Message from Gemma

Hello all,

Welcome to the 2023 school year. It has been wonderful welcoming families back. Watching our Prep children arrive was wonderful and the beginning was a very calm start. I hope that you and your children are looking forward to an exciting year ahead. 

We have many exciting times ahead this year, we will see a brand new playground at St Stephen’s and our dining room has begun.  Our dining room is a place to eat lunch together everyday. We will focus on relationships and connection through eating together. Through this  time we will focus on ways of being. We look forward to families joining us 14th Feb straight after school to see the learning environments and contribute to our school garden by planting a family plant. (Provided)

NEW ‘things’ happening 

We are launching an OUT AND ABOUT week in August. In this week we will be having 3/4 sleep over, 5/6 camp, 1/2 dinner, excursions and much more. 

For reconciliation week we are excited to have an Artist in residence join us Emma Stenhouse. Emma is strongly connected with her Ngarrindjeri heritage.  Her work is predominantly inspired by nature, connection to country using elements of contemporary art and traditional Iconography. Emma will be working with children and families to create a school mural. 

Communication 

We are preparing to move to a community portal (all MAS schools) however this seems to be a slow process. In the meantime we will be relying on newsletters, email and socials. 

Meet and Greets

In my communication, you would have received instructions regarding booking your Meet and Greet with your hub educator/s. This 10-minute meeting is a great opportunity for you and your child/ren to meet and build a relationship. This greet is for you and the child to share any insights of your family or your child’s love and interests.

Parish Mass

Our children attended our Parish Mass this week, this was an opportunity to connect with our parishioners and Fr Pritchard. Our children showed a sense of reverence and reflection. It was a lovely time to join together as a Parish for the beginning of the school year. 

This year we will be travelling with the theme presented by Kobi Yamada in the story ‘Maybe’. The words in the story such as,  "You are the only you there ever has been or ever will be. You are unique” will guide our experiences and opportunities. 

Our beginning of the year began with the words ‘maybe you will invent something that noone has ever seen before..’ And our children certainly did this.  

Have a lovely weekend,

Gemma