Senior School News
Year Five and Six Sailing Program
Students in Year Five and Six will be participating in the Sandringham Yacht Club Sailing Program, commencing Monday continuing over four sessions in total over the term. The program aims to develop teamwork, leadership, confidence, communication and water safety skills.
Friendship Leader Speeches
Every year since 2000, St Mary's two Year Six student have been elected as Friendship Leaders. Six of our 2023 Year Six students nominated themselves for Friendship Leader for 2023. Today, student in Year 4-6 listened to these six inspiring student give their speeches before voting for one boy and one girl as our 2023 Friendship Leaders.
In listening to each of the six nominees, the Year 4-6 students considered the qualities required to be a Friendship Leader. Someone who:
- exhibits care for others in the school community, not only students in their own year level but across year levels.
- is enthusiastic and demonstrate school spirit and our RICH values.
- is positive and supportive of others.
- is motivated to encourage others to show the school's RICH values
Hi, my name is Alex Marinelli and I would really like to be your friendship captain for 2023.
As Friendship Captain, I would work to make sure everybody in our school feels safe and included in the playground. I believe that everyone should feel that school is a place they can feel comfortable and have fun with their friends. I want to make the school environment filled with positivity and joy.
St Mary’s is an amazing school and we’re really lucky to be going here. I would love to be able to represent this community. To keep all of the students happy and included I will for the first seven minutes of play look out to see if anyone needs help or someone to play with.
I think that I can represent the whole school community. I have a wide range of interests and I think that allows me to understand and represent a broad range of people. I enjoy sports but also really like STEAM, reading and art and have other hobbies outside of school. As the Friendship Captain I will make sure everyone is heard and that they feel they have a voice.
I would really appreciate your vote for me as your St Mary’s Friendship Captain.
Alex Marinelli
Good afternoon everyone. My name is Jess and I’ve been at St Mary's for 7 years. For me, being a friendship captain is not about getting a badge or getting my name on a board, for me it’s about getting to help people when they're all alone or sitting on the Friendship bench. I would also help make the school a safer and better environment for everyone.
Through my past leadership experiences such as the opportunity to be an SRC leader, I have learnt the qualities that are needed to be a positive role model in the community. Such as being compassionate, having respect and showing inclusiveness to others.
I have also thought that since we spend so much time at school I think we should have a bit more fun. One way we could do that is by including a joke of the day in every assembly.
I would also like to work with the sports/wellbeing team to create a new day called RICH Values day where everyone comes to school with casual clothes on and each class will go around to different stations and they have fun playing games and learning about the rich values.
Don’t be shy to come up to me at playtime and ask for help. It would be an honour to be your 2023 friendship captain.
Jess Taylor
Hi everyone. My name is Athan, which is short for a very long Greek name.
I have a father and a grandfather to thank for that.
The good part is that it’s an ancient name and means ‘immortal’.
4 years ago I came to St. Mary’s as a new student.
I didn’t know anybody and l left behind my other school and friends.
I thought it was going to be hard, but it really wasn’t
Everybody at St. Mary’s, students and teachers welcomed me from day 1 and made me feel comfortable and at home.
My experience is a major reason as to why I want to be Friendship Captain.
I love and am very proud to be a part of this school community and I want to be a part of making sure that every student that comes here feels the same way as me on day 1.
Comfortable and welcome.
I really care about people's feelings, good or bad and I really respect and live by the rich values of St. Mary’s
St Mary’s has played a big part in who I am as a person and I want everyone who comes to this school to feel the same way.
There are many more reasons I could share with you, but we would be here for hours!
It would be a great honour to be your friendship captain, I hope you feel the same way
Thank you all for listening.
Athan Zafiropoulos
Hello students and teachers of Grade 4, 5 and 6. For those who don't know me, my name is Cooper Sarant, and I am the fourth child of our family to be lucky enough to have been part of the St Mary’s community over the past 11 years.
My brothers Refe and Zain, and my sister Grace were students here, so I feel like I have been part of St Mary’s for a long period of time, and I've got to know the school extremely well during this time, providing me a good understanding of the involvement of our students, teachers and lets not +forget our parents. This includes both within St Marys and the community.
My memories of St Mary’s are amazing, going back to the first time I walked through the gates of St Mary's following my brothers and sister, and also on my very first day as a prep.
I have proudly represented St Mary's and the students as a SRC representative, a Victorian Primary STEM group finalist, at inter-school athletics and also in cross country.
In prep, I was inspired by the friendship captain of that year. It made me want the opportunity to be a role model and give back to the school and students, and try to make the school even better than it already is, just as I have seen other friendship Captains do.
Our friendship captain I believe should demonstrate the true spirit of St Marys RICH values to the students, teachers, parents and the broader Hampton community.
If I was friendship Captain I would push the boundaries and think outside the box to make the school an even kinder place. I would try to always make sure that everyone is supported and has a turn to say what they want to say, and always try to have an open ear and an open mind to listen. Compassion, kindness, thoughtfulness, encouragement, and being aware of others and how I can help is also very important. To me they are all role model behaviours that show a positive attitude through leadership.
It would be privileged to be the friendship Captain, a person that others would look up to, be inspired by and demonstrate what St Mary’s is all about. I would also love to be able to give back to our school, a school that has been such a big part of my life for such a long period of time.
Thankyou.
Cooper Sarant
Hi everyone my name is Caitlin Lees. First off, I'm going to introduce myself to those who don't know me. I have been playing basketball on the same team ever since year one. I love playing basketball a lot. I belong to a theatre group that meets up once a week and does lots of fun acting and singing. Sometimes my parents may not always appreciate my singing but whatever.
I love going on holidays with my family. Particularly somewhere nice and warm.
I moved to st marys term one last year. Some things I really appreciate about this school are the friendships, teamwork and all the amazing people here from Mr Eddy, Mr Sweeney, Mrs Robinson in the office, all of supportive teachers, the incredible parents to the brand new Preps, my sister in grade four, my awesome year 6 friends and everyone in between.
I am going for the role of friendship captain because I think it would be a great opportunity to encourage everyone to be kind and have respect towards each other. I value making everyone feel welcome and included. Don't hesitate to say hi to me in the playground. I consider myself very lucky to be here at St Mary's, surrounded by a fabulous group of boys and girls who I can call my friends and I am looking forward to an amazing 2023 with them all.
Caitlin Lees