Friday 25th October ~ Issue 32

Child Safety Statement

School Values

Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

Respect Our School - Hormati Sekolah Kita

Do Your Best - Lakukan Yang Terbaik

Help Others to Succeed - Bantu Teman Untuk Berhasil

Important Dates

Term 4

Monday 28th October - Grade 5/6 Regional Hooptime

Friday 1st November - Grade 5/6 District Cricket

Monday 4th November - Report Writing Day - Pupil Free Day

Tuesday 5th November - Melbourne Cup Day Holiday - Pupil Free Day   

Wednesday 13th November & Thursday 14th November - Book Fair

ADVANCE NOTICE 

Friday 6th December - Christmas Parade @ 6pm

Tuesday 10th December - 2025 Orientation Day

Friday 13th December - Junior Athletics Carnival (Prep - 2)

Sunday 15th December - End of Year School Mass and Gr 6 Graduation @ 10.30am

Wednesday 18th December - Last day for students

Wednesday 29th January - First day of 2025 school year for Gr 1-6

Thursday 30th January - First day of 2025 school year for Preps

From the Principal

Dear Families,

Terrielynn is enjoying her leave and has made it safely to London!  We look forward to hearing all about her travels when she returns in Week 5.

Today, we celebrated 'World Teachers' Day'.  It is the perfect opportunity to celebrate all the wonderful educators we have here at St Mary's and across our whole Diocese.  The theme this year is 'Hats Off To Teachers' - and I certainly take my hat off to all of my dedicated and hard working colleagues here.  We are very blessed.

Congratulations to our Grade 3/4 Regional Hoop Time participants on Monday. Our Future Stars came third in their competiton and our All Star Girls won the Grand Final and have now qualified for the State Championship.  Well done to all involved - we are very proud of you!  Our three qualifying Gr 5/6 Regional Hoop Time teams take the court on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend, shared with those you love,

 Tania

Catholic School Culture

MASS TIMES – 2024                                                 

Hamilton: Saturday 6pm and Sunday 10.30am                                    

Dunkeld: Sunday 8.30am                  

Glenthompson:  Sunday 8.30am

Penshurst: Sunday 8.30am

Prayers

We send our deepest condolences to the Osborn family, who are mourning the loss of Anna's father, John, this week.  We wrap our arms around Anna, Darren, Stella, Abbey and Evie and send our thoughts and prayers to them, and their extended family, at this sad time.

Tarrant Family

Sarah, Ollie & Savannah would like to  thank all our wonderful St Mary's community for their love and support. Thank you for caring so much for our family, your acts of kindness and support have shown us that we are not alone in our sorrow.

Welcome

Today we welcomed a new student, Genelia, to the St Mary's community.  Genelia has joined the 1/2E class and there were lots of excited students to welcome her this morning! We also welcome her parents, Dennies and Jeethu.  We are so happy to have you here!

Learning and Teaching

School Wide Positive Behaviours

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support is:  A multi-tiered framework for establishing the social culture and behavioural supports needed for a school to achieve behavioural and academic outcomes for all students.

For the next two weeks at St Mary’s we are working with our students on the following:

RESPECT -  Be willing to compromise - not everything will go your way!

SAFETY - Be cybersafe

 RESPONSIBILITY - Join in all activities by having a go

Assembly Award Winners

Award winners from our last assembly were Teddy Murrell, Jack Richards, Ezrah Elson, Harper Colliton, Summer Logan, Ruby Dunn, Owen Lynch, Marlee Lucas, Mayon Jayasinghe, Angus Smith, Eleanor Ward, Annie Cleaver, Hugo Hogan and Gigi Causer who were all displaying the value of Respect Our School. Congratulations! Stay tuned for today's award winner's in next week's newsletter.

Icy Poles

As we are in Term 4 and we are heading into the warmer weather, our Grade 6 Student Councillors will once again be selling icy poles at lunchtime on Fridays.  These will be $1 each and will begin next Friday, 1st November.  When Mrs Groves returns from her leave, she will meet with the Student Councillors to discuss where we will donate the money that we raise. 

Sports Catch Up

Grade 3-4 Regional Hooptime

On Monday, we had two teams of eager Grade 3-4 students who played in the Regional Hooptime Carnival.

Our Future Stars team made it into a final and needed to win that game to qualify for the State Carnival. Unfortunately, they just missed out!

Our All Star Girls team had success on the day, winning each game they played. They have now qualified for the State Carnival on Monday 2nd December in Melbourne. This is the second year in a row that we have had a Grade 3-4 team qualify for this event!

A huge thank you to our coaches, scorers and families who went along and supported our teams. What an amazing effort from our students, we are incredibly proud of them all!

Grade 5-6 Regional Hooptime

We have three teams (2 x All Star Girls, 1 x All Star Boys) who will be competing at the Grade 5-6 Regional Hooptime on Monday. We wish them the best for the day and a summary of the day will be in next week’s newsletter.

Saturday Morning Netball

Saturday Morning Netball continues this weekend. It is great to hear such wonderful feedback for such a great event. Don’t forget that the times for matches will be the same for the entire season.

Grade 3-4 Swimming Program

This will be held in Week 6 of this term. Please make sure that you have your blue note returned. If you need another one, please get in contact with me and we can send another home.

Grade 5-6 District Cricket

Thank you to families and students who were able to bring the note back with short notice for the District Cricket next Friday. We are taking two boys teams and two girls teams for the day. I will send a note home shortly with the teams and the final information about the day.

Grade 3-6 Swimming Carnival

I have sent home a note with information about our swimming carnival, as well as an event sign up sheet. Students need to select at least two events that they would like to participate in for our swimming carnival later this term. Please take the time to talk with your children about what events that they would like to participate in. I have events for the carnival that will suit all levels of swimming abilities. I also look very closely at the feedback that is provided by the trained swimming instructors during the swimming programs to ensure that students are entering events that are suited to their level.

Could you please return these notes as soon as possible. Thank you.

Dates for your Diary

Saturday Morning Netball: Continues this weekend @ Pedrina Park

Grade 5-6 Regional Hooptime: Monday 28th October @ HILAC

Grade 5-6 District Cricket: Friday 1st November @ Pedrina Park

State Athletics Carnival: Wednesday 6th November @ Lakeside Stadium, Albert Park

Grade 3-4 Swimming Program: Monday 11th November - Friday 15th November @ HILAC

Grade 3-6 Swimming Carnival: Friday 29th November @ Monivae Pool

Grade 3-4 State Hooptime: Monday 2nd December @ State Basketball Centre, Wantirna South

Grade 5-6 State Hooptime: Tuesday 3rd December @ State Basketball Centre, Wantirna South

Junior Athletics Carnival (Prep - Grade 2): Friday 13th December @ St. Mary’s

Latham Wishart

lwishart@smhamilton.catholic.edu.au

Library News ~ Book Fair

Great news - our annual Book Fair is back for 2024! It will be held in Week 6 of this term, in the new classroom space, next to 5/6MW.  

The Book Fair will be open for browsing on the Monday and Tuesday of that week, with the buying days being Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th November, both before and after school.  It's a great chance to grab some Christmas gifts too!

More information will be sent home in the next couple of weeks and I will keep you updated in the newsletter. Thanks!

Tania Stevens

Parent Acces Portal (PAM)

PAM will be released in the coming weeks to all our families - please keep an eye on your inboxes.  I have attached the PAM manual for you to read.

Wellbeing

Child Safety 

This week, following on from our session with Keleigh Flavel, I just wanted to draw your attention to this Parents' Guide that is put out by the eSafety Commissioner.  It has some really great practical solutions for you, as parents and carers, if your child does have any issues online.  It also has information about where and who to report any issue to.  I have included both the link to the website (where you can download the book into different languages) and the PDF link, if you wish to download it straight from here.

Tania Stevens

Leadership and Stewardship

Staffing News

Kerry Stevens, who has been an integral part of our St Mary's community for many, many decades, has enjoyed her year of leave so much that she has decided to resign from her position at the end of the year. We will have much more to say about Kerry's dedication and commitment to our school as the year draws to a close, but we would like to extend our thanks and best wishes to her as she begins an exciting new time in her life.

2025 Staff PD

Next year, our governing authority DOBCEL has made the suggestion that using the three days between Easter Monday and ANZAC Day for staff to collaborate with other school's through PD would be an excellent use of time! So...that means that the holiday break at the end of Term 1 will be three weeks long and we will return to school on Monday 28th of April to start Term 2.  

2025 Planning

Planning is well underway for 2025. Currently we looking at staffing and in the coming weeks we will begin compiling our classlists. 

Community Engagement

St Mary's Christmas Parade