Dear Parents and Carers, 

This Friday many of our Year 2 students will be making the Sacrament of Reconciliation, this is a significant milestone in Catholic lives. At the core of this sacrament is the responsibility that each one of us has to feel empathy for each other, be accountable for our actions and restore relationships by expressing understanding and saying sorry. What important skills our faith extols in the world; peace, dignity and love for all. We will keep our candidates and their families in our prayers and thoughts as they prepare for this sacred ritual tonight. 

We have had a wonderful start to the term with the celebration of NAIDOC last Thursday. This is always a wonderful celebration of culture in our school, lead by Uncle Phil Butler who offered a welcome to country and began the day with a smoking ceremony. Our Indigenous Education Coordinator Mrs Jodie Lee spent countless hours supporting Uncle Phil in ensuring this celebration was meaningful and educational for all of our St Mary’s community. An enonormous thanks to Uncle Phil, Jodie Lee, the students and staff of St John the Evangelist High School, our staff and Kitchen Garden team for a wonderful morning tea. We are truly blessed. 

Strong school attendance equals strong educational achievement. We have become concerned that some of our students are regularly having days away from school. This maybe due to illness or family holidays and on rare occasions just a day off here or there. We have noticed in particular high rates of absence on Fridays, therefore we encourage our parents to ensure that every day and every minute counts at school. It does not seem like much but as you can see it all adds up.

To ensure the safety of our students, a reminder about morning routines. Our duty teachers are on the playground in the mornings at 8:45am, there is no supervision before this time. No students should be onsite before 8:30am. If your child arrives between 8:30am and 8:45am, they must remain seated under the COLA until 8:45am when the morning teacher starts duty.

Congratulations to our P&F on their fantastic fundraising efforts at our Social and  grand Raffle at The Milton Hotel. This event was a great opportunity to meet and enjoy the company of our community. Thanks to The Milton Hotel for their generous support of the Community Keg and to all of our sponsors of the raffle. The funds raised at this event has funded our school tennis program over the next few weeks. Please lend a hand by attending the P&F Meeting next Monday night at 5:30pm at school, or join via the zoom link which will be emailed via Compass on Monday.

I hope to see you in our school next week.

Yours in Partnership,
Laurinda Nelson

We congratulate our students who are continuing their Catholic faith journey tonight (Friday 2 August) in celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the very first time. Year 2 and visiting students have participated in a Retreat Day today and learned about the power of forgiveness and making peace with others.

Please join us for our Parish Family Mass this Sunday at Milton at 5:00pm where our wonderful school choir will be leading the music. There will be a short information session about First Communion before Mass.

On Monday our Year 4 students will take part in a Religious Literacy Assessment which assesses the ways our students process and express religious knowledge and understanding of the religious tradition, which is experienced daily in the Catholic school environment. This assessment is completed online and results will be communicated with parents in the next month.

Our Year 6 students will be joining with Bishop Brian this coming Tuesday at St John the Evangelist Parish Church, Dapto. This is a wonderful opportunity for all of the Year 6 students in our Wollongong diocese to come together.

All families are welcome to join us in celebrating the Feast of our first Australian Saint, St Mary MacKillop with a Liturgy at 9.30am on Thursday 8 August. Year 5 will lead us in the Liturgy.

Book Club: Delphi, Lexi, Payten and Arabella enjoying their bookclub afternoon tea to talk about Keepers of the Lost City by Shannon Messenger. 

NAIDOC Festival: It was lovely to welcome visitors to the St Mary’s Indigenous Literature Reading Corner at the Ngulla Festival, a vibrant two-day NAIDOC event that was held at the Ulladulla Civic Centre in the holidays.

Mrs Lisa Collins
Library Teacher

Congratulations to our Kindergarten Class of 2024 - they celebrated their 100 days of school with a class party, activities and dressing up as a 100 year old. Their costumes were amazing!

Congratulations to all of our holiday readers. Prizes have been drawn at assembly this afternoon and all entrants enjoyed a hot chocolate to warm Winter bones!

Year 2 have been investigating the difference between 2D and 3D shapes.