hemi L - 9 yrs
8th - Riley N-C - 7 yrs
9th - Aiden D - 9 yrs
9th - Savannah W - 10 yrs
13th - Zoe A - 11 yrs
13th - Toby W - 10 yrs
14th - Beau B - 11 yrs
15th - Fei L - 9 yrs
21st - Lachlan S - 9 yrs
23rd - Isaac L - 10 yrs
24th - Izobel M - 12 yrs
29th - Vincent M - 6 yrs
30th - Anastasia C - 9 yrs
Diet & Nutrition
OLSH Canteen
Orders need to be completed by 9.15am every Friday.
Prep News
Well done to all the Preps for their first assembly presentation. They did a wonderful job of speaking in front of so many people. Thank you to everyone who came along to watch.
Electives: The students were very excited to start their Elective lessons today. The Junior teachers gave students a chance to rank six different activities in order of choice and using this information we were able to form three groups. I will be teaching Dash robots, Miss Laity is taking a Lego Challenge group and Mrs Ryan is teaching a art group. These classes will run each Friday until the end of Term Two. Next term, the students will have a chance to have a go at a different elective.
Show and Tell: Week 8's topic- 'Something that makes a noise'.
Have a great long weekend! See you Tuesday!
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me during office hours, either the SeeSaw app or email:
Rebecca Appledore- rappledore@olshmerbein.catholic.edu.au
Grade 1 News
In Maths, we’ve been exploring 2D shapes, with a strong focus on horizontal, vertical, and parallel lines. The students have shown great understanding and enthusiasm as they worked through these concepts.
In Science, we’ve wrapped up our exciting topic on Space. It’s been a real favourite among the students, who have engaged deeply and produced some fantastic work.
In Art, creativity was on full display as students designed and built their dream houses. From colourful facades to wild and wonderful slides, the ideas were imaginative and full of personality – well done to everyone!
A quick reminder to please send in money for our Wentworth excursion, which is coming up this Thursday.
Wishing you all a relaxing and enjoyable long weekend!
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me during office hours, either the SeeSaw app or email:
Grace Laity- glaity@olshmerbein.catholic.edu.au
Grade 2 News
Five full days in a row this week so I think there will be some tired students today!
The students were very excited to start their Elective lessons today. The Junior teachers gave students a chance to rank six different activities in order of choice and using this information we were able to form three groups. I will be teaching Art and we will be starting by making some pottery with air dry clay (fingers crossed!), Miss Laity is taking a Lego Challenge group and Miss Appledore is teaching a 'Dash Robot' group. These classes will run each Friday until the end of Term Two. Next term, the students will have a chance to have a go at a different elective.
On Wednesday, Chris Littler from Ascent Shoes came to visit us to give our students in Grades Prep, 1, 2, and 3 a lesson in how to tie shoelaces.
The students received a special shoe lace pencil case which they can take home to practise their new skills. Chris also showed us a video (see link below) which gave a great step by step guide on how to tie shoelaces. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CK2tVgPmTg
The students finished the lesson by balancing their pencil cases on their heads- last one to drop their pencil case was the winner! Parker was the winner from our class.
The students are getting very excited about their excursion to Wentworth on Thursday. Please ensure you have read all the information, given permission on SIMON and paid $12 to the office. This week we did some learning about the history of the Old Wentworth Gaol.
Have a great long weekend!
Lisa
Shoelace Tying Lesson!
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me during office hours, either the SeeSaw app or email:
Lisa Ryan - lryan@olshmerbein.catholic.edu.au
Grade 3 News
This week, we had the opportunity to practise—or learn—how to tie our shoelaces. Each student received a pack with a pencil case and laces to help them practise. It’s been lovely to see the children encouraging one another as they work on this important skill.
In Maths, we’re learning to name and place four-digit numbers on a number line. Many students are finding it tricky to count by 10s and 100s, so this would be a great skill to practise at home if you have time. For example, start at 1200 and count by 100s (1200, 1300, 1400…) or count by 10s (1210, 1220, 1230…).
Just a reminder that homework is handed out on Monday afternoons and is due back on Fridays. This week, I received homework from only six students. If it suits your family better, students are always welcome to complete their homework in the classroom before school starts.
Wishing you all a happy and safe weekend!
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me during office hours, either the SeeSaw app or email:
Cheryl-Anne Courtney – ccourtney@olshmerbein.catholic.edu.au
Grade 4 News
It has been great to have a week, relatively free of interruptions!
Just a reminder to parents to please put your child's name on their belongings. There seems to be many items of clothing left behind at the end of the day in our corridor. Uniform items can be very costly to replace.
This week we started an information report about the animals of Antarctica. Our recent class novel, Mr Popper's Penguins, was based around Antarctica and we thought that this would be a good opportunity to learn more about the animals that live there - apart from penguins!
During our Structured Literacy program, we have been focusing on the /or/ sound and how many different graphemes have the same sound. This includes or (fork), ore (snore), -our (four), oar (keyboard), -oor (floor) and ough (brought). That's a lot of graphemes for the one sound!
Congratulationsto Ivy, Ned and Hayley, who this week, received their pen licence.
Enjoy the long weekend everyone. I hope you are doing something special and keeping warm!
Julie
Well doen Ivy, Ned and Hayley!
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me during office hours, either the SeeSaw app or email:
Julie Phelan – jphelan@olshmerbein.catholic.edu.au
(Friday's): Emma Garraway - ewood@olshmerbein.catholic.edu.au
Grade 5 News
It has been another busy week in Grade Five! We started the week with Police Officer Joe, who taught us about crime scenes and how to keep our property safe. In Mathematics, we continued our work on division. In Writing, we began exploring the Story Spiral and how to construct a narrative using this model. We finished the week with Winter Sports—details about this will be shared in next week’s newsletter.
A reminder: some students still need to bring an art shirt, as we will be doing more painting in the coming weeks.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me during office hours, either the SeeSaw app or email: Adam Lawrence- alawrence@olshmerbein.catholic.edu.au
Grade 6 News
Well done to all students who participated in Winter Sports today! Thank you to everyone who helped out to make the day run smoothly.
It's been nice this week to have little interruptions which has allowed us to get lots of work completed! Our natural disaster projects are taking shape and our research and drafting process is underway. In Maths this week we have been working on converting units of measurement, with a particular focus on mm, cm and metres. We've had a lot of problem solving questions which has proved to be a bit tricky! Reading those questions carefully is key! We finished up our latest Maths module with a test which was completed on Thursday. Students will take these home so you can see how they went! On Monday we had Joe from the Police in Schools program come to talk to us for an hour. He discussed different crime scenes, collecting evidence and explained the best way to keep things secured at homes and in the car. He also showed students how he takes fingerprints!
A reminder that Grade Six assembly is in Week 9 - we have been busy preparing for this! Hopefully you can come along!
Enjoy the long weekend!
Breanna
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me during office hours, either the SeeSaw app or email:
Breanna Meyer - bmeyer@olshmerbein.catholic.edu.au
- Sophie Lohmeyer - slohmeyer@olshmerbein.catholic.edu
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
8.30am | Supervision of students begin. Classrooms remain closed. |
8.45am | Classrooms are opened for preparation time. |
8.55am | Organisational bell (students go to the toilet, get a drink, be in line before music ends). |
9.00am | Teachers collect students from their line and proceed into class. |
11.00am | Recess bell. |
11.25am | Organisational bell (students go to the toilet, get a drink, be in line before music ends). |
11.30am | Teachers collect students from their line and proceed into class. |
1.30pm | Lunch bell. |
1.40pm | Students are to finish eating and then go to play. |
2.20pm | Organisational bell rings (students go to the toilet, get a drink, be in line before music ends). |
2.25pm | Teachers collect students from their line and proceed into class. |
3.10pm | NSW bus bell. |
3.25pm | End of day bell rings. |
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.
