Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope all the fathers and father figures had a great day on Sunday. My day was great, a slow start to the morning, bacon and eggs for breakfast followed by lunch at one of my favourite American BBQ restaurants and an afternoon in the park with the kids.

Stage 1 Master Plan Update

I am very pleased to be able to announce that we have been successful in our supplementary funding application. This is a great win for St Mary’s as we will be able to rectify the flooring issue in the Roseberry street buildings, ensuring their safety and sustainability into the future and complete stage 1 of our Master Plan.

We are working hard behind the scenes to have the bulk of the construction occur over the summer holiday break so we can minimise disruption to our learning programs.

Stage 1 will include the refurbishment and renovation of 4 classrooms, a new entrance and reception space that will significantly improve the flow of entry into our school, a new First Aid space and a combination of administration and meeting spaces for our team.

We have been working with architects and designers to ensure our new learning and work environments enrich the educational environment of St Mary’s and help bring to life the charism of Mary.

Battle of the Saints

I had the pleasure of attending St Mary’s Battle of the Saints at Walter reserve on Saturday. It was a fantastic community event that brought together four of our local Catholic Primary schools in the spirit of connection, family fun and friendly competition. This year our game against St Theresa’s was for the inaugural Paul Hogan Cup. Unfortunately we did not manage to get the win, going down by a small margin in the end after a well contested game played in spirit.

A highlight was our students making a guard of honour for the St Mary’s team, as they headed through a special banner in honour of Paul.

We have another chance to win back the cup next year and watching the boys from the sidelines has made me want to lace up the boots again for next year to give St Mary’s a hand at returning the cup to its rightful home.

Review

St Mary’s Leadership Team had our review feedback meeting this week with Father Desmond and Senior Manager School Leadership Craig Carlin joining. We received good feedback from our reviewer on the work that we have been undertaking at St Mary’s to improve our learning and teaching practices and were pleased to have some clear recommendations on which to build our next School Improvement Plan.

We will work with our staff next term to construct a 4 year plan targeted to improve our school.

Fiesta 2024

With just over 2 months to go, preparations for the 2024 Fiesta are in full swing. Sincere thanks to our generous sponsors.

Community sponsorship options remain open until mid November. These are valued at $250 – just email sponsorship@smascotvale.catholic.edu.au if youwould like to offer support in this way.

Look out for Fiesta t-shirts – coming next term. In the coming weeks we will continue the call out for volunteers who can play a large orsmall role in supporting this amazing community event. We will need your help to make thisFiesta the best one yet.

This year each grade level will be allocated a stall to run. Stalls are fun to organise withoptions such as photo booth, dunking machine and cake stall. If you can assist, please contact Sarah Connolly or Karen Schulze or email fiesta@smascotvale.catholic.edu.au

We have a Fiesta planning meeting coming up next Tuesday 10th of September at 7 pm in our staff room. Please come along and support the work of our community in preparation for Fiesta.

Be Ready

My example of Be Ready this week comes from Hendrix. His team made it into the finals on the last game of their season. As this is his first season, it is also his first finals game. He has an understanding that this game is more important than the season games and has been putting in extra work and training so he can be ready.

When we have something to work towards, our efforts are often bolstered, we pay more attention, put in more work and can be more motivated to improve. The boys are playing a good team that beat them by some margin last time, but whatever the outcome, I’m proud that Hendrirx has been motivated to work that little bit harder to try and get a better result and be ready.

IMPORTANT Pickups and Drop offs

Double parking remains an issue on St Leondards Rd and Roseberry St.

Please do not double park near the drop off bays or que along the street outside of the pink pickup/drop off areas. If you do, you risk fines or further action from council authorities. These actions create blockages for traffic and dangerous situations for cars and pedestrians from our school community.

If there is no space in the pink waiting bays for pick ups or drop offs you will need to circle the block or park your car in a permitted spot in the surrounding streets and walk in for pick up/drop off.

Double parking and blocking the street remain an issue at pick up times so please play your role in helping be part of the solution. Blocking off traffic access to our adjoining streets is a potentially dangerous activity and one that risks further action from council authorities.

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay connected,

Denis Johnstone

Principal

Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL)