Friday 15th August 2025 ~ Issue 24

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 3

Wednesday 20th August - District Netball

Friday 22nd August - Book Week dress up parade

Friday 22nd August - First Eucharist Workshop 

Thursday 28th & Friday 29th August - Gr 3/4 Camp

Friday 29th August - CatholicCare Parenting Sessions

Friday 29th August - Assembly

Sunday 31st August - Sacrament of First Eucharist

Friday 5th September - Father's Day celebration at school (and Footy Colours!)

Monday 8th September - Learning Showcase and Learning Conversations

Tuesday 9th September - Gr 3/4 Hooptime

Friday 12th September - Gr 5/6 Hooptime

Friday 12th September - Assembly

Wednesday 17th September - St Mary's School Concert at Hamilton PAC 

Thursday 18th September - Last day of Term 3 - 3.15pm finish

PUPIL FREE DAYS IN 2025

Friday 19th September - Structured Literacy

ADVANCE NOTICE

Wednesday 17th December - Last day of the school year for students

From the Principal

Dear Families,

On Monday we acknowledged Bullying, No Way! day by wearing a touch of purple with our school uniform. In homerooms the children learnt about what to do or say if you are a bystander to bullying. Together with students from the SRC we are putting together a video highlighting our learning. We will share with you shortly. 

Father's Day and Footy Colours will be celebrated on Friday 5th September. We invite our dads and special visitors to pop on their footy colours and join their children for lunch at 1.20pm, followed by some fun during the lunch break. We can't wait to see everyone here! 

Today we have celebrated our school feast day on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. Mary is very important in the Catholic tradition as the mother of Jesus and a symbol of strength, warmth and kindness to us all. How lucky we are to spend each day in a school named after her!

Have a wonderful weekend, shared with those you love,

Terrielynn

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

Congratulations!

We are delighted to let you know that Latham Wishart and his partner Molly have welcomed their beautiful daughter. We can't wait to meet her!

Our Diocesan Community (Link below)

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 - acknowledge people when they talk to you

SAFETY - use words to sort out issues

RESPONSIBILITY - own your choices

Learning Showcase & Learning Conversations

On Monday the 8th September at 2:30pm you are invited  to attend our Learning Showcase. This was something we started last year as a way for our families to pop in and see their child in their learning space. You are welcome to come in to your child's homeroom, any time between 2:30 until the end of the day, to celebrate the learning that your child has been doing here at school.  Straight after our Learning Showcase, we will be offering optional Learning Conversations with homeroom teachers.  These will be 10 minutes long and the booking form will be available on PAM next week. A reminder that these are optional.  If you will be attending a PSG meeting later in the term, you don't need to book a Learning Conversation.  Thank you.

Concert

We are getting very excited here - it's concert term!  All homerooms have been working hard on their items and we have been coming together to showcase what we have been rehearsing in our homerooms.  If your child is coming home humming some excellent music that you may not have heard for a while, that's why! We can't wait to see it all come together over the term. Homeroom teachers will be in contact with any costume requirements, etc, so keep an eye on your Seesaw messages!

Our concert will be held on Wednesday 17th September at HPAC (Hamilton Performing Arts Centre).  We will have two shows - our matinee at 11am and our evening performance at 7pm.  Tickets will be on sale soon.  They will be sold online and a link to the ticketing site will be linked to the newsletter and sent out via Seesaw. No tickets will be sold at school. Tickets will be $10 each.  If you have a child under 2, who can sit on your lap and does not require a seat, you do not have to purchase a ticket for them.

We are aware that we will have many family and friends who will want to come along and support our concert.  However, to ensure that everyone has the chance to attend the concert, we have capped the tickets at 5 per family. This is across both shows, not 5 per show!  This is to make sure that everyone can come along.  If there are unsold tickets closer to the concert, we will let you know. We thank you for your understanding with this.

Sports Catch Up

AFL 9s

What a fantastic day we had for AFL 9's on Thursday! The weather was simply beautiful, making it perfect for a day of fun and friendly competition. Our students had an amazing time, celebrating their achievements on the field. While we don't keep scores officially, many were excited to share stories of their victories and there were many happy goal scorers!

It truly was a wonderful community event, with participation from all the local schools. A huge thank you to the staff who supported our students, Mr Perez, Mrs Sherlock, Casey and Debbie. The St. Mary's teams represented our school terrifically! Well done everyone who attended.

AFL 9's

Netball Victoria School Championships

We are looking forward to the Netball Victoria School Championships being held at Pedrina Park on Wednesday 20th August. We will have over 20 students competing in two very large teams on the day. Thank you to the staff, Mrs Sherlock, Mrs Whyte and Casey Rook, who will attend. Also to Roxanne Holmes, Vanessa Brown and Jess Hayes, who have volunteered their time for this day. We greatly appreciate your support. We received information from Netball Victoria on Thursday night, which we sent forward on Seesaw. A hard copy of this information and the draw will come home on Monday.

Please note: 

Fixtures will be published by COB this Friday via Netball Connect (we recommend you download the Netball Connect app) and are visible on the webpage here https://vic.netball.com.au/schools-championships-page

Steps for Netball Connect app:

1. Download the app and login
2. Go to Draws
3. Search ‘School Championships’
4. Look for or search for your teams
5. Add to watchlist

 Please note, fixtures are subject to change. Any changes will be reflected in the app and online so please do check timings and courts the morning of – any major changes will be communicated.

St Mary’s AFL Auskick / Superkick Program

The AFL Auskick and AFL Superkick program had a perfect afternoon for footy this week. The kids are enjoying practising and refining their AFL skills. Please remember that this is an external program being offered by AFL Victoria, it is not staffed by St Mary’s. However, Mrs Gordon will walk the kids up and then ensure everyone is collected. 

HoopTime

The Hamilton District Hooptime will take place in Week Eight. The Grade 3/4s will take the courts on Tuesday 9th September and the Grade 5/6s on Friday 12th September. We have 47 students interested from each department, which will see us have 6 teams ranging from All Stars, Future Stars and Rookies. All teams will be coached by a member of staff. However, we will need some families to assist with scoring. If you are interested in scoring at HoopTime please let me know via Seesaw or email. 

Dates for your Diary

TERM THREE

August

Wednesday 20th August - District Netball @ Hamilton 

September 

Tuesday 9th September - Grade 3/4 Hooptime @ Hamilton

Thursday 11th September - WHP Table Tennis (round robin format, no progression to state)

Friday 12th September - Grade 5/6 Hooptime @ Hamilton 

TBC Primary Golf

Elise Gordon

egordon@smhamilton.catholic.edu.au

Book Week

It is almost that time again....Book Week!  We love to celebrate all things reading and books and Book Week is the perfect opportunity!  The theme this year is 'Book An Adventure', so students can base their costume around this theme, or their favourite book character.  As in previous years, this is not compulsory, only if your child would like to dress up.  

Our Book Week Costume Parade will be held next Friday 22nd August.  We will have our parade at 9am on this day to share all of the wonderful and creative costumes. Families are most welcome to come along and join in the fun.  Our parade will take place in the Learning Street.  If you have any questions about our Book Week celebrations, please contact me.

As many of you are aware, in the past, we have held a Book Fair around this time as well.  However, due to the success of moving our Book Fair to Term 4 last year (and with  a concert to prepare for!), we will continue this into the future. At this stage, the Book Fair will be held in Week 5 of Term 4 - week beginning Monday 3rd November.  More information will be available closer to the time.

Tania Stevens

Wellbeing

Child Safety

CYBER SAFETY EXPERT - SUSAN MCLEAN

To follow on from last week, I have some more information from Susan McLean, Cyber Safety expert.

 - Roblox - this is a very popular website with children.  Something I found fascinating is that Roblox isn't just one game on a  site, it's a site with over 40 million different games on it!  Some of these games are very innapropriate for children and feature disturbing content.  It's important to be vigilant when and if your children are using this site.  

 - Susan spoke about an app called YooChooz.  It is an app developed by a woman in Perth who saw issues with online behaviour and cyberbullying amongst her children and their peers.  Once downloaded and set up (there is a fee to use it), you can program it to notify you if your children are sending messages on line that are innappropriate.  The link to more information about this app is HERE

 - Susan also spoke about her top tips for for keeping safe in cyberspace.  The PDF is linked below and a link to Susan's  video about these top tips is also linked.

For more information, or to contact Susan directly, her website is called CyberSafety Solutions and the link is HERE.

Tania Stevens

Webinar with Michael Carr-Gregg and Susan McLean

On Wednesday 3rd September, thanks to SchoolTV, our families have the opportunity to attend a free webinar with two of Australia's leading experts in the area of online safety, Michael Carr-Gregg and Susan McLean. This session will provide invaluable insights into the new social media regulations, digital footprint and reputation, screen time and brain development and parental controls.  Please scan the QR code on the flyer below or click the link here to register.

CatholicCare Parenting Session

As per a Seesaw message last Thursday, CatholicCare are offering individual parenting sessions for families here at school. A great opportunity! 

Leadership and Stewardship

A word from our Sustainability Leaders

Our leaders have been instrumental in getting our garden and kitchen processes in place this year. They have a lot to focus on and this week I interviewed them to see what precious information they had to share with our community.

Lola would like to remind everyone NOT to leave rubbish lying around. Rubbish in the environment can cause damage to animals via land or waterways and looks just terrible. Simply placing rubbish where it belongs takes a small amount of time.

Jax want to let everyone know how awesome it is to grow food. He has enjoyed participating in the cooking program knowing that so many of the ingredients have been home grown. Jax made a stir- fry and some focaccia, which he thought were delicious! You don’t need heaps of space to start a veggie garden – start small and work your way up.

Since growing veggies in our school garden, Bentley has discovered a love for snow peas. Asked why he loves them so much, he said, ‘They are crunchy, sweet and so good for you. People could bring a handful of snow peas to school in their lunchbox to enjoy at 10am fruit/veg time.

We didn’t have Kitchen/Garden this week due to so much illness. We look forward to getting back on track again next week.

The Sustainability Team

Speed Limit Within Monivae

We have been asked by Monivae to remind families that the speed limit within Monivae is 15km per hour.  This is particularly important as you approach the bus exchange and the pedestrian crossing, where many students are crossing at the beginning and the end of the day.  We thank you for your assistance in this matter.

Community Engagement

St Mary's Christmas Parade

This year our annual Christmas Parade will be held on Friday 5th December.

We have been thinking of what we can do for our raffle - perhaps something big?

If you have any ideas please let us know.

Later in the year we will ask for helpers to assist the coordinators in the above roles and keen bakers to make gourmet gifts to sell (Christmas cakes, biscuits, rum balls etc) at our Gourmet gift stall.

If you have any questions regarding the Christmas Parade please contact Shannon at school.🎄

Assembly

Our next assembly will be on Friday 29th August at 2.55pm.