Dear Parents,

At St Mary’s, we have a vision of growing together in Faith, Hope and Love.

Our Vision

St Mary's aims to be a school of excellence forming lives through faith, hope and love.

Faith

We belong to a Catholic community who respects the dignity of each individual. We celebrate our faith in a contemporary way living out the mission of Jesus through our encounters with others.

Hope

At St Mary's we believe hope encompasses our community to empower our students to be capable and responsible learners.

Love

St Mary's is a community where everyone is welcomed, feels a sense of belonging, and uniqueness of each individual is valued and celebrated through respectful relationships.

"Education through respect, compassion and inspiration"

We have a high priority in 2023 on ensuring we are living out our positive behaviour approach by asking our students to be respectful, compassionate and inspiring.

We live out our social expectations by being an example of Jesus’ love, believing in every member of our community, being responsible for ourselves, ensuring we all achieve success, working for the common good, respecting each other and taking action in our lives.

I would like to congratulate our students and staff on a positive start to 2023. The students were shining in all that they did in the first full week of school and I thank our dedicated staff for providing such a wonderful environment for our students to reach for the stars and achieve to the highest level possible.

Our theme for the 2023 school year is “What we’’ll build” The Oliver Jeffers book is such a fitting theme coming out of review and COVID and imagining a together future. It is a theme of hope and joy celebrating and designing a year together where students are in the driving seat of their learning journey setting goals and working in inspiring ways.

I take this opportunity to invite all of our community to our Beginning of the Year school Mass this Friday commencing at 9.30am.. At this Mass we will present the student leaders with their leadership badges and I look forward to working with the leaders to achieve inspiring things together in 2023.

There will be a community breakfast commencing at 8.30am. Building a strong community around our students is at the heart of everything we do as it provides a wonderful landscape for everyone to thrive, flourish and build a sense of identity. It is then that we can all make a difference and enrich the world around us.

Please always take the time at St Mary’s to say hello to each other and ensure every member of our school community knows they are valued and feel a sense of belonging.

It was wonderful to warmly welcome our parents back into our community last week. I look forward to working in partnership with all of our parents throughout 2023 to ensure every student in our school shines and flourishes. Please know I am here to support you always - just email or ring the office for an appointment and I will meet with you to discuss any concerns, possibilities or questions.

The whole school focus for Week 3 is inquiring into self knowing we are all magnificent human beings who can achieve great things. We are focussing on being responsible for self and on the way we meet and greet each other.

We recognise that every individual has a personal narrative- experiences that colour what they question, the answers they seek, the possibilities they see, and the ways they come to know and understand themselves and the relationships they have with those around them.

Please take the time to look at the wellbeing and faith slide shows in the newsletter which will assist in deepening an understanding of the whole school focus.

All year levels will be focussing on this in their learning and in our 2023 wellbeing journals which highlight the fortnightly whole school theme.

Our school has a positive psychology model and together with our faith and learning frameworks we bring alive our whole school focus each week.

This ensures a consistent approach across the school providing a landscape where the focus is on the human person ensuring they are equipped with the necessary dispositions to thrive in their learning and achieve the highest academic level they can reach for.

We have significant resources to build strong mental health in our school with the tool kit, journals, explicit teaching of social emotional skills along with Tier 1, 2 and 3 adjustments.

Please note there will be refurbishment and maintenance works on the Church over the next few weeks and this may cause some disruption to the car park.

I look forward to a wonderful year together and the following saying says it all

“What will we build you and I….. I’ll build your future and you’ll build mine.

I look forward to working on our together future here at St. Mary’s.

Yours In Partnership,

Gabrielle Espenschied

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