From the Director of Junior School 

Dear Families,

During this time of Holy Week, we are offered the chance to reflect and remember how Jesus gave up his life to bring about a new season of renewal and hope for all. This Easter, I hope all our families find a moment to pause, reflect on the meaning of the season, and spend the coming days together with gratitude, love and hope.

We wish all our Junior School families a wonderful Easter break and look forward to seeing you all back at school on Wednesday 8 April. 

Family reminders

We would like to remind families of our procedures for signing students out of school during school hours, as well as the process for dropping off items for them. 

From 9.00am to 3.00pm, all visitors – including parents, carers and family members – must report to our Student Services office to: 

• sign out a child for an appointment or to collect a child who has permission to leave early. 
  • Our office staff will notify your child's classroom, and your child will be called to meet you at Student Services. Please do not go to collect the student from their classroom. 
  • If you need to pick your child up early, please email the College at stmarys@smc.tas.edu.au with the time you wish to collect them so we can ensure they are ready and waiting at the office. 
  • For absentees, please contact absentees@smc.tas.edu.au. 
• to drop off an item (lunch, uniform, etc.). 
  • Please do not go to your child's classroom during school hours to place items in their school bag. This is particularly important as we have many students with life-threatening food allergies, and we want to avoid any risk of food items being placed in the wrong student's bag. 
  • Forgotten items, or anything that needs to be passed on to your child, may be dropped off at Student Services, and staff will ensure these are delivered directly to them.

All messages or other enquiries must also go through our Student Services office. 

We thank families in advance for their understanding around this. 

Lunchtimes in our Junior School

This term, we have been trialling a reverse eating schedule at lunchtime. In this structure, students go out to play first and then sit down to eat afterwards. Our lunchtime break has remained from 12.50pm to 1.30pm; however, we have trialled shifting the eating time to 1.20pm–1.30pm. The purpose of this trial was to observe whether it influenced the following student behaviours:

• Eating habits: Some students were not eating enough because they were eager to go and play. This change allows them to use their energy first and then return to eat more calmly.
• Playground conflict: Having a focused eating time after play has allowed teachers to check in with students about any friendship issues. This means that when learning time begins again, students are refocused and ready to learn.

This week, staff and students have been given the opportunity to provide feedback on this structure. We will review this feedback and determine what approach is most appropriate and best suited for our Junior School students. Any changes will be implemented at the beginning of Term 2.

I would like to thank the families who have taken the time to email me their feedback on this trial. If you have any further feedback you would like to share, please feel free to email me by Wednesday 8 April at mthirgood@smc.tas.edu.au 

Presentation Values Certificates 

We congratulate the following students for being awarded with Presentation Values certificates at our weekly line-ups.