School Community News

Library News!

With all of our exciting build projects in 2024, as you know the Library took a break and moved locations.  We are slowly getting the new Library functioning again and we currently completing a stocktake of our books.  As you can imagine we have a lot of books that may no longer be current or meet the interests and needs of our students.  So, we will be regularly having boxes of decommissioned books out on the ping pong table for families to take home and enjoy! We would appreciate a coin donation as we do need to purchase new storage for our Picture Story Books in the new Library.  

Students in the middle and senior grades have begun borrowing for take home reading over the past few weeks and we will get the juniors and preps borrowing before the end of the term.  

We all know and value the benefits of reading and having the opportunity to borrow books extends the amazing books our families already have at home.

If you are connected to a Day Care, Kindergarten etc who may also benefit from donations of books please see Lisa.

Womin Djeka Festival - A message of thanks!

On Saturday St Mary’s proudly participated in the Womin Djeka Festival at Emu Plains in Balnarring. This incredible community festival honours and celebrates First Peoples Cultures. It was wonderful to see so many of our students and their families attend the festival and visit our school stall. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the families and staff who volunteered their time to assist on the day.

Inspired by the story ‘The Time of Chaos’ by Carolyn Briggs & illustrated by the Balnarring Preschool children, our students co-created the components of our stall which were on display for everyone to enjoy.

In Permaculture classes, our Junior students worked collaboratively to share ideas and illustrated their promises to Bundjil, using a natural material they foraged in our beautiful school environment. They considered how they would look after the land, the water and one another and added their promise to our Bundjil's nest. 

In Art lessons, our whole school explored various Aboriginal Artist’s works that used a lot of lines, a feature of Victorian Aboriginal art. This was our inspiration to decorate some unique sea creatures of Western Port Bay focusing on line and pattern. Visitors to our stall were also invited to select their favourite creature to decorate that calls Western Port Bay home.

Thank you to our amazing St Mary’s community for your support, we very much value and appreciate it!