Principal's Address

Dear Families,

I hope that you and your child/ren have made a wonderful start to Term Four and adjusted fully to daylight savings time.

Please take the time to read this newsletter to ensure that you are prepared with the many upcoming events. 

Our open morning is coming up on Wednesday 28 October from 9:00–10:30am and we are looking forward to showcasing the wonderful things happening at Stella Maris.

We are extending the invitation to our existing and prospective families. We are encouraging our current families to bring along friends and family members to experience our welcoming community and see what makes Stella Maris such a special place.

To make the morning fun and encourage participation we will have a couple of incentives in place:

• Coffee voucher raffle: Everyone who attends will receive a raffle ticket, with the chance to win a coffee voucher from Saska.
• Classroom incentive: Each child whose family attends will receive a gold token. The class that collects the most tokens will win Zooper Doopers to share!

All classrooms will be open for parents to visit and engage in activities with our students.

If you have a child who will be starting school in 2027 or 2028, you are invited to register for the Little Stars of Stella. It is designed to compliment our transition program and help prepare students for beginning school.

Compliance Review

In 2026, Stella Maris participated in a compliance review. 

What is a compliance review?

A Victorian Catholic Education Authority (VCEA) compliance review evaluates Catholic schools and school boarding premises in Victoria to ensure they meet mandatory state registration standards, statutory requirements, and reporting obligations under their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA). School Governance & Management: Proper governance structures, financial viability assessment documentation, operational policies, and staff oversight systems. 

Key headings are:

• School Governance & Management
• Curriculum & Student Learning
• Teacher Qualifications & Accreditation
• Student Care, Safety & Welfare
• Child Safe Standards
• Complaint Handling & Procedural Fairness

We are pleased to advise the Victorian Catholic Education Authority (VCEA) School Compliance Review is completed and Stella Maris School, Beaumaris has demonstrated compliance with the Minimum Standards and Requirements for School Registration and the Child Safe Standards (Ministerial Order 1359). Thank you to all the members of the school community for their active involvement in this process.

Feedback from MACS: I'm delighted to share that we have received the results of your recent school compliance review, and I'm very pleased to confirm that your school has been assessed as fully compliant, with no rectifications required!

This is a brilliant result, and you should all be incredibly proud of this achievement. Your school is one of the first in our 2026 review cohort to achieve full compliance without any rectifications, which is a fantastic accomplishment.

This result is a real reflection of the hard work, dedication and commitment of you and your teams in ensuring that your school meets its compliance obligations and maintains a safe and supportive environment for students.

A huge congratulations to everyone involved and thank you for all your hard work and cooperation throughout the review process.

Well done again on such a fantastic result!

Kitchen Garden

Our Kitchen Garden is almost ready for planting. Thankyou to the SRC for encouraging a kitchen garden, to the many students who sent in designs and to our Parents & Friends who raised the valuable funds.

 Video of SRC the kitchen garden

NAPLAN 2026

NAPLAN results can been seen below for our Year 5 students both in 2024 (in Year 3) and 2026. You can see that our students are consistently performing above other State and National schools. We are also scoring well against other Matched schools. A look at the MySchool website shows the NAPLAN result for all schools across Australia up till 2025. A comparison with surrounding schools shows Stella Maris students outperforming them in Spelling, Writing, Numeracy and Grammar & Punctuation. While we are proud of the results, we are always striving to improve and using the data to help define a 2027 focus. 

2029 Goals 

Last year, MACS worked with our staff to develop goals through to 2029 (see below). While these goals are focus, the school does work on other targets. By 2030, we are aiming to increase enrolments to approximately 200 students.

We have a Community Engagement & Growth Team who have been working on strategies to increase enrolments. We have a 2028 Open Day on October 28 and we encourage current and new families to attend. We are also trialing a pre-school program called Little Stars of Stella. It is designed for 3 year old children to help with the transition to school. Please note that this program is not designed to replace kindergarten. See more information about both of these further on in the newsletter.

MACS in very supportive and invested in the long term future of Stella Maris.

 Goals and Targets:

1/ To improve student achievement in Mathematics, particularly the fluency in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division strategy in Year F -6.

2029 Target: the NAPLAN five- year trend report for Year 3 and Year 5 will show 85% of students above the state mean, with an upward trend in the number of students in the Exceeding and Strong proficiency levels in Number and Algebra. 

2/ To improve student achievement in Reading particularly in phonics in  Prep - 2.

2029 Target: the NAPLAN five- year trend report for Year 3 and Year 5 in Reading will show 85% of students above the state mean, with an upward trend in the number of students in the Exceeding and Strong proficiency levels.

3/ To improve student achievement in Writing particularly at sentence level in Prep-6.

2029 Target: the NAPLAN five- year trend report for Year 3 and Year 5 in Writing will show 80% of students above the state mean, with an upward trend in the writing of students in the Exceeding and Strong proficiency levels.

4/ To enhance the visibility of Catholic identity in all areas of the school’s mission, community and culture. 

By the end of 2029, the Catholic identity domain in the MACSSIS student survey will improve to above 72%.

2029 Target: the Catholic identity domain in the MACSSIS staff survey will continue to be above 90%.

By the end of 2029, the Catholic identity domain in the MACSSIS family survey will improve to above 72%.

5/ To foster an effective culture of leadership with all staff that is shared and committed to ongoing improvement.

2029 Target: the extent to which the school leaders collaborate in teams  at the school domain in the MACSSIS staff survey will improve to above 75%.

By the end of 2029, the extent to which the school leaders set the conditions for improving teaching and learning at the school domain in the MACSSIS staff survey will improve to above 62%.

Some targets have already been met this year and will continue to be re-adjusted to set high standards for our school.

🎉Get ready to run wild with Monty! It’s here -           Monty the Monstar Fun Run!

Jump in now! Click on  My Profile Page to set up your child’s profile – it’s quick, easy and super fun. 

We also have some amazing bonuses up for grabs:

• Every student gets rainbow sunglasses and a headband!
• The class with the most profiles at the end of week one will win an ice block party! 
• Receive donations on four different days and go into the draw to Slime a teacher!

Together, we can achieve amazing results for our school!

See the Parents & Friends section for more information

2027 Camp Program

Please below our scheduled camp program for 2027:

• Year 3 Zoo Snooze in early December for one night;
• Year 4 Angahook from May 17-19 for two nights;
• Years 5/6 Peninsula Outdoors Camp from February 15-18 for three nights.

School Uniform

Currently, students can wear either the full Winter or Summer uniform, depending on the weather. From Monday October 26 (week 4) all students are required to be in full Summer uniform, except when wearing the Sport uniform. A hat must be worn at all time when outside, during Terms 1 & 4.

Summer - Terms 1 & 4

• Bucket Hat
• School Dress with Navy Blue Ankle Socks
• Grey Shorts with Blue Short Sleeve Shirt and Grey Ankle Socks
• Black School Shoes
• Fleece Jacket
• Hair Ties/Ribbons are White/Red/Navy

We are looking forward to the Swimming Carnival tomorrow for students from Years 2-6.

Simon Millar

Principal

#CourageAlways