From the Principal 

Dear Families,

This week we celebrate Catholic Education Week, with the  theme, ‘In the light of Christ’ highlighting the important work that our parish school communities do in forming lives to enrich the world. Central to our mission is the belief that Christ is our inspiration and this permeates through all that we do together with students, families and staff.  Catholic Education Week runs from Sunday 10 March to Sunday 17 March.  Tomorrow  I am looking forward to taking some of our Year 6 leaders to St Patrick’s Cathedral where mass with Archbishop Peter will be celebrated with staff and students from across our catholic primary and secondary schools. Student leaders from each school process in with their school banners accompanied by Celtic pipers and schools’ choirs lead the singing during the liturgy. It makes your heart soar to be a part of it! 

Episcopal visit from Bishop Tony

In addition to Catholic Education Week we have an Episcopal visit from Bishop Tony Ireland from Thursday 14th March  to Sunday 17th March.  Today Bishop Tony met with staff and students, had a school tour and joined us for morning tea. During his stay he will be working closely with Father Jerome and the parish to learn about all that we are doing as a parish school community of St Mary’s St Kilda East. Bishop Tony has visited us a few times in recent years  and we look forward to having him celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation with our Year 6 students in Term Three. The culmination of this visit will be our Mass on Sunday at 5:30pm with our Prep, Year One and Year 2 Families and parishioners. In addition to this you are all  welcome to be part of the Parish Forum on Saturday 17th March at 10:30am. Please see further information in the parish bulletin. 

Prayers in Pyjamas 

Last Wednesday evening it was fantastic to have many of our junior families participate in Prayers in Pyjamas. Lots of fun was had whilst we learnt more about Jesus, how to be a good friend and kind family member. We sang, drew and prayed.  Thank you to Ms Earle, Father Jerome, Mrs Borgese, Miss Raffaele, Miss Jacquie and Mr Speranza for supporting the families by preparing and presenting sessions for our first Prayers In Pyjamas.  We look forward to seeing you at mass this Sunday at 5:30pm, where we gather in God's house to pray and grow in deeper relationship with him. All family members are very welcome including babies and toddlers. We are all part of God's family. 

Encountering the Sacred 

Last Thursday, as a whole staff we gathered at the National Gallery of Victoria for an early morning coffee and then worked with David Menzies from the NGV. Our sessions were focused on encountering the sacred through art. We started with a lecture with David exploring how art sits within our catholic identity, history and the transcendental. Then we explored three art pieces looking at them from three perspectives; the art piece, the viewer(us) and the artist behind the work.  It honesty felt like we were at a gallery overseas as we sat on our little foldable stools and learning so much. We all agreed that we could have done many more art pieces and had forgotten how amazing our own gallery is. We highly recommend taking families of all ages and interests there. 

We can learn so much about life through art and we definitely encountered the sacred last week. As part of David's session we were each invited to create an art piece encompassing our school community, our catholic identity and our responses from the session. You could have heard a pin drop (most unusual for our staff!) as each one of us thought, reflected and created. Our creations will be displayed in the staffroom as part of our 2024 story.  We then had a lecture with  Father Jerome exploring Christ, art and history. He left us with much to think about and many more questions to be explored. We are blessed to be working with Father Jerome as he constantly gives us opportunities to build upon our faith formation and always done with rigour and intellect.  

Vision for Instruction

Last week Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS)   launched Vision for Instruction, a developed framework based on best-practices that will ensure all students have access to more impactful teaching and learning outcomes, within our education sector. This approach aligns perfectly with our improvement agenda at St Mary’s Primary School and our explicit teaching to each child’s point of need. Instruction that is explicit involves fully explaining and effectively demonstrating what students need to learn. This approach to instruction supports what we know about how the human brain works (i.e. that learning happens most efficiently when teaching is clear, systematic and does not leave students to construct or discover information without guidance). We look forward to sharing more of Vision for Instruction with you. As educators we are lifelong learners and are excited to be learning more about the science of learning. 

Partners in Literacy

This year we continue our work with Julia Blakey from Southern Region MACS Literacy Department. In Partners in Literacy we are working closely with Julia to develop whole school evidence based practices focusing on Reading from Prep to Year 6. Using data and best practices we are exploring how to explicitly teach learning to read from Prep to Year Two and then reading to learn from Years 3 -6. Daniela Borgese (Junior Literacy Leader) and Angela Mason (Senior Literacy Leader) are leading us with the updated Victorian Curriculum 2.0 and MACS Professional Development. 

Upcoming Principal Conference 

Next week I am fortunate to be attending the Principal Conference with the theme of; Think, Engage , Lead with Strength. Our story gives us strength, Scripture inspires our story. We are Better Together. The theme is underpinned by the strength of leadership of Mary McKillop’s story, who was an educator, a pioneer and a leader, someone who had

compassion for others, regardless of their position, situation or ethnicity.

"We must teach more by example than by word."

“God loves courageous souls.”

- Mary MacKillop

The host is Adam Spencer and there are a variety of fascinating speakers including Craig Foster, Saroon Brierly and  Jelena Dockic to name a few. I look forward to sharing my new insights with you all! Please contact Mr Anthony Speranza who will be acting Principal in my absence, if you need support next week. 

Beachside District Swimming Carnival

Last Friday we had a few of our swimmers represent us at the Beachside Division competition. We received a wonderful email from Ava on Friday afternoon;  

"To Mrs Mason and Mrs Ferrari,

I'd just like to inform you that me and the other relay girls for freestyle did very well at the district. We came first in our heat and 3rd over all. I don't think 3rd will be moving on but we had a lot of fun  at all of the competitions. See you Tuesday, Ava"

"It is the best feeling when your hand touches the wall…your race is over!

Looking around at our opponents… taller than us, in their professional looking swimsuits, stretching their muscles and hyping themselves made us very nervous! We knew we had to swim our own race so waiting for the relay to start was all about staying focussed. Heat 1 was very fast with some amazing swimmers. Heat 2 was time for us to shine. Ava dived in beautifully and sped down to Poppy, then to Tara leaving the final leg to Anna we managed to maintain our first position the whole race. We were exhausted but really proud of our effort.

Our individual events included Tara and Olive swimming in the same heat in the 50m breaststroke and Huy in the freestyle and backstroke events. We had a great time cheering for our fellow HOLT swimmers and were grateful for the opportunity to be involved in this event. Thank you to our families for making sure we arrived at our events on time."

By Huy, Tara, Olive, Ava, Poppy and Anna

Working Bee

Finally we are really looking forward to our next working bee tomorrow afternoon. Our last one a fortnight ago was so much fun and so much was achieved. So many people came and helped in many ways and we are so appreciative. If you can help in any capacity tomorrow we look forward to seeing you. Ryan has been working hard cutting up some of the embedded concrete in preparation for the work. Thank you so much Ryan. 

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

Mrs Cathy Ferrari