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Principal’s Report
Dear Parents and Carers
On Friday, many of our students joined with children from other schools to experience a day of retreat and preparation for making their Reconciliation on Friday night. The notion of accepting responsibility for our choices as well as seeking and giving forgiveness is so central to the Catholic faith and is witnessed daily through our restorative justice processes with our students. Father Michael was supported by Father Leo from Nowra to lead the beautiful rituals involved in Reconciliation. The students entered into this sacred time with great reverence and open hearts, experiencing the healing power of forgiveness. Thanks to Father Michael, Mr Kinch , Mrs Valentini , Mrs Peters and the Parish Sacramental team for sharing their extensive knowledge and aspects of their Catholic faith with these children.
We are very excited next week to begin the first session of our ‘Transition To School Playgroup’ specifically for our Kindergarten 2020 students and their parents. These sessions will be held in our School hall on Monday afternoons and Wednesday mornings. The playgroup will give our new Kinders and their parents an opportunity to meet their classmates as well as ensuring that school is a friendly and familiar place for them. Please make our new families feel very welcome into our St Mary’s community.
I hope that all of our dads, grandfathers, uncles and all the other special men in the lives of our children have had a lovely Fathers’ Day. Fathering is such an important responsibility, with current research saying that dads play a vital role in the development of children. Encouraging and supportive fathers that spend time playing with and caring for toddlers in the early years contribute significantly to better results in Mathematics and Reading at school. Father play also contributes to the development of emotional self-regulation, social adjustment and mental health. So many of our students are blessed to have such wonderful fathers and grandfathers in their lives, and it was great to have so many of these people come to join us for breakfast on Friday morning. A big thanks to Karyn Faust for organising everything and to the staff for cooking and serving. This was followed by a beautiful and very moving liturgy celebrating our dads. Thanks to Simon Kinch for all his efforts to make this so lovely.
Our P and F Meeting is on tonight at 6 pm in the staffroom, we guarantee the meeting lasts for one hour only and we would love you to join us. The Father’s Day Stall was a great success and the plans for Trivia Night on the 20th September are well underway. It should be a great night, thanks to Jody Le and her enthusiastic team for their vision and energy for our whole school community.
I would finally like to share with you some parenting ideas from Children’s author John Marsden. He is at times a controversial figure but often takes a grounded and practical perspective on the very difficult task of parenting.
- Give children space, let them roam, let them be bored.
- Take them to real places, wiid places, avoid shopping centres and soulless sterile playgrounds.
- Be the adult say ‘No’ to your child at least once a day. If you are not the adult in the home, one of your children will fill that role and it won’t be pretty!
- Believe about 40% of the dramatic stories your children tell you of the injustices and corruption happening at school.
- Teach them empathy, if they win at sport remind them that the loss of the other team makes their success possible.
- Make sure they have regular jobs around the house and insist they are completed to a high standard.
- Help them develop language skills, give them time to speak and try new words.
- Teach your children to be wary of people who know absolutely everything, Every creature, every person and every situation is complex. Our universe is a wonderful mystery.
Reading that list, we are fortunate to have so many parents in our community who tick many of these points. Parenting is the most challenging job any of us have, I hope you find some of those ideas helpful to consider as you begin your week.
Yours in partnership,
Laurinda Nelson.
Class Merit Awards Week, presented at Assembly on Friday afternoons
Kinder – Ellyana S, Max B
Year 1 – Ila H, Jackson L
Year 2 – Charli P, Lucas A
Year 3 – Chiara G, Finn B
Year 4 - Audrey S, Jack C
Year 5 – Sienna D, Alexander L
Year 6 – Liam U, Lily M
Pennant
Rosie H, Kayden L
Shining Star
Callan M, Uma D, Rosie H, Finn B, Isabella L, Anika D, Daisy D, Jemima C, Parker G
Super Star Awards for Week
We Care for Ourselves
Arabella B, Uma D, Rosie H, Aska P
We Care For Others
Finn B, Isabella L, Lachlan P, Jemima C, Parker G
We Care For Our Learning
Liam R, Arabella B, Jackson L, Max C, Ila H, Delphi S-H., Darasimi O, Hamish K, Isabella L, Lily W, Aska P
We Care For Our School
Callan M, Anika D, Rosie H, Ella R, Zuri G
Congratulations to those students who participated in their First Reconciliation on Friday evening. It was the culmination of weeks of preparation and a very successful retreat day. The ceremony was a very special opportunity for the students to experience the love of God. Thank you to Father Michael for leading us in such a meaningful celebration.
Friday 20th September will be a Pupil Free Day (staff spirituality day)
Please make arrangements for your child/ren for this day as the school will be closed.
Monday 2nd September
P and F Meeting 6.00pm
Tuesday 3rd September
Breaky Canteen 8.40am-9.00am Gold Coin
Lunch Orders Due for Thursday Lunch (Butter Chicken $6)
Wednesday 4th September
ICAS Science and Digital Technologies
Lions Club Public Speaking
Friday 6th September
Assembly 2.40pm Year 6
Saturday 7th September
Bush Poetry 2pm St Mary's School Hall
Wednesday 11th September
ICAS Writing and Spelling
Friday 13th September
Year 3 & 4 Milton Town Walk Excursion
Tuesday 17th September
School Photo's
Wednesday 18th September
ICAS English and Maths
Friday 20th September
Pupil Free Day (staff spirituality day)
Trivia Night Mollymook Surf Club 6.30pm
Monday 23rd September
Bee Musical Whole Cast Dress Rehearsal
Wednesday 25th September
St Mary's Bee Musical
Friday 27th September
Grandparents Mass
Lachlan P, Leif D, Abby L, Georgie D, Chiara G, Jackson L, Tallen W, Axel B, Zuri G, Lily M
School Photo's
Tuesday 17th September
Please return order forms to office by Friday 13th September
Sibling/family order forms are at the office.
Important notice for all families Technology One
St Mary's has moved to a new Financial Management system, Technology One and adding enhancements to our Compas Student Information System. This is an exciting transition for our school and will result in more efficient electronic financial management for our school office.
Shool fee management willalso move to TechnologyOne. Please be aware that:
- Your school fee statement and receipts for payment will look different.
- The school fee statement you receive from the new financial system will have a "balance carried forward" and any transactions that have occurred during the month rather than a detailed list of any trasactions completed during the due to the movement of the fees from the old financial system to TechnologyOne.
- All Current Bpay, Direct Debit and Centrepay arrangements will continue as normal and be electonically redirected to your new school fee account in TecnologyOne.
- After you receive your first statement from TechnologyOne, if you do pay via BPay we ask that you update the BPay details as per the new reference numbers on your statement.
As part of this change we will also have new features available in Compass. These will include:
- Visibility of your school fees account in the Parent Portal.
- The ability to pay school fees and pay for events such as excursions via the Parent Portal.
Should you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact the school office. We appreciate your patience and understanding throughout the next few weeks as we move throuh this change.
Book recommendation for Parents: The Reading Bug and how you can help your child to catch it by childrens’ book author Paul Jennings. Jennings is passionate in his message to parents, "the purpose of this book is to involve you in your children's reading education. The one person who will do more than anyone else to help your children learn to read…is you" (Jennings, 2003, p. xii).
Dad’s Read: In the lead up to Father’s Day and for the month of September, we would like to invite Dad’s to read in our classrooms. Simply choose a book that you and your child enjoy reading together and make some time at either the beginning of the day 9:15 or at the end of the day, 3pm to read aloud to our class. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Kind regards, Mrs Collins (on behalf of the staff at St Mary’s).
Stage One have had an exciting term so far!
We welcomed Phoebe H and Maddy H to Stage One this term. They are wonderful additions to Stage One and have settled in well to St Mary’s.
Book week was an exciting event for Stage One. Students dressed up as a book character and loved participating in the book parade.
We are learning about Road Safety in Personal Development and Health this term and we were lucky to have a visit from Senior Constable Lachie on Tuesday last week. He showed us lots of road signs and answered lots of questions about wearing helmets, booster seats and driving on our roads. He bought his Police Car in and explained many of the features of his vehicle. Have a look on your child’s Seesaw account for photos of them in the police car!
Year 2 enjoyed making (and eating!) Gingerbread men with Mrs Robinson last week as an extension of our Literacy block, where guided groups worked on reading, writing and cooking recipes. Delicious!
Many Year 2 students celebrated the Sacrament of Penance last Friday night at St Mary’s Church in a beautiful liturgy, surrounded by their families and friends. All Year 2 students have been learning about Reconciliation in class during Religious Education lesssons and participated in a fabulous retreat day on Friday with other children in our local parish community.
We have had a fantastic time in Dance and Drama in Term 3. Students have been participating in dance warm ups and have been learning to follow and listen to instructions. We have been exploring a range of different emotions & have shared different stories and personal experiences about joy, anger & disgust. Students have improvised situations that display different tyres of emotions in group performances on stage in the hall. Some students have really come out of their shell and have enjoyed performing in front of their peers. I look forward to the next couple of weeks where we will be exploring other emotions such as fear and sadness.
Kind Regards,
Mrs Cooper
Bee Musical News !!!!
We have been busy rehearsing and practising for our bee musical that is coming up on the 25th of September.
For those who have children in the play please make sure they are practising and learning their lines and parts ready for the night.
Wanted Pre-Loved uniforms sizes 8, 10 and 12.
Open Thursday 2.40pm-3.30pm orders and payment can be made at school office. these will be sent home on Friday's
Star thinking about your summer uniform needs and orders before end of term.