Dear SMCM Community, Wominjeka!

Congratulations to our Year 3 and Year 5 students for their participation in NAPLAN over the past fortnight. Our students demonstrated great resilience and perseverance throughout the assessment period and we are very proud of their efforts.

NAPLAN provides a snapshot of students’ literacy and numeracy knowledge and skills. It is important to remember that it does not assess many of the qualities we value in our students such as creativity, empathy, imagination and sporting ability. At SMCM, we see and celebrate these strengths in our students every day.

This year, we have introduced our new visual message: Learning + Safety = Success. At SMCM, we want every student to experience success each day. We know that for this to happen, students must feel safe and be supported with learning opportunities that meet their individual needs.

Over the past two years, we have made significant improvements to our teaching practices. We are very pleased to see strong growth in student learning outcomes, alongside a reduction in more serious physical behaviours. However, feedback from our students and families through the MACSSIS survey indicates that feelings of safety at school remain an area for continued focus. As a staff, we have carefully analysed this data to better understand how we can strengthen both the experience and perception of safety across our school.

Encouragingly, our 2025 Year 4-6 survey data shows results above the MACS average in several key areas:

Strong, positive relationships between students and teachers
High expectations for student effort, persistence and achievement
Student access to supportive staff who help them feel connected, respected and safe

While these are important strengths, they do not yet align with student perceptions of physical and psychological safety, which remain below the MACS average.

Our analysis has shown that it is often minor behaviours that have the greatest impact on how safe students feel. Behaviours such as:

interrupting learning
using unkind language, swear words or put-downs
excluding others

While these may seem small in isolation, when repeated, they can significantly affect both learning and wellbeing.

At SMCM, any behaviour that disrupts the learning or safety of others is not acceptable. Students will receive age-appropriate consequences and families will be informed when needed.

We ask for your support in reinforcing these expectations at home. When students hear consistent messages between school and home, they are better equipped to make positive choices. Together, as a community, we can ensure that every child feels safe, supported and ready to learn - because when learning and safety come together, our students truly flourish.

We look forward to celebrating Harmony Day at our school tomorrow. We are fortunate to belong to a school and parish community that is enriched by people from many diverse cultural backgrounds and this should be celebrated! Everyone belongs at SMCM and every person deserves to be treated with diginity and respect. Thank you for ensuring we have an inclusive community and promoting this with your children.

Next week Lisa, Jess and myself will be attending the Victorian Association of Catholic Primary Principals Conference in Lorne from Wednesday 25th - Friday 27th March. During this time Sarah Spiteri will be Acting Principal supported by Kristie Hocking.

Claire

Principal

claire.pitcher@smcmeppingnth.catholic.edu.au

Parish News

Parish Newsheet