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

Class Merit Awards

Year 1 – Sunny G, Indie G

Year 2 – Leeyana M , Molly S

Year 3 – Parker G, Zuri G

Year 4 – Summer G, Jackson L

Year 5 – Madeleine H, Andie M

Year 6 – Chiara G, Abby L, Isabella L

Super Star Awards for Week:  

We Care For Learning- Molly O, Lachlan W, Bowie M, Zuri G, Daisy D, Riley B

Henry K, Jackson L, Ryder L, Delphi S-H, Phoebe H, Arlo D, Allyana S, Arabella B,

Mabel H, Oscar O, Emilia R , Finn M, Adele B, Goldie D, Hugo A, Harry K, Henry H 

Advent

Advent began last Sunday 27 November. We wait in joyful hope for the coming of our saviour Jesus Christ. Families are invited to use this wonderful advent resource in preparing primary aged children for Christmas. It is full of games, activities, stories, and music. Please click on https://issuu.com/ccressnsw/docs/2022_adventchristmas_sre_family_resource_wollongon

to use this free Catholic resource.

Graduation

Year 6 Graduation is being held on Tuesday 6 December at 5pm at St Mary’s Star of the Sea, Milton Church and then 6:30pm at Mollymook Golf Club. 

Father Michael returns from his travels this Friday. We look forward to hearing about his many adventures.

Family Mass will be celebrated this Sunday evening at 5pm at St Mary’s Star of the Sea, Milton Church. Please join us in celebrating this second Sunday of Advent.

Year 4 have enjoyed learning new skills with volleyball.

We have been reflecting on what we know about God and Creation in Kinder. The children were asked the question ‘Who is God?’ and responded beautifully using watercolour paints. Last Thursday, we also spent time on the grounds of the church, admiring from the top hill all of the gifts that God has given us. From the smiles, it is easy to see that Kinder had a wonderful time enjoying each others' company and the beauty surrounding us.

The students at St Mary’s Star of the Sea were visited by Senior Constable Cooper on the 17th and 18th of November to talk about road saftey and the dangers of drugs and alcohol. He was able to give a tour of his police car, and responded to many of our pressing questions. 

We are so grateful to have the opportunity to learn about Senior Constable Cooper and his role in the Police Force.

Over the past few weeks in Visual Arts we have been creating our very own possum skins. This has been a progressive cultural art project; where we have been fortunate enough to have Aunty Chris Finney share the sacred knowledge around the possum skins and how Aboriginal people have utilised them over the years. 

In collaboration with Aunty Chris, Miss Bassett has shared her artistic knowledge and skills with the students to create their own Aboriginal art on the possum skins. All students have explored how Aboriginal art and paintings mostly represent The Dreaming of our scared creation stories and the spiritual beliefs of Aboriginal people. This cultural art project has been extremely rewarding to observe how our students have taken on their own individual appreciation of Aboriginal culture through art. 

A few weeks ago one of our students from our language group moved out of the area. In order to see him off in an exciting way, the group decided cooking would be a great idea!

Students cooperated using their oral language skills to work together to create damper. They practised their listening and comprehension skills when following specific instructions from the teacher. 

We all ended up with messy hands, smiling faces and full tummies after making our very first stove top damper.