Mrs Ryan's Fortnightly Reflections

With only twenty days to go, we have much to do, celebrate and be excited about. As we near the end of November, we start to enter into Advent, a time in the church calendar where we have the opportunity to renew our faith and connection with Jesus as we await his arrival. St Mary’s will begin to acknowledge and celebrate the time of advent over the coming weeks in prayer, liturgy, song and symbols. We hope to see many of you in around the school community preparing with us. 

Last week the leadership team had the privileged experience of exploring St Mary’s as a data story. The team explored our enrolment trends, demographic make up, our learner and family perspective along with all of our academic data. It was an extremely informative session which allowed us great recognition, celebration and explicit path for improvement. We will be sharing a community data analysis with you all prior to the end of the year however some highlights I would like to share include the following;

• St Mary’s has made exceptional growth in numeracy over the last 12 months
• We educate approximately 30% of the schooling population of the Moama / Echuca area.
• Our positive enrolments are indicative of what we do, our reputation and our results!! People are voting with their feet! 
• 50% of our community are categorised advantage and 50% are categorised disadvantage….regardless of this, our educational data is on the upward trend, and we are making a difference to all - providing an impactful education. 
• Our parents are recognising and appreciative of the increase in learning climate in our community and want to be partners in the educational journey
• Our teachers are overall happy, feel supported and fulfilled professionally!  

We are just about to finalise learner selections for classes for 2025. Thank you to the parents who supported their children in these conversations and informed choices. Teachers will now enter all of the learner data and selections into our Class Solver data base and classes will be formed. Next year St Mary’s welcomes over 100 new enrolments, the majority of them creating our Foundation classes however in excess of 20 learners from non Foundation years. Teachers are informed of classes and year levels taught on the eve of our Community Step Up day and I know that parents will be happy with the teaching team for 2025! I know I am! 

This week I had the pleasure of joining and coaching the Senior girls basketball team who made it to the State competition in Melbourne. Our team did me so proud as they took to every game as a team, proud and improving every game. We did not take home any exceptional win however what the girls did to grow and commit during this opportunity was admirable. Thank you to the many parents who supported and joined us on this journey. 

In our next newsletter I will include a St Mary’s data snap shot from the year, particularly around our academic progression. I will also share with families the fee schedule for 2025 with the varied payment options and supports available. 

Take care and God Bless, 

Jasmine Ryan

Prinicipal