Principal Announcements

Happy Catholic Education Week.

This week we are proudly celebrating Catholic Education Week across our school community. Our students will be engaging in a range of meaningful activities centred around this year’s theme, “Seek Peace and Pursue It.”

A special thank you to Mr De Guzman for creating a beautiful and thoughtful display in Art with the students that highlights this important theme and sets the tone for our celebrations. 

Throughout the week, classes will participate in a variety of peace-focused activities and craft, encouraging students to reflect on how they can promote kindness, understanding and peace in their everyday lives. We look forward to sharing this special time of reflection and learning with our students.

Principal’s Announcements

NAPLAN

Over the past week and a half, our Grade 3 and Grade 5 students have participated in the NAPLAN assessments. We would like to congratulate them for the way they approached the testing period with such effort, patience and resilience.

Our students demonstrated a positive attitude, did their best in each session and showed great focus throughout the process. We are very proud of the way they represented our school and thank our teachers for supporting students so well during this time.

Secret Agent Society Graduation

Today we proudly celebrated the graduation of our Secret Agent Society Cadets. 

We congratulate each of our students on their commitment, growth and the positive way they have engaged in the program. It was wonderful to see them recognised for their efforts and achievements. A sincere thank you to Kathryn Davkovski for her dedication, care and expertise in delivering this program and supporting our students throughout their journey.

We also extend our thanks to the parents and grandparents who joined us for this special celebration. Your support and encouragement play an important role in our students’ success.

Farewell Cyrus

Tuesday last week, we farewelled Cyrus and thanked him for the time he has shared with our St. Mary’s community. Cyrus had a wonderful ability to connect with and support our students, always bringing patience, care and encouragement to those he worked with.

We are grateful for the positive impact he has had during his time with us and for the relationships he built with both students and staff. We wish Cyrus all the very best for his future endeavours.

Italian Program Update

We would like to inform families that Kathryn Davkovski will be taking leave from the start of Term 1 through until the end of the year. Kathryn has provided wonderful support to our students, particularly in the Italian program, and we thank her for her dedication and the enthusiasm she has brought to language learning at St Mary’s.

We wish Kathryn all the very best for the remainder of 2026. The school is currently actively recruiting for a teacher to continue the Italian program in the middle and senior school, and we will keep families informed once an appointment has been made.

Good News!

Digby Barnes Represents St Mary’s at National Mountain Bike Championships.

Recently, Digby Barnes proudly represented St Mary’s at the Boost Mobile Australian MTB Interschools Championships held in Thredbo, New South Wales. Competing against some of the best young riders from across the country, Digby took part in three challenging events across the week.

A more detailed article explaining Digby's events and placings is in the 'St Mary's Shines' Tab of this newsletter.

Congratulations Digby on an amazing effort! 

Christopher Jacques represents St Mary's - The Scots School Interschools Equestrian Event

Christopher Jacques (2FD) competed in The Scots School Interschools Equestrian qualifier last Thursday & Friday in Albury on his pony - Tradie.

He has now qualified for the State event to be held during the April School holidays at Boneo on the Mornington Peninsula.

More details about Christophers riding event is in the 'St Mary's Shines' Tab of this newsletter.

Congratulations Christopher & Tradie on a stirling effort! 

Community News

New Bookclub Volunteer

We extend our sincere thanks to Emma Lloyd for generously volunteering her time to assist with Book Club this year. Her support will help ensure the smooth organisation and distribution of orders for our students and families. 

We would also like to thank Cassandra Goodger for taking the time to induct Emma into the role and for sharing her knowledge and experience. We are very grateful for the support of our wonderful volunteers who help make these opportunities possible for our school community. 

Emergency Drill

On Friday at 12:50pm, we conducted a whole school Emergency Evacuation Drill to our local park as part of our ongoing commitment to maintaining a safe environment for all students and staff.

We are incredibly proud of the way our students responded during the drill. They followed instructions carefully, walked calmly with their teachers, and demonstrated a high level of responsibility throughout the process. Their positive conduct ensured the drill ran very smoothly.

Practising our emergency procedures is an important way to ensure everyone understands what to do and can respond calmly and safely should a real emergency ever occur. Thank you to our staff and students for the way they approached this practice with such care and cooperation.

Student Artwork Selected for Shepparton Arts Festival

We are delighted to share that several of our talented students have had their portrait drawings selected for display at Riverlinks Shepparton as part of the Shepparton Arts Festival.

The exhibition will run from 23 March to 8 May 2026, showcasing a wonderful collection of community artworks.

Congratulations to our exhibiting students: 

Ella Hudson, Amelia Richardson Marslen, Mahli Crawford, Riya Donga, Roohani Singh, Ajooni Kaur and Juane Swart.

We are incredibly proud of their creativity, effort and artistic skill. This is a fantastic achievement and a wonderful opportunity for our students to have their work celebrated within the wider community. We encourage families to visit the exhibition and support our young artists!

St. Mary’s 90 Years Production – From Humble Beginnings – Let Your Light Shine

This year we are having a School production on Thursday 26th November. Please read the parent/guardian letter sent this week for all the exciting details to celebrate our 90 years. 

Goal Setting

In 2026, our whole-school learning focus at St Mary’s is Resilience. We are encouraging students to develop the confidence, persistence and positive mindset needed to face challenges, try new things, and keep going when learning feels difficult.

At our Week 2 assembly, students listened to the story Oh, The Places You’ll Go by Dr Seuss. This story helped us talk about what resilience looks like — taking opportunities, learning from mistakes, navigating setbacks, and continuing to move forward with courage and hope. These ideas are supporting students as they begin setting their Term 1 learning goals. Staff have also been engaging in similar goal setting, modelling the same resilient approaches to growth and improvement.

Ways families can help build resilience at home include:

• Encouraging children to have a go before stepping in to fix a problem
• Praising effort, persistence and improvement — not just results
• Talking about mistakes as a normal and valuable part of learning
• Helping children break big tasks into smaller, manageable steps
• Modelling calm problem-solving and positive self-talk
• Encouraging responsibility through age-appropriate jobs and routines
• Reminding children of times they have overcome challenges before

By working together, we can help our students grow into confident, capable and resilient learners

St. Mary’s Alumni

As part of our celebrations for this year, we would love to hear from St. Mary’s Alumni – past staff, community members and students. We would love to hear about your past experiences of St. Mary’s. If you are willing to be involved please contact the school office on 5825 2858 or email at office@smmooroopna.catholic.edu.au

Reminder's

St. Mary’s Open Day – Wednesday 29 April

We warmly invite families and members of our community to attend our upcoming Open Day on Wednesday 29 April, beginning at 11:45am.

The day will commence with a welcome in the Marian Centre, followed by guided tours of the school led by our wonderful Student Leaders, who will proudly showcase our learning spaces and share what makes St. Mary’s such a special place to learn and grow.

As 2026 marks 90 years of St. Mary’s, we also extend a special invitation to our alumni to join us for this occasion. It will be a lovely opportunity to reconnect with the school and celebrate the rich history of our community.

We look forward to welcoming families, friends, and past students as we celebrate all that makes St. Mary’s a vibrant and thriving school.

Before School Supervision

Please note that all students that arrive at school prior to 8:30am must fill out an application via the link below. For new and casual before school arrivals, please complete prior to 4:00pm each day to enable student lists to be updated for the following morning. I appreciate everyone's understanding and cooperation regarding this.

Before School Supervision

Principal’s Awards

 9th March – no awards due to public holiday

 16th March – PJ Elise Valoia 

This week’s Principal’s award goes to PJ, who is a fine example of our CES theme this year – ‘Seek Peace and Pursue it’. Not only is his attendance outstanding but he is so supportive and caring in the classroom and on the yard. 

Well done PJ. Keep ‘Letting Your Light Shine!’

Attendance matters!

Every minute matters. This is a simple statement, but a true one. For every minute a child is at school they learn. For every minute they are absent they not only miss out on they not only miss out on learning, but they also lose some previous learning.

Ms V’s Inspirations

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” — Gautama Buddha

“When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.” — Peace Pilgrim 

“Let your light shine before others.” – Matthew 5:16