Friday 21st February 2025 ~ Issue 4

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

Friday 28th February - Assembly at 2.55pm

Wednesday 5th March - Ash Wednesday - Mass at 10am

Wednesday 5th March - Family & Child Sacramental Meeting (students in Gr 3-6 are eligible) - 7pm at the Mackillop Centre *PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF DATE*

Thursday 6th March - Athletic Sports for Gr 1-6 at Monivae

Monday 10th March - Long Weekend

Friday 14th March - Assembly at 2.55pm

Monday 17th March - St Patrick's Day - wear a touch of green with your uniform

Monday 17th March - Learning Walk for 2026 families

Friday 21st March - Harmony Day - wear a touch of orange with your uniform

Thursday 27th March - Learning Conversations

Friday 28th March - Assembly at 2.55pm

Monday 31st March - Learning Conversations

Wednesday 2nd - Friday 4th April - Sacrament of Reconciliation

Friday 4th April - Last day of Term 1 - 2.15pm finish

From the Principal

Dear Families,

A huge thank you to our wonderful team here at St Mary's in ensuring our school was well looked after last week while I was snuggling with our Francesca. We had the most wonderful week and I am very grateful for the time I had with them.

The students are settling very well into the 2025 school year, with a strong focus on taking all the wonderful learning opportunities that come their way. We really do offer a diverse and challenging range of activities and events for the children to participate in. Our Preps have settled in to life at school as if they've been here for months, which is lovely to see.

Next Wednesday evening, our homeroom teachers will be sending out information videos regarding the day to day running of each area. This will be sent out via Seesaw so families don't have to leave home to hear the news and can go back to the information at any time. Look out for them!

Thanks for another great week!

Enjoy the weekend with those you love,

Terrielynn

A Friendship Blessing

Creator God, as Pilgrims of Hope, we pray for one another along the journey of 2025.

With confidence we pray for one another using this reflection;

May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where
there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.
May you be brought into the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them;
may they bring you all the blessing, challenges, truth,
and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam ċara.

Amen

Adapted from Anam Cara: A Book Of Celtic Wisdom 

by John O’Donohue

Catholic School Culture

MASS TIMES – 2025                                                 

Hamilton: Saturday 6pm and Sunday 10.30am                                    

Dunkeld: Sunday 8.30am                  

Glenthompson:  Sunday 8.30am

Penshurst: Sunday 8.30am

Condolences

Our deepest sympathy to the Uebergang family on the passing of Jordan, Sophie, Chelsea and Lucy's great grandmother. The family are very much in our thoughts and prayers.

Beginning of the Year School Mass

Last Sunday we enjoyed the most wonderful celebration at St Mary's Church for our beginning of the year Mass. It was lovely to come together as a community in prayer and give thanks for our beautiful school. Thanks to all those who were able to join us. We were also proud to honour our Gr 6 student leaders, who are proving to be an outstanding group of students in the way they are leading our students.

Jubilee Year in the Catholic Church

This year is a Jubilee year in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis has set the theme as Pilgrims of Hope, so fitting in our turbulent, and at times, unsettled world. We will have a strong focus on hope here at school, such an important way to see life, that there is always hope even in our darkest times. We can certainly do our bit here at school! We will have more details and information as the year goes on.

Sacramental Program

The parent meeting for our Sacramental Program for 2025 has had a date change.  It will now be held on Wednesday 5th March.  Please see the flyer below for further details.

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 -  Use people's names

SAFETY - Follow the rules

RESPONSIBILITY - Be proud of the way your work is presented

Assembly Awards

Congratulations to the following students who received an award on Friday for our value of Respect Our School.  We are so proud of you!  Congratulations go to Eadie Leith, Charlie Farquharson, Zaida Lowcock, Felix Gallatly, Seb McIntosh, Evie Hanifin, Ella Hopkins, Tyler Sherlock, Elaine Joseph, Jax Hollard and Charlotte-Rose Romeo

Strategic Plan 2025 - 2029

As a staff, we have developed our School Improvement Plan for the next five years. This was put together following recommendations from our School Review last year. Each year we also prepare an Annual Action Plan which drives the focus of our work in our school. These documents are attached for you to look over.

Sports Catch Up

Saturday Morning Netball

Saturday Morning Netball is under way. All our teams had great fun last weekend and every team scored a few goals, which caused great excitement to the players and supporters alike! I hope every team has a wonderful season ahead. Thank you to Mallory Stanley and Renae Porter who stepped into coaching and umpiring roles last week. Your time and expertise was greatly appreciated! 

The draw for the remaining five rounds was sent home this week. Please get in contact if you didn't get a copy.  If your child is unable to play an upcoming game, please let your coaches know as soon as possible. Please remember that payment, registration and consent forms are all online this year. Please reach out if you are having trouble accessing or completing any of these tasks

Round Two

8.30am 

St Mary’s Mavericks (5-6) vs Gray St Sky Blue Court 5 

St Mary’s Swifts (5-6) vs North HamiltonCourt 4

**8.30am as well**

St Mary’s Magic (3-4) vs North Hamilton Court 6

Hockey Clinic

Students in Grades 1-4 will be participating in a hockey clinic on Monday 24th February. This event will be held at school, and there is no cost to families. Students in these year levels will need to wear their sports uniform to school on that day.

Division Swimming

The Division Swimming Carnival will be held at the Aquazone facility in Warrnambool on Friday 28th February. We have 11 students representing St Mary’s; Lachie R, Claire C, Lucy O, Libby R, Navvi T, Owen L, Michael T, Lexi W, Nina R, Hana C and Meki C. We wish them all the very best on the day and we cannot wait to report on your efforts!

Families of students attending, if you need to organise transport for your child, please get in contact with me and we can organise something for you. If you would be willing to transport our school marquee on the day or help out with a timekeeping role, should we be given one, please let me know. 

Athletics Carnival

Our School Athletics Carnival is on Thursday 6th March at Monivae. Students will come to school in their sports uniform and be walked up to Monivae for a 9:30am start. More information about the day, including the program and a helper slip was sent out on Tuesday. We cannot run this event without the support of our St. Mary’s community. Thank you to those families who have volunteered their time to help out on the day. Please continue sending back the helper slips or reach out to me via email or Seesaw if you are able to help. 

Our hurdles event will be conducted at lunch times, starting next week. The 9-12 year old students will be asked to sign up for the hurdle trials, if they wish to. We will also have the “run offs” for the novelty house relays next week as well, this may require your child to wear their sports uniform on a different day. You will be notified of this via homeroom teachers on Seesaw. 

District Tennis

Students in Grades 3-6 are invited to participate in the Southern Grampians District Tennis event to be held on Thursday 27th of March in Hamilton. Please either email or Seesaw me if your child wishes to play, before the end of February. Please note that families will be responsible for transporting and supervising their child for the day, as we do not send staff to this event. Students must be competent tennis players and be able to keep score themselves to enter this event. 

Team Vic

Throughout the year, there are many opportunities for students to compete in sports at the state level. Usually, these events require families to transport their children to trials (generally in Ballarat or Melbourne), and can be quite time consuming for families. If you would like to consider your child for an event throughout the year, you must get in contact with me before the closing dates for specific events. Information (Registration, Key Dates and the Principal Endorsement process) can be found on the link below: https://www.ssv.vic.edu.au/team-vic 

Dates for your Diary

February

Monday 24th February - Hockey Clinic (Grades 1-4) @ St. Mary’s

Friday 28th February - Division Swimming @ Aquazone, Warrnambool

March

Thursday 6th March - School Athletics Carnival @ Monivae

Thursday 20th March - District Athletics @ Mitchell Park

Wednesday 26th March - Regional Swimming @ Horsham

Thursday 27th March - Southern Grampians District Tennis event @ Hamilton

Friday 28th March - School Cross Country @ St Mary’s 

Elise Gordon

egordon@smhamilton.catholic.edu.au 

Wellbeing

Child Safety

This week I have linked the SchoolTV topic of 'Friendship and Belonging'. This is an important topic and is one that children and parents are often concerned about.  This topic gives some great advice as to how we can support our children and young people with this.

"It's not always easy for children and teenagers to always know how to manage friendships. Learning how to make new friends and keep them involves a number of skills every young person needs to understand and develop. For some, these skills will come very naturally, allowing them to easily move between different friendship groups, sharing their experiences and opening up to new people. For others, this can be much harder to navigate. Belonging to a group that is like-minded with similar interests is highly beneficial to a child’s wellbeing. Friendships are full of ups and downs and it is better for kids to learn how to manage and build their own friendships, even though as an adult carer you may be tempted to interfere." SchoolTV ~ Friendship & Belonging

 Tania Stevens

Standing Tall Mentoring Program

Again this year, we are delighted to be a part of the Standing Tall Mentoring Program. This program matches students with a mentor and they spend time together at school on a weekly basis. This program allows students to form a special relationship with their mentor, someone who they can chat to, play board games with or spend time with in the garden. Please contact school if you think this is something that might assist your child.

Leadership and Stewardship

School Drop Off and Pick Up

At the end of last year, we made a video to introduce our Prep families to how our St Mary's Pick Up Zone works at the end of the day.  We thought it would be timely to share with everyone, as it can get very busy at the end of the day. The link to the video is below.

We have also been informed that some families are allowing their children to exit their car on the drivers side of the vehicle at the Monivae Stop and Go, straight into oncoming traffic.  This is very dangerous and has led to some near misses, as cars are constantly driving through there and may not see a little person getting out of the car.  If your family is using the Monivae Stop and Go (or the St Mary's one) is is essential that your child exits out of the passenger side of the vehicle. Thank you so much for your understanding in this.

Student Attendance

It is a legal requirement for schools to contact families if students are absent from school without an explanation. As a result, our office staff are required to contact you from 9.30am if your child is absent from school and you have not let us know. Please phone, Seesaw, use the Simon Everywhere app or email. Thanks!

Community Engagement

Assembly

Our next assembly will be on Friday 28th February at 2.55pm.

Icy Poles

This term we are selling icy poles every Friday for $1.00 each. We will meet with our Students Leaders to determine what organisation we will be raising money for and let you know. 

Town bus cost

 There has been a price rise for tickets, the new prices and term pass prices are listed below.

• Student Single $1.50
• Student Return $3.00
• Student Weekly $14.00
• Term 1 Pass $131.60
• Term 2 Pass $142.80
• Term 3 Pass $123.20
• Term4 Pass $148.40

Town bus routes are availiable at the front office.

PAM App - Simon Everywhere

PAM has an app which you can download - this makes it an easier experience to log into and use PAM. The app is called Simon Everywhere (Simon is the software behind PAM and our user database). Seesaw will still be used for communication between staff and parents but the Simon Everywhere app will be used for all our consent forms (thank you for already completing these) booking of parent teacher interviews and other documents/forms in the future. You can also use the Simon Everywhere app to put in absences, which then pops it straight into the official attendance rolls - so no need to call/email and we dont have to follow up absences. There are many applications within the Simon Everywhere App which will be released as needed. Please have a look at the instructions attached to this message.

Garden Gurus

Community Events