Macquarie Memo Issue 13- 2024

News from our Deputy Principal

Dear families,

Thank you to all the families for assisting students to participate in our Macquarie Book Week Parade last Friday. What a wonderful way to celebrate books!!

Kristy, Mariam, Mike and I dressed up as ‘bucket fillers’ from the book by Carol McCloud titled ‘Have You Filled a Bucket Today?’. The underlying message of the book is the concept that everyone carries around an invisible bucket. When the bucket is full, the person is feeling happy. There are many ways to fill someone’s bucket, for example, give a complement, smile at them, give them a helping hand. Filling someone else's bucket can also help to fill your own bucket at the same time.

I had the opportunity to share this story with Chlo’s class on Friday afternoon. My bucket was definitely full when one of the students said to me ‘Karen, wouldn’t it be great if you made someone’s bucket overflow’. I say, yes to that! Let’s be bucket fillers!

Please remember to complete the School Satisfaction & Climate Survey for 2024. We would love your feedback.

Regards,

Karen

Macquarie Primary School encourages you to sign up to the Parent Portal as it’s a secure and convenient way to communicate with your child’s school.

There is now an App – Sentral for Parents, launching from Monday 2 September 2024.

Parent Portal can be accessed on a mobile phone, tablet or computer and will allow parents to:

Please contact the front office for further information MacquariePSAdminEmails@ed.act.edu.au

Dear parents and carers
Welcome back to Term 3.
We are continuing to see the impacts of illness across our community this winter, with an
increase in the seasonal flu, COVID-19, and other illness.
At school, our focus remains on delivering quality teaching and learning with minimum
disruption. However, seasonal illness can mean there may be times this term where staff
are away unexpectedly, which may require us to adjust how we run our schools.
These adjustments are no different to those used during Term 2 and may include minor
changes to school timetables, a reduction in extracurricular activities, camps and
excursions, or periods of larger group or supervised independent learning. Teachers may
use online educational resources as part of their teaching at school. These changes support
schools to ensure student learning is not impacted. Your school will keep you updated if
changes are made.
Vaccination is one of the key protections against illness for our community. I encourage
everyone who can to get vaccinated for the seasonal flu and COVID-19. You can get your
child vaccinated at a GP, participating pharmacy, Early Childhood Immunisation Clinics
(children aged 6 months to under 5 years) or another immunisation provider. A
consultation fee may apply. You can find more on the ACT Health website.
There are simple steps we can all take to protect one another. Hand sanitiser is available at
all of our schools and students will be reminded of the importance of keeping up their
hand hygiene to help stop the spread of illness.
As parents and carers, one of the simplest and most important things you can do is to
keep your child at home when they are unwell. If your child has COVID-19 please let us
know by contacting your school Front Office.
Thank you once again for your support. 

 Katy Haire

Director General

Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge

Thank you to all the students who participated in the 2024 Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge.  

This year, 110 students participated in the challenge and read a total of 2732 books.

As promised, there are some prizes attached to this year’s challenge.  The class in each cohort with the highest percentage of participation will receive a Zooper Dooper for each person in the class.  Our cohort winners are:

• Preschool - Both the Bilbies and Wallabies with 100% of the classes participating
• Kindy and DEP - DEPMP with 88% of the class participating
• Year 1/2 - 2SD with 100% of the class participating
• Year 3/4 - 3/4BG with 23% of the class participating
• Year 5/6 - 5/6LP with 43% of the class participating

The P&C has donated $20.00 book vouchers to the student in each class who read the most books.  Our class winners are:

• DEPMP - Kieren
• DEPKB - Oliver 
• KSB - Emmett 
• 2EM - Emmy-Rose 
• 2SD - Lachlan 
• 3/4BG - Louis 
• 3/4LG - Arushi
• 3/4JM - Zach
• 5/6LP - Harriet 
• 5/6NL - Nyandeng
• 5/6RL - Maeve 

Jenelle Martin

CMRC Coordinator

P & C News

The MPS P&C are excited to create our very own school cookbook, and hope that families will contribute a favourite recipe.

It’s easy to share your recipe with us: simply visit cc.recipes/mpscookbook, then fill out the recipe form and click submit. You can also include a picture of the food if you like (but not essential).

You can also contribute artwork by your child. Just email it to MPSCookbook2024@gmail.com or hand it into the front office. Please submit your recipe or artwork by 31 August.

Once the cookbook is printed you will have the opportunity to buy a copy. Funds raised will be used to help make our school even better.

Father’s Day Stall Friday 30 August

We will be hosting a Father’s Day stall for the children to purchase a small gift for their dad or special adult. Gifts will be between $1-$10.

We also need volunteers to help run the stall between 8:30am – 1pm. If you can spare some time, then please contact classparentrepmps@gmail.com.

Mango Fundraiser

It's time for the annual P&C mango drive! We are selling trays of fresh juicy mangoes straight from the Queensland farm to you! 

Cost per 7kg tray: $29 (each tray usually contains 12-20 mangoes)

Collect orders from family, friends and work colleagues and place your order on flexischools by: 24 October 2024

Delivery is expected in early December. 

For further information contact Liz: uniforms.mps@gmail.com

Notes / Reminders

All notes are available on our school website.

Contact Details

Community Notices

For 20 plus years, Menslink have provided free counselling to young guys throughout Canberra and the surrounding region.

If your young guy is having a hard time and could really use someone to talk to, get in touch with Menslink. Now conveniently located in Holder (with some sessions also available at Kippax & Lanyon), our wait times are currently low so we’re ready to help when he needs it.

We provide a welcoming and supportive environment for young guys to share their concerns and worries with a male counsellor who will hear them out, work alongside them and provide tips and strategies to get them through those tough times.

Our Counselling sessions are completely confidential and are available to any male aged 10-25. There are no fees or charges or limits to the number of sessions. You don’t need a mental health plan and we are available during school terms and school holidays. The only prerequisite is that he is willing to give it a try.

If you think your young guy will benefit from chatting to one of our counsellors, have a chat with them and head to www.menslink.org.au, hit the ‘Get Help’ button, fill in the form and we’ll get back to you, generally the same or next business day.

If you need more info on how to have that chat with them, just email admin@menslink.org.au or call 6287 2226 and we will send you some information.