Dear Parents and Carers 

Last weekend, we celebrated Pentecost Sunday, which is the celebration of the Holy Spirit coming to reassure and enable the apostles after they had suffered the loss of Jesus. They were afraid of what had happened to Jesus and had locked themselves in a room, paralysed with fear. The gift of the Holy Spirit was to free them from their fear, represented by the doors flying open with a great gust of wind and a rush of tongues of fire, This of course terrified the apostles even more, then they experienced the strength of the Spirit moving in them, they started to speak in different languages. 

They found courage and they found their voices. Finding and giving voice has been in the media recently in connection with the Indigenous Voice campaign. This is Reconciliation Week, we pray that as a country we listen deeply to our Indigenous brothers and sisters calls for justice for a voice, truth telling and listening. 

I am very pleased to announce that Ms Lisa Kelly will be replacing Mrs Hedger in Year 6 for Semester Two. We are so blessed to have a teacher of such high calibre available in our area, considering the large scale teacher shortage. Mrs Kelly has had extensive experience working in Catholic Schools in Victioria. She comes highly recommended and has a passion for upper primary education. Ms Kelly will be teaching the Year 6 class five days a week, with Mrs Cerff moving to support the REC role on a different grade. We look forward to introducing Ms Kelly to Year 6 in the coming weeks. We wish Mrs Hedger a happy, healthy and comfortable last few weeks of term. 

Thanks to our parents for supporting our St Mary’s Uniform Policy, it has been wonderful to see our students arriving in their winter uniforms this term. I know the ties can be tricky, our staff are always happy to help with getting them tied on arrival at school. Our uniform is a way that we can show pride and a sense of belonging to our school community. We ask parents to ensure that they send their child in full school uniform including hair tied back, and wearing black polishable leather shoes with our formal uniform and predominantly white joggers with the sport uniform. 

Next Thursday we will be hosting a ‘Biggest Morning Tea’, this fundraiser is to support those impacted by Cancer. We know there are many families in our school community that have been affected by cancer. We are asking that Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4) bring in something they have baked to sell to the students at first break. Thank you to our parents and students for supporting such a worthy cause. 

On Monday night our P and F will be meeting for the month of June. The P and F meetings are such an important part of our school community and culture, it is a great way to lend a hand, meet other parents and have parent voice in the school. Please join us at 5:30pm on Monday. 

I hope to see you in our school soon,

Yours in partnership 

Laurinda Nelson