Principal's Message

Thank You

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Instructional Leadership Team and our staff for their support and ongoing commitment to our school community while I took 4 weeks sick leave earlier this term. I have returned renewed and refreshed to continue the great work our staff are doing to ensure learning growth and improved outcomes for our students.

Instructional Leadership Team

The St Mary’s College leadership team is known as The Instructional Leadership Team (ILT). The ILT is committed to the community by fostering learning at all levels. They are advocates for our student and staff needs and interests, as well as facilitators of innovation and improvement. We are committed to ensuring we are at the top of our game, wanting every one of our students to continually grow and succeed. This desire for success lives in all of our Middle Leaders and teachers, support staff, students and families. The ILT members are:

Principal Bernadette Feldman

Assistant Principal Cath Martin

REC Sandra Garnett

Leader of Academic Care - curriculum Greg Boyce

Leader of Academic Care - student wellbeing Jody Law

Literacy Coach/Leader of Pedagogy Kate Walshe

K-12 Learning Community Coordinator Adam Mooney

Sustainability: Reduce, Recycle, Re-use

I had the pleasure of sitting on the panel of the Year 12 EES presentation. The students audited our rubbish on site and gave feedback on what the data tells us and recommendations moving forward.

The data told a startling story.  Their hypothesis was proven correct in that a large portion of the general waste bins in both the yard and staff room were recyclable. The contents of the general waste bins were separated and this is what the contents revealed:

From the general waste bins only 29% of the contents belonged there. We have increased the number of general waste and recycle bins across our school. The SRC and Senior Leaders have clearly labelled all of these bins. Our student leaders used Student Briefing to encourage and explain the bins and their labels. We don’t follow the guidelines.

This needs to change. We are called by our faith to be stewards of creation and to sustain and increase the world’s health.

The EES students are now completing a grant application to purchase for the school correctly labelled bins that sit side by side for easier differentiation and for ease of use. I will be encouraging our students to participate in what is known as Nude Food Day. Minimise the amount of rubbish brought to school, pack lunches in reusable containers and reduce the impact on our environment. Dates to come.

New Staff

We welcome Riana Bekker to our Office Team. She has worked for us casually in the front office to support our team when members were away or we needed extra support. She has now moved to be a regular at the front desk every Tuesday.

Next term we welcome a new staff member, Nicole Jelbart. Nicole is a science teacher who comes to us with a wealth of experience in both teaching and leading. She is also able to teach mathematics and religion. She comes to us from Mudgee.

I commence Long Service Leave on Thursday 14 September through to the holidays. Mrs Cath Martin will again be stepping into leading the community in my absence. I wish our Year 12s all the very best for their end of school celebrations; our Year 11s as they move into Preliminary Exams; and for all of our community to have a safe, relaxing and rejuvenating spring break.

Bernadette Feldman