4 September 2020

Newsletter Articles

Important dates

8.30am and 5.00pm Wednesday 9th September – School Tour for prospective families
Wednesday 16th September - Centralian Senior College Information Evening (5.30pm – 7.30pm)
Friday 25th September – last day of term
Monday 12th October – Staff learning day, no school for students
Tuesday 13th October – First day of Term 4 for students
Saturday 24th October – School Community Working Bee

From the Principal

Dear families

Firstly can I say thank you to the families that have completed the survey that we have distributed over the last fortnight. We have also been surveying students and staff, and the information that we get from these three surveys will help us to develop our improvement agenda for 2021 so that we know that we are focussing on the things that are most important for our community. If you have not yet completed the survey, this weekend is your last opportunity – it is available at the link below. We will share with you the big messages that these surveys will tell us.

Transitioning is a big focus at this time of year. Over the last two weeks we have had Year 6s from Bradshaw, Larapinta and Sadadeen Primary Schools visit CMS and have fun participating in learning activities with us. Ros Park is coming next week, and we will also have our students visiting the primary schools. We have also had our Year 9s spend a day at Centralian Senior College, and members of the CSC Wellbeing Team work with them at CMS to help our students connect with CSC staff. Next week we have another set of school tours for prospective families; please encourage families that you know to come in and see us on Wednesday at 8.30am or 5.00pm.

We had our Athletics Carnival last week. Can I say that it was a delight to be able to bring together the whole school for one purpose, which has been something that has been very difficult during this time of COVID. We had a great day in the sun. Huge congratulations to Ure/Fire who won the day. Our carnivals are almost always won by the house that gets the most people participating, rather than the best individual achievements, and Ure is to be commended for the way they all got in and had a go.

I have had the privilege of being in Darwin this week reviewing a school using the National School Improvement Tool. Mr Rowlands has been expertly filling the Principal role, and Ms Webster the Year 8 Team Leader role. We are very fortunate at CMS to have a range of people ready to very capably step into leadership roles to ensure the continuity of the school. And for me, being able to go into other schools as part of a review team, helps me to reflect on CMS’ improvement agenda and also confirm the very good work that we are undertaking at CMS. We are on the right track and our learning outcomes support this.

Warm regards
Paul van Holsteyn
Principal

Come and see what we’re up to!

We have a school tour coming up next week for prospective families. Come along and meet the principal - 8.30am or 5.00pm on Wednesday 9th September.

School news and updates

Community gardens

On the 28 August, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed with ALEC to establish a Community Garden at CMS. This is a long term project and much work needs to be done, as you can see from the photo of what it looks like at the moment. We are delighted that we have formalised our commitment with ALEC to get this up and running. When it is open, there will be the opportunity both for school students and community members to have a plot and develop their understandings of what food production looks like in our arid climate.

We will be having a School Community Working Bee on Saturday 24th October, which will include opening up the garden to get started on transforming the space into the community hub that we hope it will become.

We also want to thank Bunnings for their kind donation.

Athletic Carnival

What a great day we all had at Rhonda Diano Oval on the 28 August for our 2020 Athletics Carnival.

Huge congratulations to Fire who won the event, followed by Air, Water and Earth. Also a massive round of applause to the following champions in each year level.

Year 7:

• Oliver Phelps
• Alyssa Davies

Year 8:

• Rania Shelford
• Buay Dojiok

Year 9:

• Jeremiah Daniels
• Ahnika Lennie

Here’s a few photos of such a great day!

Transition visit

In the last couple of weeks, future students from Bradshaw, Sadadeen and Larapinta Year 6s visited us for a transition visit. Bradshaw completed an English lesson with Ms O’Connor and Mr Pasi. Sadadeen a Science lesson with Ms Chapman and Larapinta made pancakes and wooden name tags with Ms North & Mr Ryan. We loved having them, and we are excited having them join the school next year. We also look forward to welcome Ross Park next week.

Here are some photos of their visit at CMS.

Year 7 – Excursion to the Desert Park

In Week 6, Year 7 students visited the Desert Park for a Science excursion. They walked around the park and learnt about animals and plants and how they are interconnected in an ecosystem. Students enjoyed a bird show, the nocturnal house and at the end of a long walk watched short film on the changing landscape of Central Australia. The purpose of the excursion was to focus on the topic of ‘Ecosystems’ and look at animals and plants in their food chains and food webs. In the coming weeks students are using what they learned at the park to help them with their assessment.

Here are a few photos of a great experience to learn some outdoor Science!

Year 9 - Wellbeing Workshop with Centralian Senior College

The Centralian Senior College Wellbeing Team is running workshops with our Year 9 students as part of their transition into Year 10. This week and for the next three weeks, our 9.4 and 9.6 classes will be participating in the workshops. The aim of the workshops is to provide an opportunity for our Year 9 students to meet and get to know the Wellbeing staff from the Senior College. It is also an opportunity for the Wellbeing staff to meet the Year 9 students and get to know them. The workshops will continue to happen next term for our other Year 9 classes.

Here are a few photos of a very fun time.

Clontarf Corner – Week 6, Term 3

Friday Night Footy and Feed with Cheyne

The mighty Cheyne Miles ran the Friday Footy and Feed with Henry Brown, Aesha Saylor, Lazarus Gallagher, Jawyon Taylor-Hiscox and Chad Palmer. The lads had an amazing time watching the football on the projector with a lovely dinner cooked in the room. At half time there was a lot of dancing and fun had by all.

Year 7/8 Camp

Last Wednesday and Thursday Damian and Pietje took twelve lads on camp. The first day we had an awesome time taking the lads to Standley Chasm for a walk, BBQ lunch at Big 4 and lawn bowls and dinner at the Alice Springs golf club.

Day two we went to the bird show at the Desert Park, the cinema to watch Spies in Disguise, lunch at Wicked Kneads and a walk around ANZAC Hill.

Both staff and students enjoyed the camp immensely.

Red Centre Cup – CMS are VICTORIOUS!

Over the last few weeks CMS Clontarf has been playing football against Yirara College for the Red Centre Cup. Yirara had shown some great Clontarf spirit but CMS held up and won the cup. Awesome work Middle School Clontarf!

Clontarf’s Cleanest Bedroom Challenge

In Year 7 contact time, a cleanest room challenge was offered. Benjamin Martin took it out with making his room super clean, showing a before and after photo, winning himself a Chicago Bulls hat. Great job, Benjamin!

Morning Trainings

We have been having great numbers at training over the last few weeks. The lads are fired up and ready to go at 7am on Tuesdays and Thursdays, getting out onto Jim McConville on some brisk mornings - getting in some exercise and enjoying a delicious breakfast. Even some of the CMS staff have join in with the fun. Our recent trainers of the week(s) have been Colique Wiseman, Darcy Landon, Lazarus Gallagher and Sebastian Huckstadt. We are all extremely proud of these boys.

Employment

Tracyn Forrester and Ashton Cubillo-Tomlins have been offered a position at K-Mart after having fresh haircuts and a successful interview. Both fellas are very excited about their recent appointments and are eager to get started. Well done to both of these lads.

“From Little Things Big Things Grow”

Centralian Girls Academy News

Great start to Week 6 and 7 with all the girls spending more time in the Girls Academy Room. We have been working on our school values and what it means to us to be responsible, fair and respectful. We’ve had some new students join us and also have been sad to see some other girls go. We wish them well on their next journey.

We have had the pleasure of spending time with Braitling Primary School on their transition visits over the last couple of weeks, the girls are getting used to the room and what is involved in the Academy.

It has been really busy with girls participating in lots of events, including the Sports Carnival, Youth Football, Bluearth, Art House to name a few. These are integral to the development of our girls in furthering their skills base. We have been busy in developing new Programs to keep the girls interested and take in their ideas to grow the Academy.

All Staff Members have been present in all areas of the School to strengthen our relationships with the girls. We are coming up with Group Year Challenges to earn Sleepovers, Discos, Dinners, and Swimming. We have had the pleasure of having Miss Rhiannon McEwan for 6 weeks and was sad to see her return back to Darwin to her Campus. She made amazing relationships with our girls who really enjoyed her knowledge and character, she will be sorely missed by all.

School Girls Football Competition

Last week our girls played against OLSH at Jim McConville Oval and that was a ripper of a game. We had our amazing Senior Girls come over and support. They lead our girls in being confident and coming together as a team. They played four smashing quarters to take out the win.

This week our girls made it into the Semi Finals and played against Santa Teresa/St Josephs at Jim McConville Oval. With each quarter the girls got better but unfortunately we lost 52 – 12. The skills displayed by both teams was nothing short of spectacular, very talented girls from the Centre. After a very challenging and enjoyable game, we had cold water bottles and healthy icy poles.

Contact Time

All Cohorts have been involved in Bluearth activities with Katie Thompson and they have been going well. To get girls to work together and accept challenges is great to see, they are growing each week. Working together in teams, talking about their feelings.

Aunty Michelle and Emma ran a session talking about Social Interactions, Peer Pressure and Safe Social Media Practices. The girls really enjoyed the games and wanted to do more so we will explore and do more in the future.

Juice Bar

The Juice Bar has been a major hit it is so exciting to see girls make different juices and then share them with their friends. We are exploring more recipes and making green, orange, purple juices to name a few. The girls are having fun in cutting up the fruit and vegetables and we have also added cold ice and soda water to taste the differences.

Cuisine from around the World

We are still on our journey traveling the cuisine from around the world. We have enjoyed the girls giving suggestions and we are looking at Mediterranean recipes. This week will see us tasting Marinated Chicken and Fried Rice from Asia.

It’s been a long journey, keep going only three weeks to go we believe in every single one of our girls!

Aunty Michelle & Emma

Alice Can Dance

Our students are participating in Alice Can Dance and have been rehearsing every week since Week 2 with Guts Dance. Alice Can Dance is an event in which students from all of the government schools in Alice Springs come together to present a phenomenal evening of dance at Araluen.

This year our very talented dancers will be showing you their moves in a film which portrays different aspects of being a young person in Mpartwe.

Screening of the film will be on the 16th and 17th October at Araluen Theatre. Tickets will soon be on sale with a link available in our next newsletter or through the Araluen website.

A few photos of this week’s rehearsal at the Skate Park. Enjoy!

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