From the Principal 

Dear Families 

Thank you for celebrating Mass with us on Sunday 9th February. We are an integral part of the St Mary’s Parish and are always made to feel very welcome as we share the Eucharist. We congratulate our Year 6 students for their leadership roles and the manner in which our assemblies have been hosted and school Open Morning tours conducted, they are off to a flying start. We also congratulate our SRC recipients and together with Mr Millane know that they will work hard to make our school even better. Student leadership is a real strength of our school and each year the students have more opportunities to lead and bring their ideas to fruition. Their badges were blessed at Mass and were worn proudly on Monday morning. 

Meet the Teacher 

Thank you to our families and staff for these important online and/or face to face meetings, last week  to continue building strong partnerships to support each child at their point of need. 

Musical Production 2025 - Imaginarium 

Drew Lane returned to work with our senior students on Monday,  where the lead roles were announced and a two hour workshop ensued. All of the students from each year are involved and the hard work to bring the musical production to life has begun. 

HOLT Swimming 

Congratulations to our students from Years 3 to 6 who tried out for our Swimming Team, a fortnight ago. Swimming 50m in an outdoor pool can be challenging and many of our students went out of their comfort zone, used a growth mindset and had a go. They should feel proud of themselves! Thank you to Mrs Mason, Mrs Le Hunt and Mr Millane for trialing and timing the students. We wish Sienna, Anthony B, Samuel, Lavinia, Isla, Mia, Gabriel, Ethan, George, Mia, Davide, Olivia T, Anna T and Christopher all the best for tomorrow. Thank you to Mrs Mason, Mr Millane and Mrs Abiad for attending this carnival to support our students and the HOLT district. 

Inter House Athletics Carnival on Wednesday 19th  March 2025

We are excited to be having our Inter House Athletics Carnival at Bricker Reserve Moorabbin again. Mr Millane has started preparing the students in Physical Education classes. The students from Years 3 to 6 will participate in many track and field events. Our junior students will join us later in the morning to participate in modified track and field events. Please mark this event in your calendar. All families are very welcome to come and cheer for their athletes!  Information regarding this will be sent out in the next newsletter. 

Assemblies each  Friday from 3:00-3:30pm  in the Berchmans Flexi space (Upstairs in our senior building) 

We love having family members join us at assembly each week. This is an important time where we gather as a school community, share our learning, hear from our Year 6 leaders and be led by our Year 6 hosts, celebrate birthdays, our weekly awards, sing the National Anthem and much more. We congratulate Lavinia, Sienna, Samuel and Hugo for hosting the first two assemblies of the year. Hugo even had the confidence to share a joke with us!  We look forward to Allegra and Anakin hosting tomorrow’s assembly. After working on it over a hot chocolate we had a practice in the staffroom. 

Fees 

School Fees & Levies Statement have been sent home with your child, please check their school bag.  If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact Erica erica.nastopoulos@smstkildaeast.catholic.edu.au 

Welcome Drinks Friday 21st  February  7pm at the Village Belle Hotel 

We are looking forward to celebrating the start of our school year tomorrow. Thank you to the P&F for organising this. Please see the Parents and Friends news for further information. 

School Promotional Video - Thursday 27th February 

We are really excited to be filming a video for our school website on Thursday the 27th February.  All staff and students will be part of filming in various ways and we will be following the parent approval and permissions received via the recent Operoo eForm.  We would like students to wear their school uniform apart from the Year 3 who are asked to wear the sports uniform. Please ensure students are wearing the correct coloured socks and that hair accessories are in school colours. We look forward to sharing the completed video with you in the near future and thank Mrs Borgese for making this four year plan a reality. 

Clubs and School Activities 

Throughout the week we are able to offer clubs at recess and/or lunch times. As the year progresses we hope to offer some more. Internally Mr Millane will be offering Choir, I am looking forward to re-starting our Crochet Club and a few more ideas are being explored. If you have a talent and time, we would love to hear from you!  The children love these clubs, learning new skills and getting to know students from various year levels.  Our paid extra activities are Chess on Thursdays, Music with Ian on Wednesdays and Taekwondo on Wednesdays after school. Sofia and her team from Taekwondo came in last Friday and did an exciting demonstration for us (see below). We offer Art Therapy on a Thursday afternoon, with Hywell as the facilitator and Next Athletics on a Tuesday after school. On Wednesday afternoons Story Time with Ms Kat starts next Wednesday 26th Feb, 3:10pm in the Zen Zone room. We look forward to our preschool siblings joining us for this. 

Student absences

Please ensure that when your child is absent from school, it is communicated to the classroom teacher and the office (absent@smstkildaeast.catholic.edu.au) via email or call the school and leave a message. If you know your child/children will be absent ahead of time please let the school know, including appointments. We are mandated to record daily attendances and absences.  We thank you for your understanding in streamlining our processes. If you are planning a holiday outside of the Term holidays please email me your dates and relevant information  (cathy.ferrrari@smstkildaeast.catholic.edu.au). 

2026 Prep Enrolments Now Open 

If you have a child commencing Prep in 2026 please complete the Enrolment Application Form on the school website.  Interviews for siblings will be held later this Term. We look forward to recommencing our pre-school children and their families at our one morning a week  Stay, Chat and Play 9:00 -10:00am sessions in the Community Room.  Next week our pre-school story telling sessions, with Ms Kat will commence. All very welcome. Please call the office if interested. 

Parents and Friends Committee 

Last fortnight we had our first P&F meeting. This is a very important part of our school community, as they build relationships with new families and current families, work closely with the staff to support learning opportunities for each student and fundraise for our community, all whilst having loads of fun and building upon our St Mary’s strong sense of community.  We thank Jeremy for his leadership and welcome Mel our treasurer and Holly for her second year as secretary . The class representatives are an integral part of this committee and we welcome anyone else who would like to help. A highlight at the end of the year is our Thank you Evening where anyone who has helped regardless of being on the P&F or not, can celebrate our achievements.  Last year thank you for your hard work raising funds for our Landscaping Project - Stage Two - our Community garden. Our focus in 2025 will be purchasing resources and books for our new library space and Literacy and Maths resources.

School Advisory Board 

Our school, like all Catholic Parish and diocesan schools in the Archdiocese of Melbourne,  is  under the guidance of Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS). Every school establishes a School Advisory Council as a way of giving parents/ guardians/carers a chance to be involved in the school.

The School Advisory Council advises the Principal on important matters and provides support to the Principal and School Leadership Team in their decision-making process.

In many ways, this emphasizes the importance of parents/guardians/carers being involved in partnering with the school and the way this helps your children in their education.

The  School Advisory Council supports and offers advice on such matters as:

   *  strategic direction of the school

   *  Religious Education program

   *  curriculum

   *  enrolments and enrolment policy 

   *  school resources 

   *  improvements in the school

   *  Annual Report to the School Community

   *  family partnerships.

We thank Jacqui for being Chair this year and working closely with Ruth, Hywell, Craig, Steve, Fr Jerome, James and myself.  We thank Steve for his application and congratulate him on his appointment to our School Advisory Council. On a personal note I would like to thank the SAC for their professionalism and support of James and myself as we lead the school on our improvement agenda, where each student is taught at their point of need. 2025 promises to be another exciting year for our St Mary’s community. 

Staff Conference 2025  

Please note that Thursday 6th March and Friday 7th March are student free days. Their Care is available if required. We are having our annual staff conference preparing for our school review this year on Thursday and working with the Student Wellbeing Team from Southern Region, MACS on Positive Behaviours for Learning (PBL) as we head into our third year of this positive behavior informed wellbeing approach, on Friday. We thank you for understanding the importance of professional development for us as a staff group. 

Finally, thank you to everyone who made my special ‘0’ birthday such a special day. I had such a lovely surprise and yes I was very surprised! I loved the cards, videos, birthday wishes, decorations and singing. If I am away one of the mini Mrs Ferrari’s can steer the ship.  As a student in the olden days at my student Year 12 farewell assembly I impersonated the Principal and last Tuesday this came full circle!

Take care and wishing God's blessings and peace upon each of you. 

Mrs Cathy Ferrari