From the Deputy Principal 

Dear families,

Our Semester 2 SRC Representatives

Congratulations to our Semester 2 SRC Representatives who were presented with their badges last week at our Whole School Mass.

So that all students at St Mary’s are equipped with necessary leadership skills, each willing student across the school is eventually selected so that all students have had the opportunity to represent on the council by the time they reach Year 6.

Members of the Student Representative Council meet regularly with me and in conjunction with our Year 6 Leaders to discuss ways and initiatives to improve the school, and give an authentic student voice to decision making processes.  At our first meeting of this semester we have already discussed:

• Our recycling and waste management program
• The upcoming fete in November
• Our Positive Behaviour for Learning program and School Wide Norms system
• The upcoming student movie night

Our Reps for Semester 2 are:

Save the date, Student Movie Night on Wednesday 23rd August

Please save the date for our Student Movie Night which will take place during Book Week on Wednesday evening, the 23rd of August.  Currently, our SRC reps and Year 6 Wellbeing Leaders are organising a democratic voting process to select the movies shown on the night and a booking link will be communicated next week.

2023 NAPLAN Reports available to Year 3 and 5 families

NAPLAN results were sent home to Year 3 and Year 5 families this week.  It is important to note that the NAPLAN assessment is one “snapshot” from one moment in time in relation to your child’s academic progress.  If you wish to discuss this further please contact your child’s classroom teacher.  At school we use this data in conjunction with other data to inform our planning and track student progression over multiple points in time.

A parent-friendly explanation of the NAPLAN report can be found below:

Updates to F-6 Victorian Curriculum

The Victorian Curriculum is currently being updated and our governing body MACS will be rolling out a series of high-quality resources and materials to support Catholic schools. Please see the letter below from our Executive Director Dr Edward Simons and the Director of Learning and Regional Services Mary Oski.

Curriculum resource materials to better support our teachers and learning:

I am pleased to advise that Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) will shortly commence working with schools to develop high-quality, comprehensive curriculum resource materials to better support our teachers to deliver the F–6 Victorian Curriculum.

This follows overwhelming endorsement of this approach by teachers across the Catholic sector in a survey conducted last year. Research also shows that high-quality curriculum resources will create more sustainable workloads for our teachers and allow them to focus more on teaching and student engagement, where their time and energy counts the most.

In addition, this approach will promote equity and excellence across MACS schools, ensuring all students have access to evidence-based, quality-assured, sequenced learning materials that will help lift their outcomes over time.

We anticipate the rollout of the F–6 resource materials will be a three-year project. The initial phase will focus on F–2 Mathematics. These materials will be made available to us in Term 4 this year for review and planning purposes, with implementation in Term 1, 2024.

Importantly, our teachers will retain autonomy to tailor curriculum implementation to meet the individual and local needs of our students. Teachers will also have opportunities to participate in the development and quality assurance of the materials.

This is an exciting development for our school community and clearly demonstrates the commitment all Catholic schools share to supporting every student to fully flourish in their learning.

We will keep you informed as this important work continues.

Dr Edward Simons

Executive Director

Dr Mary Oski

Director, Learning and Regional Services