Principal's News

Welcome to Week 4!

We have had a busy and successful start to the year so far. 

I have been so impressed with the way the children of St Mary's Primary school are able to settle in to the school day and actively take part in their learning. This is happening in every classroom from the new Prep's to our more experienced Year 5/6's and is a remarkable achievement! Thank you to you, our families, for preparing your children every day to be ready to take on a big day of learning (and fun!) at school. Thank you also to our dedicated staff who support the students to be able to feel safe and confident in their school, which allows them to be ready to learn. 

This week is jammed packed again! We have 3 events occurring on Friday alone!

On Wednesday we have our Opening School Mass beginning at 2:15PM. All families are welcome to join is at Mass - we would love to see you there! 

We have the Active Paths Launch-Walk to school and Assembly. The St Mary’s School Community are invited to walk, ride, scoot to school. We will meet at Babington Park at 8am and head off to school together, ready to learn at 8.30am. This will be followed by a short assembly in the Discovery Centre. 

We also have a parish visit by Bishop Tony Ireland on Friday the 21st of February. He will be joining Fr Shymon to meet with our student and school leaders, as well as the leaders from St Joseph's Crib Point and St Brendan's Somerville. We are excited to share our beautiful school and community with Bishop Tony. He will be saying Mass at the different Parishes over the weekend. 

The last big event for Friday 21st February is the Year 3-6 Swimming Carnival! Please refer to the Operoo sent for details about the carnival. From what I have been told, even the teachers get competitive in the swimming races!

Next week we look forward to welcoming our Prep families on Tuesday 25th February for a welcome night. This will begin at 5:30. There will be information for the parents and the children will enjoy a magical show! We will conclude the evening with some drinks and nibbles! 

RIGHT TO DISCONNECT

Communication between school and home comes in many different formats, but one of our major forms of communication is via email.

Our wonderful and dedicated school staff are very good at communicating with parents about concerns or information about our students as needed.

As some of you may be aware, Fair Work Australia as of the 26th August, 2024 introduced a new act that gives employees the Right to Disconnect outside of their designated work hours. This is a great step forward to ensure the wellbeing and mental health of all workers in Australia.

As a result of the Fair Work Act, St Mary's will be implementing email and communication policies in line with this. As a school, we have agreed that our policy on returning emails is that emails are responded to within a 48 hour time frame and within the hours of 7.00am-5.30pm. This will be added to the email signature of staff as a reminder. This allows staff to work towards a balance between home life and school life. 

We know there are many times that parents need to email school staff due to many family and work commitments, which can continue as normal, but please allow staff 48 hours to respond, between the designated hours. With this new act, as a school we will be enforcing this with our staff, so we thank parents for your continued support as we transition to this change. Policies will be added to our school website, under the Policy tab, when finalised.