From the Principal 

Dear Families,

Thank you for celebrating mass with us last Sunday. We are an integral part of the St Mary’s Parish and are always made to feel very welcome as we share the Eucharist. We congratulate our Year 6 students for their leadership roles and together with their 2024 rugby jumper and leadership badges they are off and away leading our community. Regardless of the weather outside these tops are worn with great pride! 

We also congratulate our SRC recipients and together with Mr Speranza know that they will work hard to make our school even better. Student leadership is a real strength of our school and each year the students have more opportunities to lead and bring their ideas to fruition. Their badges were blessed at mass, and were worn proudly on Monday morning. 

We also wish many of our families a Happy Lunar New Year. We had a few tired students on Monday morning after a big weekend of family celebrations. We thank our families for sharing their traditions with us. Thank you Prep B for sharing your learning with Mr Speranza. 

HOLT Swimming 

Congratulations to our students from Years 3 to 6 who tried out for our Swimming Team, a fortnight ago. Swimming 50m in an outdoor pool can be challenging and many of our students went out of their comfort zone, used a growth mindset and had a go. They should feel proud of themselves! Thank you to Mrs Mason and Mrs Braun for trialing and timing the students. We wish; Huy, Ava Q, Anna S, Anna T, Poppy, Iggy, Lachie, Tara, Olivia T, Olivia L, Christopher and Mia Q all the best for tomorrow. Thank you to Mrs Mason, Miss Raffaele and Mrs Abiad for attending this carnival to support our students and the HOLT district. 

Inter House Athletics Carnival on Wednesday 20th  March 2024

We are excited to be having our Inter House Athletics Carnival at Bricker Reserve Moorabbin again. Mrs Braun has started preparing the students in Physical Education classes. Last week I saw some great relay baton learning taking place. The students from Years 3 to 6 will participate in many track and field events. Our junior students will join us later in the morning to participate in modified track and field events. Please mark this event in your calendar. All families are very welcome to come and cheer for their athletes!  Information regarding this will be sent out in the next newsletter. 

Prep B Visit the Principal's Office

Last week Mr Speranza, Miss Erica and I, had a lovely surprise with some very special artistic visitors. Prep B presented me with some portraits of myself and of some scenes and buildings around our school. It is great to see the Preps learning about our school. I was very happy to see that the pictures of me had lots of smiles!  

Assemblies each  Friday from 10:30-11:00am in the Berchmans Flexi space (Upstairs in our senior building) 

We love having family members join us at assembly each week. This is an important time where we gather as a school community, share our learning, hear from our Year 6 leaders and be led by our Year 6 hosts, celebrate birthdays, our weekly awards, sing the National Anthem and much more. We congratulate Xavier and Lolita for hosting the first assembly of the year. Our Year 6 Community and Wellbeing Leaders gave us an engaging role play about how to wear the uniform correctly and how to play safely in our playgrounds. They reminded us to leave toys at home for playing with after school. A special mention to our Technology Leader Summer for working the tech for assembly, a very important role. 

Fees 

School Fees & Levies Statement have been sent home with your child, please check their school bag.  If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact Erica. 

ICT Information Night - Thursday 22nd February 7- 8:30pm 

Raising Kids in a Digital World webinar for parents - we received great feedback from parents last year in regards to the presentation and the information within the session. Please mark this in your diary. This goes hand in hand with our Inform and Empower, Digital Safety and Wellbeing program that our Yr 1 - Yr 6 students participate in. This begins on Tuesday 27th March. Please see Mr Speranza’s page for more information.  

Shrove Tuesday  and Ash Wednesday

This Tuesday and Wednesday we celebrated Shrove Tuesday and then participated in the Ash Wednesday Mass, which is the start of Lent. Thank you to our parents and carers who made and delivered delicious pancakes to our classrooms. Ash Wednesday is a solemn mass, as we begin our preparation towards Easter. The students will be learning about this and how to do something for others, be self disciplined and go without something, as they deepen their relationship with God. Ms Earl will be sharing information about this and also CARITAS Australia, the 2024 project compassion and the Catholic Social Teachings around social injustices at home and around the world. 

Welcome Drinks Friday 23rd February  7pm at the Village Belle Hotel - Balcony Bar

We are looking forward to celebrating the start of our school year next Friday. Thank you to the P & F for organising this. Please see the Parents and Friends news for further information. 

Clubs 

Throughout the week we are able to offer clubs at recess and/or lunch times. As the year progresses we hope to offer some more. Internally Ms Earl offers Choir on a Wednesday and has organised some performance events. Hywell, is re-starting our crochet club on Monday, which we thank her for and are really excited about, and we have lego in the Zen Zone daily.  Our paid extra activities are Chess on Thursday, Music with Ian on Wednesdays and Taekwondo on Wednesdays after school. Sofia and her team came in last  Friday and each class participated in a mini demonstration class. Lots of fun was had by all, including our teachers! 

Student absences

Please ensure that when your child is absent from school, it is communicated to the classroom teacher via email or a call is made to the office. If you know your child/children will be absent ahead of time please let the school know, including appointments. If your child/children are sick please let Erica know and on return let the classroom teacher know the reason for the absence. We are mandated to record daily attendances and absences.  We thank you for your understanding in streamlining our processes.

2025 Prep Enrolments Now Open 

If you have a child commencing Prep in 2025 please complete the Enrolment Application Form.  Interviews for siblings will be held later this term. We look forward to seeing all our pre-school children and their families at our Wednesday Stay, Chat and Play 9:15-10:30am sessions in the Community Room.  Later this term we will commence our pre-school story telling sessions. 

Parents and Friends Committee 

Last week we had our first P & F meeting. This is a very important part of our school community, as they build relationships with new families and current families, work closely with the staff to support learning opportunities for each student and fundraise for our community, all whilst having loads of fun and building upon our St Mary’s strong sense of community, We thank Louisa for her leadership, and welcome Jeremy our treasurer and Holly our secretary. The class representatives are an integral part of this committee and we welcome anyone else who would like to help. A highlight at the end of the year is our Thank you Evening where anyone who has helped regardless of being on the P & F or not, can celebrate our achievements.  Last year thank you for your hard work raising funds for our Landscaping Project - Stage One. This will continue to be our focus in 2024 and Stage Two - playground and landscaping. 

School Advisory Board 

Our school, like all Catholic parish and diocesan schools in the Archdiocese of Melbourne,  is  under the guidance of Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS). Every school establishes a School Advisory Council as a way of giving parents/guardians/carers a chance to be involved in the school.

The School Advisory Council advises the principal on important matters, and provides support to the principal and school leadership team in their decision-making process.

In many ways, this emphasizes the importance of parents/guardians/carers being involved in partnering with the school and the way this helps your children in their education.

The  School Advisory Council supports and offers advice on such matters as:

• strategic direction of the school
• Religious Education program
• curriculum
• enrolments and enrolment policy
• school resources
• improvements in the school
• Annual Report to the School Community
• family partnerships.

We thank Claude for his second year as Chair, working closely with Ruth, Hywell, Fr Jerome, Anthony and myself.  We thank Craig and Jacqui for their applications and congratulate them on their  appointment  to our School Advisory Council. On a personal note I would like to thank the SAC for their professionalism and support of Anthony and myself as we lead the school on our improvement agenda, where each student is taught at their point of need. 2024 promises to be an exciting year for our St Mary’s community. 

New arrival in the Schultz family 

Aaron and Stephanie Schultz, our staff member on maternity leave welcomed Adam Joshua on 8th February. All are doing well. Isaac and Harvey adore their little brother and baby Sienna was not so sure at first but has warmed up since mum returned home. We wish them all the best and can't wait to meet baby Adam. 

Take care and wishing God's blessings and peace upon each of you. 

Mrs Cathy Ferrari