13 November 2020

Newsletter Articles

Important dates

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
Monday 23rd November – School Council Meeting
Tuesday 15th December – Year 9 Presentation Night
Thursday 17th December – Last school day of 2020

From the Principal

Dear families

We have had a full and fantastic week at CMS this week with many events to celebrate NAIDOC Week. In classes students have been learning about what NAIDOC Week is and about this year’s theme, ‘Always was, always will be’. This was complemented by Ken Lechleitner coming in to the school as a guest speaker. In addition to this, we have had a range of events, from cooking up kangaroo tail and damper, to staff vs students sporting events, art activities and today the wonderful Colour Splash. It had been great to celebrate NAIDOC Week at the same time as everyone else, because usually NAIDOC Week is celebrated in the school holidays so schools choose a different week in the year.

The week also had a solemn note as we acknowledged Remembrance Day. We made Sturt Desert Peas as an Australian variant on the poppy, and Year 9 students who have been learning about World War I in their History lessons led the minute’s silence.

Our work supporting students around transitioning has continued over the last fortnight, with our Year 9s spending the day at Centralian Senior College last week, a range of visits by Year 6 groups to CMS and two information sessions and tours for prospective families. Next Friday (20th November) we welcome all of the Year 6 students who will attend CMS next year for their Orientation Day, Primary schools have distributed information about this to Year 6 students, but if anyone is unsure they are welcome to call the CMS office for further information.

There is another transition that will be occurring at the end of the year. I will be taking up the Principal role at Centralian Senior College so going across there with our current group of Year 9s. I am excited about the challenge, new learning and opportunities that this will bring and hope that the transition for our Year 9s will be smoother as there will be at least one familiar face over there. The CMS Principal position is currently being advertised and I am confident that a quality candidate will come to the school to build on the strong work that is already in place.

Warm regards

Paul van Holsteyn
Principal

School news and updates

Teaching in the Territory Excellence Awards

Congratulations to our amazing Clarence Jeanny and Scott Berry for winning their Central categories in the Teach in the Territory Excellence Awards. These awards recognise the awesome work that they do and the impact that they have in the lives of our learners.

NAIDOC Week

This week CMS celebrated NAIDOC week starting with a flag raising on Monday morning. This was a great opportunity to bring the school together and share the experience of some of our students.

On Tuesday this week we were very fortunate to welcome our guest speaker Ken Lechleitner. Ken spoke to students from all year levels and certainly got a lot of young people thinking! Thanks for coming Ken!

On Wednesday we had a huge day! We started with a cook up of kangaroo tail and wattle seed damper as a part of our NAIDOC Week celebrations. As always, our partnership with the Language Centre helps us to enrich the experiences we provide for our students.

We were also privileged to be joined by peace activist Hazel Davies who came in and worked with our students to make Sturt Desert Peas as a part of our Remembrance Day commemorations.

Our moment of silence was led by Letahni and Lance, who were able to share their learnings from their History and English classes with the school.

New Play Equipment @ CMS

We have been working for some years to have play equipment at CMS for our students. Thanks to the NT Government’s Building Better Schools Funding we have had equipment installed which we were able to open this week. Students (and staff!) really enjoyed trying it out!

History Club Hails Halloween

The recently formed CMS History Club was raking through the research on Halloween as the day approached and dug up (Yes! That’s a pun on graves and The Day of the Dead) some interesting facts. Did you know that Trick or Treating comes from ‘souling’. It was believed that phantoms walked the earth on the night of Samhain (an ancient Celtic tradition), so people would dress up in costumes in an effort to repel the spirits.

The History Club members’ finds were displayed on a History Wall for everyone to inform themselves on the real story behind Halloween. Congrats to the fabulous, inquisitive students involved. History Club meets on Wednesdays in the Library and is open to all students. Bring your lunch and pick a topic.

Year 7

In science, 7.7 had a "hairs on" experience with electrical forces while using the Van der Graff machine!

Year 9

Our Year 9 students are participating in the $20 Boss program at the moment, sponsored by the foundation for Young Australians. Students received a $20 loan to start a business. One of our groups was cleaning cars - this car has never been this clean!! We also had a group creating very colourful, tie-dyed t-shirts, and a huge range of other business ideas. Here are a few photos.

Welcome back for the next edition of the Clontarf Corner

Student of the Week for Week 4

Year 7 - Nathan Woodbury
Year 8 - Sean Stagg
Year 9 - Lance White

Morning Trainings

Morning trainings continue to be well attended by the lads, with a mix of footy trainings with the popular wide world of sports. The benefits of these trainings are endless, and are always followed by a good filling cooked breakfast.

After School Activities

Spots for Afterschool activities have been hotly snapped up as usual, with a mix of footy, basketball, table tennis and the newly added bike mechanics some of the activities on offer.

Annual Clontarf Awards Night

On Wednesday evening, we help our annual awards night at Centralian Senior College. This is a very special and proud night on the calendar for all the staff, the lads and their families. With lots of local guests, and some traveling ones, our lads did themselves and the CMS academy proud.

CMS Awards Winners:

Jerry Daniels
Kris Curtis-Stanton
Jesse Butcher
Lance White
Ashton Cubillo-Tomlins
Tracyn Forrester
Billy Atkinson
Lazarus Gallagher
Isaiah Miller

Congratulation to all these fantastic young men.

Centralian Girls Academy News

Our girls have been extremely busy these last two weeks, they have worked really hard and produced some great work. They are working on Art Pieces for NAIDOC Week and also on ideas for the Art Mural. We are also proud of our Year 9 girls with their enterprise business ideas, they have been a huge hit. Our girls also had heaps of fun at the On Country Excursion with Bluearth at Simpsons Gap.

Community Announcements

Looking for cleaning staff

CMS is looking for a Part-time cleaner!

Twilight Arts Festival 2020 @ Centralian Senior College

Centralian Senior College invites the Alice Springs community to come and enjoy the schools rich and active arts program at the 2020 Twilight Arts Festival. All detail below.

NT Music School - Alice Springs

2021 Enrolments in the Instrumental and Choir Programs are now open. Online applications for enrolment can be found the NT music School website below.

Red Centre Splash

The annual RED CENTRE SPLASH is happening tomorrow, Saturday 14th November!!!Round up your friends and family and join us for a SPLASH-ing good time at the Alice Springs Aquatic & Leisure Centre. FREE entry 12 - 4pm, FREE activities, inflatables & waterslides.

Facebook

Keep up to date with all our news and updates

Head on over to ‘like’ our Facebook page to keep in touch with school news, highlights and achievements of our wonderful students. We encourage people to like and share our posts.

Please read the terms of engagement before posting comments.