Mrs Ryan's Fortnightly Reflections

Welcome back everyone to Semester 2, half way through our school year and so much wonderful learning and fun to be had by us all! I do hope that our whole community enjoyed the break from school routine but was happy to return to our St Mary’s community. This week I have been so lucky to be off-site away on some exceptional professional learning however am truly missing the faces, smiles and little people that make our school all that it is! I look forward to being back and among our learners next week! 

This term we have much to look forward to…Naidoc week has launched our term, many sporting events and opportunities including our whole school athletics carnival, 100 days of school for 2023 - particularly our Foundation Learners, NAPLAN results will return, St Mary’s Big Night Out, Semester 2 Learning Conversations, our NSIT (National School Improvement Tool) Review, Book Week parade, the Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist, Father’s Day breakfast and Footy colours day, Festival of the Sacred and we will conclude with our termly Learning Expo and Terrific Kid! Wow…that is a lot to do, a lot to learn from, and a lot to be involved in for all stakeholders! I do encourage our parents and families to come along to any school opportunity and take part in these amazing opportunities and support our community of learning. All of these dates have been placed on Compass. 

Term three will see staff at a whole school level continue to grow and learn in the hope of meeting our annual action plan goals. This term our school improvement meetings and professional learning communities will see the staff explore assessment practices to ensure we are using data to inform our directions and improvements. Parents may notice our data-informed language coming home through their children as they too will be part of this learning journey. St Mary’s is striving to grow learners who know who they are, where they are at and where to next. This is an extremely powerful skill that we hope to nurture in our learners to enable them to progress, reflect and strive for what’s next. Our staff will be supported by our curriculum leaders to grow in this area. 

St Mary’s has completed our Enrolment intake for 2024. All acceptance and formalities have occurred to ensure we can prepare our new learners to join our community. On entry of families documentation, we are noticing that many families do not have Ambulance cover. I am wanting to educate families on what might happen in the instance that an ambulance has to be called for their child while at school. Please see the information that has been provided to me by Catholic Education Sandhurst - Health, Wellbeing and Safety Department on our School information page. The hope is that this information better equips families to make decisions about Ambulance coverage. 

Thank you to the many staff who have supported the first week back at school and the leadership coverage to allow many of us to attend professional learning this week. From all accounts, I have been informed that our learners have returned well, happy and looking forward to their term ahead. I do hope that I see many of you at our Big Night out, our many assemblies, masses and learning celebrations throughout the term. 

Take Care & God Bless, 

Jasmine Ryan

Principal