Director of Learning & Teaching

It has been wonderful to welcome back our students to the new school year and to see everyone refreshed and ready to learn. We are also fortunate to welcome so many new staff members to St Mary’s and see the amazing contributions that they are making to our student’s learning every day. 

In the secondary sector students have again been given Daily Planners to assist with their organisational skills. Students are expected to take these to each lesson and write in all homework and assessment tasks. The Daily Planners are also a very good tool for home and school communication. 

Our Year 11 students have started in a positive and focused manner. The study timetable will be published for the start of the week beginning 12th February. We encourage our VCE students to make the most of these additional opportunities to study and clarify concepts with their class teachers. 

In our secondary sector we use ongoing feedback to inform parents of learning progress across the learning domains. Assessment task due dates and criteria for completion of these tasks can be found in PAM. Feedback on the attainment and areas for improvement for assessment tasks will be uploaded to PAM by your child’s subject teacher. 

Our Primary students have been busy re-connecting with their daily learning routines and it has been exciting to see the impact of our daily Indonesian lessons through our new Teachers as Co-Learners Program.  In the coming fortnight students will be completing a range of assessments to enable teachers to build a thorough understanding of their students' learning needs. 

We welcome our new primary teachers:

Nicolle Cheriton - Performing Arts

Renae Mackay - Visual Arts

Natasha Brown - Visual Arts

Sally O’Connor - Foundation

Lauren McInerney - Foundation

Kayleigh Grant - Year 6

Sarah Sommers -Year 3A

We are also very excited to have a S.T.E.M Program for all primary students this year.  (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths).  Jade Holt is our S.T.E.M teacher this year and has some exciting robotics projects coming up for the students.  Jade Holt will also teach Science to Foundation to Year 4, whilst Rebecca Scollen, Jo Kamp and Andrew Allen will share Year 5 and 6 Science.

NAPLAN 2024

The annual NAPLAN test window is earlier in the year and will take place in Term One. Students in Years 3,5,7 and 9 will sit the tests from 13th – 25th March 2024. These tests will be conducted during lesson time. More information will be sent to parents and carers next week.

Mrs Julia Wood

julia.wood@smseymour.catholic.edu.au