Week 6 Friday 7 March 2025

Important dates

Hello, Werte!

Dear CMS Community

Welcome to the latest edition of the CMS Newsletter. It has been a busy start to the year with our new students and staff quickly finding their feet and adapting to CMS life. It is lovely to see our year 7 students extending their friendship circles and gaining confidence in both the yard and classroom.   

Our students have participated in a range of activities over the past few weeks with inter-school volleyball competitions, Imparja Cup Cricket, Olympic Weightlifting programs and boxing sessions at G Training. All students who participated in these events should be proud of the way they conducted themselves, demonstrating the school values of Respect, Responsibility and Fairness whilst representing CMS in the community.  

A big thankyou to all families and carers who visited CMS for our ‘Meet the Teachers Event’. It was an amazing turnout and great opportunity for our teachers to share some of the quality work occurring in our learning spaces. We truly appreciate the input and support from our CMS families and recognise that this support contributes to better outcomes for our students at CMS.  

Over the first 3 weeks of term we celebrated more than 100 students achieving an attendance of 100%. We thank families, staff and our students for their support and are excited to see this number grow over the course of the year.

I would like to remind families and carers of the importance of students wearing enclosed shoes to school. To participate safely in Science, HPE, Design & Technology and Food Technology students must be wearing the correct footwear. If your child has been injured or is unable to wear enclosed shoes please provide them with a note explaining their situation.

I would like to thank families and carers for their continual support in ensuring their young person is abiding by the mobile phone policy. Mobile phones are not to be brought to school and will be confiscated if seen or heard, requiring an adult to collect at the end of the day. Since enforcing the mobile phone policy we have noticed:

• Better focus in the classroom.
• Increased positive interactions in the yard.
• Increased participation in lunchtime activities and sports.

Lastly, over the coming weeks CMS will be transitioning to Compass for communication with families and carers around attendance and behaviour incidents. Many may be familiar with this platform if you have had children at CSC. We will provide families with more information and instructions over the coming weeks to ensure a smooth transition.

Important Events Coming Up

• School Council Annual General Meeting – Thursday 13^th March 5:00 – 6:00 pm. If you would like to nominate for school council before the AGM, please collect a nomination form for the front office or email glenda.mccarthy@education.nt.gov.au 

We look forward to a busy and productive end of term.

Regards

Dan Lewinski

Associate Principal

Year 8 & 9 Enrichment Program

Could you solve the following problems?

• You have nine balls, all of which appear to be identical. However, one of them is slightly heavier than the others. You have a pair of old-fashioned balance scales. How can you identify the heavier ball, using the scales only twice?

• Three children are different ages and born in different months. If the months of their birthdays all start with ‘J’, Eve is 8, Jock’s birthday is in July, Rose’s birthday is not in June, Rose is 2 years younger than Jock and the children’s ages add up to 24, then how old is each one and in what month was each one born?

• A group of 24 university students decided to hike the Larapinta Trail. They brought enough food to last them for 20 days. If 16 additional students join them, how many days will their food last?

This year a group of students in Years 8 and 9 have been meeting each week to work on their logical thinking and problem-solving skills. Each week we look at a different kind of problem – from logical, to mathematical, from linguistic to computational - and learning strategies that help work out a solution. Students are also developing their skills in clear and logical communication.

The enrichment program is for students who would benefit from extra challenge and stimulation, beyond what they would usually receive in their day-to-day classes. The program aims to enrich and extend students’ learning across all subject areas. Term 1 has had a more mathematical focus; in Term 2 students will explore the question of what makes us laugh, looking at comedy across cultures and in various forms of art and literature– from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream to contemporary Indigenous comedians.

Year 8 and 9 students who have received PAT scores above the 50^th percentile, or whose NAPLAN results are “Strong” in at least one domain have been invited to attend, but other students who are interested and feel that the program would suit them are also welcome to discuss joining the program with Mr Morrison.

Year 8.5

Photos of Year 8.5 with Ms Afaf

General Information 2025

Uniform Shop

Student Access (opposite the CMS Front Office) will be open for purchasing uniforms and stationery packs.

Opening hours are:

Monday - Friday 8:30-4pm

It's been great to see so many of our students embracing the new CMS School Uniform.  The new polo shirt is accompanied by a royal blue hoodie with the embroidered CMS logo and black shorts or trackpants. 

For Term 1 we will accept either the old or the new uniform as families make the change over.

Back to School Vouchers

The government is again providing a $200 back to school payment which can be spent at the school to help with the purchases of uniform, stationery and swimming costs.

Vouchers expire end of Term 1

Please note, vouchers need to be used or allocated to cover future costs (e.g. swimming costs) before the end of Term 1. Any unused or unallocated funds at the end of Term 1 are forfeited. 

Parental Contribution

School Council has set the 2025 Parental Contribution amount at $100 per student. 

Year 9 VET

VET courses are up and running every Thursday for our Year 9 students. One group is doing Cert I Construction at Desert Knowledge with instructor Dan Mar Fan and another group is doing Cert I Hospitality at CMS with our very own canteen manager, Caroline Robertson. It’s wonderful to have our industrial kitchen being used by students again. Special thanks to Mr. Wellington Pasi for all the paperwork and organisation, as well as our Department of Education partners.

YEAR 9 Hospitality & Construction

Maths with Mr Matt Skoss - Making Maths Mat

Making a Maths Mat and Sorting Network

In the last week of the 2024 school year, the following students:

• Shakylah Walker
• Chelsea Erickson, 
• Sanjana Boopathi
• Tanus Forrester
• Jazmine Clarke

did a sensational job helping Matt Skoss make a large format Maths Mat and Sorting Network for use by mathematics teachers at Centralian Middle School. 

Matt made his first Maths Mat in 1994, which has been a ’ticket to travel’ sharing ideas about using it, around Australia, UK and USA over the decades. He is searching for an old article (1996) from The Centralian Advocate, featuring former CMS Principal, Cassie O’Bree (Arnold) when she was a Year 7 student, exploring ideas on the Maths Mat! We are looking forward to modelling ideas in using the Maths Mat and Sorting Network to help students engage with rich mathematics learning in the coming months.

G-Training 2025

G-Training March 2025

Young men from Centralian Middle School have enjoyed several sessions of a Mental Resiliency program, facilitated by Steve Gardiner, from G-Training Health & Fitness. Sessions have been run on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

Steve Gardiner is very committed to supporting young people and teaching them respect, skills and awareness to navigate life. He uses a focus on group fitness, personal training, and boxing skills as a way to engage young people with their own mental wellbeing, supporting friends and family, and emphasises the importance of rest, sleep, and nutrition.

Developing respect is central to Steve’s work with young people. Feel welcome to view what is a  short ABC news from 2022 item about the program at http://tiny.cc/gtrain. 

Kenny Braun Sr, Jordan Walsh & Matt Skoss