Dear Parents and Carers,

As we close out the first month of school back at St Mary’s for 2025 I would like to congratulate our students on such a terrific calm, settled and productive start. It has been terrific to see our students enjoying their time learning and playing at St Mary’s.

Our students have taken to our 2025 theme Be The Light with enthusiasm and have worked on their sense of belonging to St Mary’s and their classroom communities, setting expectations, routines and aspirations for the year ahead.

In the Johnstone household puppy training continues, Snickers has grown significantly in the two weeks since my last writing and official puppy training classes have commenced. We are seeing steady (but slow) improvement and it has been great to watch Hendrix take on responsibility for his dog and step up to help the family. Zadie continues to settle into school life well and is loving being a Foundation student, though she is quite done for the day after school as I’m sure many of our Foundation parents can empathise with!

Divisional Swimming

Today I had the pleasure of accompanying our 3-6 swimming team and watch them represent St Mary’s excellently across the day. The students supported each other, their competitors and gave it their all in representing their school with pride. I am a very proud and happy principal after spending the day with such a wonderful representative group of our students. Congratulations to all on your great efforts today.

Oh, and we won the big school cup! Go St Mary’s!!

Build Update

The Roseberry St refurbishment project continues to progress well. The grade one and two classrooms’ plaster and paint have almost finished with carpet and screens being delivered next week. Cabinetry and vinyl flooring for the wet areas are being installed with wall cabinetry being finalised in design to come later.

The administration, office and meeting spaces foundation work has been given the green light. Foundations and concrete slabs for those areas will commence in the coming weeks, with a focus on completing the classrooms so the students can move back in.

The classrooms are looking great and they are going to be terrific calm, clear and inviting spaces for our students to learn in.

Teams at St Mary’s

During my time as principal of St Mary’s we have been working to implement structures and staffing to meet the needs of our community. In most instances, your child’s classroom teacher is your first port of call when you have queries or need to troubleshoot an issue. Your child’s classroom teacher will know your child the best as they spend the most time of the school day with them. Our teachers are dedicated and skilled practitioners that can support you and your child and work through most queries, issues or opportunities that may arise.

Some occasions may require the expertise of other teams at St Mary’s.

Administration Team

This team consists of our office staff and the outward facing support team of our school. They can support information regarding the day to day operations of the school, enrollment, events, fees, purchasing and attendance among many other issues.

Members:

Loren Carattoli
Nola Davis
Kylie Collier

Contact: administration@smascotvale.catholic.edu.au

Leadership Team

The school Leadership Team is chaired by me and we meet weekly to organise the operations and smooth running of our school. We are tasked with the overall successful running of St Mary’s and implementing our School Improvement and Annual Action Plans while responding to the needs that arise in our community.

Chair:

Denis Johnstone (principal)
principal@smascotvale.catholic.edu.au

Members:

Olivia Hodgetts (Deputy Principal: Leader of Learning, Innovation and Improvement)
ohodgetts@smascotvale.catholic.edu.au
Gen Trevaskis (Religious Education Leader and Community Engagement)
gtrevaskis@smascotvale.catholic.edu.au
Nicola Toney (Mathematics Leader)
Laura Cardillo (English Leader)
Daniela Day (Head of Wellbeing and Inclusion)

Curriculum Team

This team analyses student data, keeps abreast of the latest evidence-based pedagogical practices and supports teachers in planning and delivering high quality and tailored education programs for our students. Our Curriculum Leaders meet regularly with teaching teams and support the planning of learning experiences, pedagogical strategies, student data analysis, professional learning and program implementation.

Under this team are our Learning Enhancement Teachers who support learning in Mathematics and English from Foundation to Year 6. They work in a variety of ways including taking intervention, smaller targeted/differentiated groups and team teaching in class. These needs are identified from our student achievement data analysis.

This team can support with specific curriculum area queries.

Chair:

Olivia Hodgetts (Deputy Principal: Leader of Learning, Innovation and Improvement)

Members:

Denis Johnstone (principal)
Nicola Toney (Mathematics Leader)
ntoney@smascotvale.catholic.edu.au
Laura Cardillo (English Leader)
lcardillo@smascotvale.catholic.edu.au

Staff

Stephanie Clulow (Learning Enhancement F-2)
Ann Douglas (Learning Enhancement 3-6)
Sharon Hynes (Learning Enhancement 3-6)

Wellbeing Team

The Wellbeing Team play an integral role in supporting the Wellbeing and Diversity needs of the St Mary’s school community. They meet weekly to triage support for students and families, referring on, investigating further and planning for support and intervention.

This team can help with Wellbeing and Additional Needs supports.

Chair:

Daniela Day (Head of Wellbeing and Inclusion)
dday@smascotvale.catholic.edu.au

Members:

Denis Johnstone (Principal)
Olivia Hodgetts (Deputy Principal: Leader of Learning, Innovation and Improvement)
Sharon Hynes (Wellbeing and Mental Health support)

If you have a query or need support in a particular area of the school, please reach out to the appropriate staff member, we are here to help.

Be The Light

As I mentioned at the start of my newsletter, it has been a joy to see our students take on and exemplify our 2025 theme of Be The Light in the short time we have been back at school. My Be The Light example today comes from another school that I was able to witness while helping out on an excursion for Hendrix’s class. The students were having Cross Country trials, many running the 3 km distance for the first time. Despite this, there was a competitive cluster of students in play at the front of the running pack with all students in that group striving to push themselves and make the team. As they rounded their third lap, one of the boys tripped and fell, knocking the wind out of himself. The pack pushed on until one of the boys turned back to see what had happened to his friend and without hesitation, he stopped, turned back and went to check on his mate. Another two boys in the lead pack noticed and they too turned back to check on their friend, eventually they were all up again, checking in that everyone was good and off they ran to finish the trials.

What a beautiful example of letting one's own path dim slightly to illuminate the way for another. I wonder when you have let your own light flicker down, so you could help light someone else’s way?

IMPORTANT reminder and information for new parents: Pickups and Drop offs

I have noticed lots of grandparents coming to pick up our new Foundation students which has been great to see. Please ensure you inform your parents/in laws about the parking rules in our pink drop off zones. They are not to park and leave their cars, they must stay in them and move up the cue as it progresses. From observing and speaking to our grandparents, it is clear that they were not aware of these rules.

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.

When waiting in the pink drop off bays at the end of the day, you must stay in your car and move it up as the queue progresses. Please do not leave your car parked in the pink drop off/pick off bays unattended.

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.

https://mvcc.vic.gov.au/live/my-neighbourhood/schools/

Stay safe, Stay Healthy, Stay Connected,

Denis Johnstone

Principal

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