Dear Parents and Carers 

This week we enter the Season of Advent, during these four weeks leading up to Christmas we are entering a period of preparation. As we prepare our homes for Christmas, Advent provides a time to prepare our hearts and minds for celebrating the birth of Jesus. During this time of Advent we ask Jesus to strengthen our faith and trust that, indeed through him , “All things are possible.” (Matt 19:26) Please join our school choir who are singing this Sunday at the Family Mass at Ulladulla at 5pm. 

The end of the year is always a time of change and excitement as children leave one teacher to start all over again with a new teacher in a new classroom. Each year at St Mary’s we inform students of the teacher they will be having the following year, this alleviates some of the anxiety associated with this transition.  I’m please to share the following news with you, we are very excited to have Mrs Gabrielle Peters returning to teach Year One in 2023, and Mrs Ashleigh Hedger has been appointed the position of temporary Religious Education Coordinator for the year. 

Teachers for 2023 

Our Support Staff Officers will continue to provide excellent learning support in the classrooms. We are so fortunate to have such professional teachers with great expertise leading our classes in 2023. 

We are looking forward to trialling swimming lessons at Milton Pool next week for Years 1-6, we are praying for sunny weather as the students will be walking to and from the pool each day. Please remember to wear swimmers underneath uniforms where possible and pack towels and goggles into a swimming bag that is easy for your child to carry to the pool.  Students will have an opportunity to get changed when they return to school. 

Next week our Year Six class will be having a Graduating Mass at Milton Church, then Dinner at the Mollymook Golf Club. This is a very special event for all of our families as some will leave our community after many years of support and connection with St Mary’s. We congratulate our Year Six class as they get ready to Graduate, what a wonderful celebration. 

We are looking forward to our Annual School Gingerbread House night on Thursday 15th December. It will be great to be gathering as a community for lots of Christmas fun. Thank you to Clementine’s dad who is bringing his special Gelato Van on the night and will be selling lovely gelato which has been donated and all profits going to the school. Thanks for sending in the Christmas raffle money and tickets, thanks to our generous Raffle sponsors Small Town, Home At Last and Toyworld Ulladulla. 

The final day of school for students will be Friday the 16th December. This is the day that we will celebrate the end of year and we invite you to join us for all or part of the day. :

10:00am Final School Mass 

Morning Tea 

11:30am Award Ceremony: Student Leaders announced

1:00pm Christmas Concert 

Yours in partnership,

Laurinda Nelson