Principal's News

Dear Parents,

Congratulations to our wonderful parent community for supporting our social night last Friday. It was a fantastic night led by Christa, Kim, Stacey and Christine and we offer our sincere thanks for the amazing work put in to lead the night. Thanks also for all the other excellent fundraising events that have occurred this year. All money raised will go to the upkeep of the community garden.

This week, we celebrate the feast day of Mary MacKillop. Mary MacKillop is an important role model in our school. Mary MacKillop followed in the footsteps of Jesus, carrying out important work with the poor and vulnerable, and opening schools to ensure the young were educated. She began the order of the Josephite nuns and these nuns founded our school in 1919. Her motto of never seeing a need without addressing it is an important value in our school today. We invite all of our community to the Liturgy in the hall this Friday at 8.45am, led by our 1/2 community.

Online Behaviour

Today we have the need to highlight the importance of supervising students when engaging online.  We have many cases at the moment of students using online platforms to put each other down and be inappropriate. 

Adults play an important role in teaching students what is appropriate online behaviour. Whilst most of this occurs at home, we are noticing an increase in the amount of time we are spending needing to deal with these incidents and ask that parents put firm boundaries in place for their child at home. We have a zero tolerance to any put downs, bullying and disrespect. Students who display any of these behaviours will receive a consequence, a reflection sheet will be sent home and parents will be notified.

Transition Programs

We are commencing our transition programs for 2024, including our Mini Mary’s Club which commences next Tuesday.  Children’s transitions to school can have lasting effects on their learning and development including assisting our students to be prepared to handle any challenges along with evidence linking good transitions to academic success in later years. 

We know transitions require continuity of learning and development, in addition to focusing on building and shaping children’s identities through their evolving experiences and relationships. These are strengthened through coordinated efforts, such as collaborative partnerships with families and communities.  This includes adjusting to new environments, identities, relationships, interactions and expectations (Krakouer et al 2017; Rimm-Kaufman and Pianta 2000; Vitiello et al 2020; Webb et al 2017)

The relationship between families and educators is critical in ensuring children begin their school journey with success. 

The transition to school is not a single event, but can be thought of as a dynamic process of both change and continuity of learning that occurs over time (Dockett et al 2017; Moyle 2019; OECD 2017).

Our Mini Mary’s program is a wonderful way to ensure our newest members and their parents are prepared for the school journey. Please promote this highly successful program in the community. We have a few places still open for Foundation 2024 but places are limited so please let anyone with a child starting school in 2024 know to come and enrol as soon as possible. 

We are also working with our feeder secondary schools to ensure our Year 6 students have a successful transition to Year 7. This includes working with Padua College on transition in Maths and Literacy.  Our Year 6 teachers are visiting Tyabb campus to shadow Year 7 teachers to ensure our students will be prepared for learning in secondary school.

We are so proud of the students who finished at  St Mary’s  in 2022 and are achieving excellence in their secondary schooling. I received great feedback from Padua last week highlighting our 2022 Year 6 students who have won academic awards.

Elisha 5 awards in Semester 1

Holly 3 awards in Semester 1

Jed 2 awards in Semester 1

Allirah 1 award in Semester 1

Jess 1 award in Semester 1

Staffing news

We warmly welcome Lisa Galvin back after her well earned long service leave and Jacob Rowler who has had a wonderful trip to Europe. We wish Mrs Kath Snooks all the best next week as she commences her well-earned long service leave and welcome Mr Rick Stubbins to the Prep room for the last few weeks of Term 3.

Congratulations to Skyla, Ryder, Andrew and Kevin on their recent baptism. 

Finally, I would like to highlight  that many of the principals in our Peninsula Network are going to travel to Spain during the last two weeks of Term Three 2023. On this special pilgrimage, we will be walking part of the Camino.  During this time, we will be led by our spiritual director, Mr Ange Virgona.  I look forward to sharing this experience with our school community.

Yours in Partnership,

Gab