Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to Term 4, we are all happy to be back together as we head into the final term of a very interesting and challenging year. I hope all of our families managed to have a restful break. We have a very busy first week with our Berry Sport and Rec ‘In School Camp’  on Thursday. Our students all had a great day, learning the importance of working in teams and cooperation, the facilitators were motivating and very skilled at entertaining and keeping the groups actively working together. We are looking forward to a follow up day for Years 3-6 this Tuesday onsite at Berry. Students are to wear sport uniform, sport shoes & hat. The bus leaves school at 7:30 sharp and returns to school at 4pm. Enormous thanks to Treading Lightly for covering the cost of the buses to and from Berry. 

At St Mary’s, we recognise the important role that parents and families play in supporting their child's education. Research has shown that when schools and families work together, children do better, stay in school longer, are more engaged with their school work, go to school more regularly, behave better, and have better social skills. Parent engagement also results in longer term economic, social and emotional benefits.This week many parents will be participating in Personalised Planning meetings with Mrs Valentini and your child’s class teacher. Unfortunately due to COVID regulations these meeting cannot be face to face, but via a phone call. Collaborating with your child’s teacher and being part of their goal setting and planning is such an important factor in their academic and personal growth.  I thank Mrs Valentini, Mrs Faust in our school office, the teachers and parents for devoting so much time and effort to develop these partnerships in our school community. 

Creativity in all its various forms are highly valued in our school. Our students are working hard to bring our latest production ‘Dragon Days’ to light, the year 2020 has not been encouraging of such ventures and we applaud the tenacity and commitment of our cast and crew to bring this production to you. Whilst rehearsals with Mrs Cooper are continuing, our plan is to film the production and distribute this limited release as a video to our families. Filming will take place during Weeks 4 and 5 with a release to families in Week 7. We currently have two student artworks hanging in the Wollongong Gallery, Tess Wilson and Lillie Phelan have been shortlisted for the Bishop’s Christmas Art Competition. We congratulate the winners and thank Mrs McGregor for her continuing passion and support for visual arts in our school. 

This week we have had the welcome news that we will be able to host a modified Kinder 2021 Playgroup, we will be inviting our new Kinders in to play and meet our 2021 Kindergarten teacher, Miss Helena Karas.  Helena is very excited to be welcoming our lovely new students into our school community. This term we are also happy to welcome back the Bracken family from their travels around Australia and to two new families joining our school community. 

We thank our parents and carers for their ongoing support of COVID restrictions and look forward to welcoming you back onto school grounds as soon as possible. 

Yours in partnership,

Laurinda Nelson