Mel Maria Catholic Primary School

Dear Parents

Welcome to Term Four at Mel Maria. It is an important time of year to reflect on how our school is thriving on the many levels of community life. Our students are engaged in innovative and challenging learning, lead by our committed and hardworking staff. It is such a privilege to share in their learning and progress, watching each student discover their gifts and becoming who they are gifted to be. Everyone’s contribution to our school community life makes a difference.

Engineers Australia Chief Engineer

Mel Maria had the pleasure of welcoming Engineers Australia Chief Engineer, Katherine Richards AM CSC to our Primary Campus. We were proud to showcase the opportunities available to our Mel Maria students in STEM subjects and our commitment to supporting our students as lifelong learners. Our students loved the interaction and feedback from Katherine and her team.

Grandparents' Day

Grandparents’ Day celebrations on each campus proved a huge success. Mel Maria hospitality was evident in the beautiful morning tea provided by our families. It was such a privilege to join our students in celebrating the importance of their Grandparents in their lives.

Tournament of Mind Team Are Off To Sydney

Congratulations to our TOM Team who leave for Sydney this week to attend the international finals. Ms Marra and Mr Williams will accompany our team who will compete in the STEM section of the competition. We wish them well.

Young Vinnies

Thank you to Mel Maria families for your generous food donations for the Saint Vincent

De Paul Society. Food was delivered to local St Vinnies chapters, who distribute food to families who are struggling to pay domestic bills and provide enough food for families. Mel Maria has a strong tradition of donating in times of need. Christmas collections will begin soon in the lead up to Christmas.

Gifts for Children – Christmas 2025:

Pater Noster Parish and Mel Maria Early Childhood Campus Myaree will continue this year “Gifts for Children”. Your kind Donations/Gifts may be placed in containers in classrooms– please do not wrap the gifts.

Soft toys can only be accepted if in perfect condition.

Your kind donations can be brought to school from Monday 27 October. St Patrick’s Community Support Centre will distribute the New Gifts, and the Preloved Toys will be sold in the St Pat’s Op-shop Fremantle. Thank you for your support with this request. Our Year Two students will lead this service-learning project. We are looking forward to sharing this busy and exciting term, as we journey towards Christmas and the community traditions that this time of year brings for our community.

Ros Nichols

Acting Principal

#MakingADifferenceEveryday

Prayer for the Week

A flourishing community prioritises collective well-being, promotes unity and solidarity, and maintains our connection with God.

Heavenly Father, we pray for the flourishing of our community — spiritually, socially, and economically. May we work together to create a place where all are valued, where justice and righteousness prevail, and where the needs of the most vulnerable are met.

We pray for those who are in positions of leadership within our community. Grant them wisdom, discernment, and humility as they serve the needs of the people. May they be guided by your truth and by your love.

Lord, thank you for the gift of community and for the bonds of love and fellowship that unite us. Help us to be instruments of your peace, shining your light and spreading your love wherever we go. Amen.

Amen

Welcome to Term 4 in Pre Kindy. We have had a wonderful start to the term, and everyone is excited to be back after the holidays!

We celebrated Loud Sock Day and had lots of fun wearing our ‘crazy’ socks to school. We had a story read to us by Mrs O, telling us how we can talk to each other to help us hear better. We have also started the ‘Mystery Bag’ this term which is an oral language activity that helps children develop their skills in speaking and listening.

Our start to the term has been superb and we look forward to the many great learning and play events that will continue throughout the term.

We had a joyful start to Term 4 in Kindy, reconnecting with our friends and diving back into learning through play.

🐮 Farmyard on Wheels with Farmer Mick 🚜

A highlight for our first week back was a wonderful visit from Farmer Mick and his animals from Farmyard on Wheels!

The children were so excited to meet and care for a variety of farm animals — including lambs, goats, chickens, a goose, a rooster, a friendly farm dog, and even a cheeky miniature pony!

Farmer Mick taught us about the male, female, and baby names for each animal and how farmers care for them every day. The children listened carefully, asked thoughtful questions, and shared their own animal stories with great enthusiasm.

This hands-on experience helped children:

🌱 Develop a sense of belonging to their world (EYLF Outcome 2) by learning about living things and how to care for them.

💬 Build communication skills (Outcome 5) as they shared ideas, asked questions, and used new vocabulary.

🤲 Strengthen wellbeing and confidence (Outcome 3) through new sensory and social experiences.

🧠 Expand curiosity and thinking (Outcome 4) as they explored animal life cycles and farm environments.

It was a joyful, educational morning full of curiosity, care, and connection. We were all so thankful for this amazing learning opportunity

🐷🐑🐔🐶🦆

Faction Athletics Carnival 2025

A magical spring day greeted our Pre Primary to Year Six students at Len Shearer Reserve, Booragoon for a return to the pre-COVID athletics format. The combining of the Senior Athletics Carnival and the Junior Sorts Day from last year was a huge success, with students enjoying a great balance of competition, rest and supporting their faction. Our Year One to Six students got us started from 9:20am with the 100m track events and tabloid games. When our Pre Primary students arrived at 11:00am, things were in full swing with the Year Three - Six 400m and Year Two 75m before we moved back to shorter distanced of 50m (Pre-Primary and Year One) and the 200m (Year Three-Six). The timing gates, supplied and operated by Timing Solutions, were a huge hit and made the judging of these track events fast and efficient – thank you to the P&F for funding the use of these this year, we will definitely be using them again in 2026!

After a warm day of our students putting their best efforts in for themselves and their faction, final results were always going to be tight. In the end, it was the all-conquering team in blue, Frayne, who notched up three carnival wins from three events this year – a level of dominance that hasn’t been seen since Green clean swept 2023 and the incredibly consistent Gold faction performances of 2018-2020. Congratulations to the competitors from Frayne, and indeed everyone who helped their faction throughout the day with their actions or support.

On the Monday following the carnival, sixteen of our strongest athletes who achieved Champion and Runner Up Girl or Boy for their year group. There were some very close results, which points to the strength of the athletic prowess and determination of students at our school. Well done to the students listed below on their achievements:

These points were accrued across seven events – 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, Shot Put , Long Jump, and Turbo Jav.

There are numerous people to thank for their efforts throughout the day, as well as before and after for the set up and pack up.

- Mr Roman Popadynec, Mr Damian Williams, Mr Luke Murphy, Mr Nicholas Auriemma, Mrs Ros Nichols, Mrs Tania Tsagaris and Mrs Madelyn Healy for their valuable assistance with set up and pack up.

- Bec Foster and the P & F for their assistance in keeping our students fed and fuelled for the day. Thank you to Bec for her help with taking equipment to the venue and a massive thank you to those who cooked, baked and helped in any way to run the cake stall, sausage sizzle and other P & F endeavours for the carnival.

- Thank you to the parents who gave up 20 minutes of their time to award ribbons to the runners. The carnival doesn’t run without great volunteers so please jump in and help – it’s not as stressful as you think and you can’t get much closer to the action!

- The Mel Maria staff who were amazing in getting the students to where they needed to be giving them the best chance of success. Those who weren’t aligned to factions or year groups for the day were amazing in stepping up to fill integral roles like marshalling, starter, first aid officer and just general cheer squad.

- The students were phenomenal. Behaviour was fantastic and the energy and enthusiasm they put into the games and races was brilliant to watch. A personal highlight was watching some of the celebrations from our Pre Primary students – and not always for first place! Pure joy!

- Our parents and grandparents who turned out en masse to support their charges. Thank you for being respectful of the Year 3-6 races while still getting in on the action for the team games.

Our Interschool Athletics team takes to WA Athletics Stadium on Thursday 30th October, and we wish them all the best as they represent Mel Maria. Good luck to all involved!

Sincerely,

David John and Damian Williams

Physical Education Teachers

New Social Media Restrictions

The eSafety Commissioner has launched a Social Media Age Restriction Hub to help navigate the upcoming changes taking effect on 10 December. Find information in this hub to help you understand and prepare for the changes.

https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/industry-regulation/social-media-age-restrictions-hub?utm_campaign=2510_edu_news_smar_oct&utm_id=f53d7861d21683bf96bc94dc504f9bfc&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eSafety_edm

Craig Silvey Award for Young Writers

During the school holidays, Anya from Year 6 Red was one of three 2024 Craig Silvey Award for Young Writers winners who were invited by Paper Bird Children's Books and Arts to interview Craig Silvey for the launch of his new book, Runt and the Diabolical Dognapping! The finalists read an advanced copy and prepared thoughtful and interesting questions which Craig enjoyed answering. There were 250 keen audience members! 🐶📚

LOUD Sock Day 2025 – A Colourful Celebration of Hearing Awareness!

What a fantastic, vibrant day we had for LOUD Sock Day 2025! A huge shout-out to all the students and staff who rocked their brightest, boldest, and most outrageous socks in support of TSH (Teach Speak Hear). The school was buzzing with colour and conversation as we shared fascinating facts about hearing, explored how hearing loss affects people’s lives, and learned practical tips for protecting our ears. Thanks to your generosity and enthusiasm, we raised an amazing $623.50 to support TSH and children with hearing loss. Well done, everyone, you made it LOUD and proud!

TSH team: Karina op den Dries, Mary Norman and Simonette Chiappini

The Benefits of Unstructured Play

Executive function development helps children learn how to plan, focus, remember things, and control their behaviour. These skills are essential for school, friendships, and everyday life. Studies state that free play may correlate with better executive functioning in children, and that unstructured play is essential for physical, social, and emotional well-being.

Whilst we firmly believe there is a place for scheduled, structured sports and extracurricular activities, allowing for more child-directed activities and setting the stage for more self-directed play for children at home will:

· help keep children more engaged for longer periods of time in activities they find meaningful. Children engage in more meaningful, self-driven activities that promote important developmental skills.

· help children develop a more spontaneous, dynamic, and functional repertoire of movements and sensory responses that correlate better with real-world experiences than structured, planned exercises or activities.

· help children learn ways to tolerate and cope with the unplanned, unexpected sensory, motor, behavioural, social, and cognitive challenges that arise in everyday life.

· help us build an even deeper connection and rapport with our children at home as we honour and respect their choices, preferences, and interests.

Unstructured free play doesn’t necessarily mean checking out and letting the kids run amok. In fact, we think it means the opposite. The kind of unstructured play we’re talking about requires a great deal of checking in.

This means making sure that children have access to the settings, spaces, basic tools and above all, the time to engage in self-directed play. It means trusting the fact that simple, self-driven play activities are exactly what kids need to develop the motor, sensory, cognitive, and social skills they need.

Unstructured play ideas:

-mix and match different toys that aren’t typically played with together: the train set and the toy dinosaurs, the dollhouse people and Lego.

-use toys in unusual settings – take art supplies on your nature walk or inside a fort and build with blocks in the sand box.

-what would you add to the list? Think back to your childhood – where did your most memorable play take place? Who were you with? What “materials” did you use?

Reference

Heffron, C. (2024, Jan 2). The Benefits of Unstructured Play. https://theinspiredtreehouse.com/happy-healthy-kids-free-play-toolkit/

Sharlene Epis

sharlene.epis@cewa.edu.au