30 October 2020

Newsletter Articles

Important dates

Wednesday 04th November – Year 9 Transition Visit to CSC
Monday 9th to Friday 13th November – CMS celebrates NAIDOC Week
8.30am and 5.00pm Wednesday 11th November – School tour and information session
Wednesday 11th November – Clontarf Central Region Awards Night
Monday 16th – Friday 20th November – Year 9 VET
Thursday 19th November – Girls Academy End of Year Awards Night
Friday 20th November – Year 6 Orientation Day
Tuesday 15th December – Year 9 Presentation Night

From the Principal

Dear families

We have had a busy, fun and learning filled couple of weeks, as the contents of this newsletter show. So many things are going on to enrich the learning experiences of our students, from Clontarf and Girls Academy events, through excursions and engaging learning activities.

Today we celebrate World Teachers’ Day, which is an opportunity for us to recognise and celebrate the contribution of all of our teachers and staff. Our staff work hard throughout the year creating interesting and engaging learning opportunities for our students and today is a small way of recognising that. Consider reaching out to an educator to let them know the impact they have had on you or your young person.

We have another set of tour and information session for prospective families on Wednesday 11th November. We run two events – one at 8.30am in the morning so that students and families can see the school in operation, and one at 5.00pm for families that might struggle to get away during the day. Please encourage people you know who are considering the school to come and join us.

Transitions continue to be a big focus for us. Our Year 9 students have another day at Centralian Senior College next week, and have also benefitted from Centralian Senior College stage visiting and working with them here at CMS. On top of this, we are building up to our Year 6 transition day which is on Friday 30th November. On this day we will have all of the Year 6s that are attending CMS next year come for a day to support them in their last step of the transitioning process.

Finally, I would like to ask your support in reinforcing our mobile phone and device policy. Devices need to be off and away during the school day, which runs from 8.30-3.00. If students have a phone or device out they will be required to hand it in to the office and can collect it at the end of the day. Sometimes we have parents calling students on their phones. We can’t support this, and ask you to call the office if you need to pass on a message to your young person. Alternatively, wait until after 3.00pm. Mobile phones are a powerful distractor and get in the way of quality learning, and we appreciate your support in this area.

Warm regards
Paul van Holsteyn
Principal

World Teachers’ Day

Today we celebrate World Teachers’ Day by recognising the contributions of all of our educators and staff. Our staff go above and beyond to provide our young people with interesting and challenging learning activities every day.

We also congratulate Clarence Jeanny, Scott Berry and Paul van Holsteyn who have been shortlisted in their categories for Teaching in the Territory Excellence Awards. Award winners will be announced tonight. Fingers crossed for our staff!

Assessment Schedules

Below are Term 4 Assessment Schedules for Year 7, 8 & 9. These include tasks your young person has to complete in each subject area and the timeframe for when items are due for this term.

If you have any questions, please contact your young person’s teacher.

School news and updates

We were delighted to host a visit by our new Minister for Education, the Hon Lauren Moss MLA this week She visited a number of our programs across the school to gain an insight into how we meet the needs of our learners.

New play equipment in our school

We are super excited about the new play equipment that is being installed thanks to the NT Government. It’s big and it’s bold and it’s designed for middle years students. Can’t wait for it to be finished!

School Community Working Bee

We were delighted to get moving on the Community Garden last weekend. Huge thanks to the Desert Life Church, ALEC volunteers and CMS families and staff for their work in the garden and across the school today. You achieved in a day what would take us a huge amount of time!

G Training Health & fitness

CMS continues its partnership with G Training to provide physical training opportunities that focus on personal development and leadership. Such an opportunity!!

SOHO Wellbeing Event

Our students had a great time at the SOHO Wellbeing event last week Thanks to the many agencies that combined to enable this event to happen.

Home Economics

Year 8’s have been learning the basic of cooking pasta using a classic Italian recipe ‘spaghetti & meatballs’

At CMS we understand that the best lessons are the ones learnt through making mistakes and cooking is no different. Here are a few of our more impressive mistakes from the CMS kitchen.

Year 7

Maths Class

Year 7s have been using match sticks to make patterns and develop rules as an introduction to algebra.

OCC Visit

This week we had a visit from James Cameron, a Community Engagement & Communication Officer from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. James met with a few students from our 7.3 Class to listen and collect information about how to make the Children’s Commissioner more accessible to young people.

Year 9 - Wellbeing Workshop with Centralian Senior College

The Centralian Senior College Wellbeing Team is continuing to run workshops with our Year 9 students as part of their transition into Year 10. Here are a few photos of them having a great time!

Clontarf Corner

Welcome to Term 4 Clontarf Corner - Weeks 1 & 2

Morning training

Morning trainings have started off great with some big numbers for the first 3 sessions, we have done the ever so popular Wide World of Sport a couple of times. Tuesday week 2 our brother academy at CSC host a joint training session with an ice breaker game to get everyone talking and to get around each other, followed by a handball game and ending with a nice cold breakfast to start the day off right and ready for learning.

After schools activities

Titans Vs Titans Basketball –we held an in house basketball game where we pitted 5 of our members against another 5 to see who could claim bragging rights till the rematch in a couple weeks. The game was hotly contested with the lead changing with every basket, the game was sealed with Chad Palmer stealing the ball off a staff member and scoring the winning basket.

Bike Mechanics club – week 2 Tuesday we held our first bike mechanics club with special guest Adam “Goose” Davis who came in to share his expertise in bike mechanics. Our members had the opportunity of bringing in their own bikes to repair or repairing one of the bikes that were donated to us. Kye Wilton started off by taking apart one of the older bikes we had laying around the shed, he inspected the bike first to see what need to be repaired and proceeded to take apart the bike. Such a great effort from Kye and the other fellas involved.

Table Tennis Kings VS CSC – week 2 we challenged the big brothers at CSC to a comp of table tennis kings. Table tennis just brings out that extra competitiveness out of our fellas. Lazarus Gallagher has won the last few contests and is really putting his name up there as one of our strongest table tennis players.

Contact Times

The main focus for the first few contact times were around Clontarf expectations for term 4, employment opportunities, activities they would like to do and the End of Year Camp to Darwin in week 7. We also had our Clontarf Employment Officer in to talk with our year 8’s and year 9’s, about upcoming opportunity in some casual work around town. It also gave an opportunity for our members that already have employment to talk about what they have been up to as well as what they have gained from being a part of the work force.

Headspace – Resilience and Gratitude session with Mel Gunner

Stress Less in the park at Anzac Oval – SOHO Event

Clontarf Central Region Awards Night – Wednesday the 11th of November

“From Little Things Big Things Grow”

Centralian Girls Academy News

We’ve had an extremely busy start to Term 4 with all our girls coming back after their well-deserved break. Our Staff travelled to Darwin for their annual Inter Academy Professional Development Training. We all had a spectacular trip with impressive Guest Speakers and met other inspirational teams from other Academies.

We have had some new girls start in our Program and our girls are so welcoming in showing them around. We’ve had lots of activities running up in the room with some new challenges such as Tik Tok, Connect 4, and DJ Jams. We have also been working on ideas to celebrate NAIDOC and gathering materials for our big Art Project.

Year 9 Inter Academy Trip to Mataranka

We also had our Year 9 Inter Academy Trip to Mataranka with Development Officer’s Emma and Aunty Michelle driving the girls all the way. Our girls had an amazing 5 day trip together, spending quality time and doing activities such as sight-seeing, swimming and having lots of fun. It was very special to come together in meeting our other girls from the Taminmin and Palmerston Academies, we had such an awesome time together.

The girls participated in every event and made some good connections with the other girls. They even had a mini disco dance together, had amazing meals and did some shopping in Katherine. The Nitmiluk Boat Cruise was spectacular, we all had such a special time including our Tour Guide who was both knowledgeable and informative. We also visited the Low Level at Katherine so the girls could take some amazing photos.

Girls Academy Luncheon with BMX Champion Saya Sakakibara

Centralian Girls Academy were invited to a special luncheon held by BMX Australia at the Gillen Club with BMX Champion Saya Sakakibara. We had girls from the Senior and Middle Campuses come together to connect and hear about Saya’s journey. A lovely lunch was had by all and it was very inspiring to spend time with Saya and Thea Dunkley. Our girls shared their stories and spoke about Girls Academy, develop a girl change a community.

Contact Time

We have continued to be involved in the Bluearth Program with Katie Thompson and the girls have been developing their skills in team building exercises. It was especially good to see the girls get actively involved in the Boxing Sessions and building their capacity in problem solving.

Girls in G Training

We’ve had some of our girls be a part of the G Training Program and it has been a huge success, they are enjoying the physical part and supporting each other. Keep up the good work girls!

Stress Less in the Park Event

Last week Bec took some of our girls to Anzac Oval for the SOHO event, the girls had an awesome time.

Cuisine from around the World

Last week saw our girls enjoying Fried Rice made both ways from Aunty Michelle and our Program Manager Bec Miller, the girls had a good feed.

Wrap Wednesday is back

This week the girls enjoyed a favourite with Chicken and Salad Wraps. The feed was welcomed from everyone and it was so tasty.

Staff Corner

We have enjoyed spending quality time with all our girls and more classroom participation. It is going to be a busy term 4 but we are all up for the challenge, keep striving to do your best girls and we are always walking beside you.

Bec, Aunty Michelle & Emma

Girls Academy Up and Coming Events

Fri 30th Oct

On Country Simpsons Gap Excursion
Birthday Cake Celebrations for October Girls

Mon 9th – 13th Nov

NAIDOC Week Celebrations – Girls Academy Lunch Time Events

19th Nov

Girls Academy Annual Awards Night

Community Announcements

Aquatic and Leisure Centre

Free Entry and live music on Sunday the 8th November.

Mayoral and Centralian Citizen Awards

Who are our community’s hidden treasures? What have been our town’s most celebrated moments? Share your story about a local champion or event with the rest of the Alice Springs community – Nominate someone for the Mayoral Awards and/or Centralian Citizen Awards today!

Applications are currently open, and close 20 November 2020.

For more info go to the link below:

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