Dear Parents and Carers

Welcome to our school year, I trust everyone has had a restful break and that you are now all enjoying the return to school schedules. It has been a wonderful start to the year, with all classes settled and ready for learning. I would like to acknowledge the work of our staff who were in classrooms well before the return of students to ensure that the learning spaces were bright and inviting, inspiring our learners. We are looking forward to a wonderful year. 

On Wednesday, we welcomed our beautiful new Kindergarten class for 2024. There is nothing like watching the smiling faces of parents and new Kinders arriving into the school for the first official day so full of expectation and joy. Mrs Lee and Mrs Treweek have prepared a beautiful classroom with plenty of things to discover for our Kinder students. There were just a few tears as the parents left for morning tea at the Parish Centre, enormous thanks to the Parish team, as always for providing such wonderful hospitality. 

This Friday, weather permitting, we will have our Swimming Carnival at the Milton Pool. These are always really fun days for all our students in Years 1-6. It is a little bit too early for our Kindergarten children to be participating yet! Please come along and encourage your child by being present for them. A big thanks to Mrs Reid for organising another great Carnival Day. 

Just a few quick reminders to start the year: 

Student phones are not permitted at school, if your child requires a phone for contact out of school hours they must bring the phone to the Office for safe keeping and collect it before going home. All smart watches must be locked during school hours, if the device is active it will be held in the Office for the day, and regarded as a device. 

If you wish to contact teachers you can reach them through the following: 

• Phone call to the Office 
• Email to the school Office at info@sosmdow.catholic.edu.au
• Please do not contact staff via personal email
• Please allow 48 hours for a response 

Every school day counts, there is a very strong relationship between consistent school attendance and high academic achievement from the very early years of education. Please make sure your child is at school each day, even being regularly late has an impact on learning. Consider these interesting statistics. 

Morning/ Afternoon Drop Off and Pick Up

Duty Teachers are on the playground in the mornings at 8.45am, please ensure your child is dropped off after 8.30am. Students must remain seated until 8.45pm when the morning teacher starts duty. To keep everyone safe, if you are just dropping your children off, pull into the zone in front of the main gate. If you would like to come into the school or the Office please park near the oval on Cork’s Lane. When picking students up in the afternoon please park and enter the school grounds, do not park and call students to cars during the after school busyness. 

Thank you for your support,

Yours in partnership
Lindy Nelson