A Message from our Acting Principal
Dear Parents/Carers,
Welcome to Week 6. Last week saw St Mary’s at its finest as we celebrated the official opening of our refurbished classrooms. The lovely ceremony was attended by many special guests including Ross Fox, Director of Catholic Education Canberra Goulburn, the Hon. Stephen Lawrence MLC and local member for Cootamundra, MP Steph Cooke. The school looked fabulous and the ceremony was a lovely celebration of our great school. We also received a special thank you for such a ‘moving’ ceremony from Dr Patrick McArdle the Archbishop’s representative. Thanks again must go to Katrina McGrath and Nickey Harland for their help in organising such a beautiful celebration.
It has come to our attention that some students are regularly arriving at school as early as 8:15am. Some are being dropped off by parents while some are walking or arriving on scooters or bicycles. Supervision of students begins at 8:30am. While teachers are present at school before 8:30am, they are preparing for the day and are not supervising students. We have a duty of care to provide supervision within designated hours, which are from 8:30am until 3:40pm. If there are extenuating circumstances and a student needs to arrive early or be collected later, prior arrangements must be made with the school." Parents could you please ensure that your child/ren are not on the school grounds before 8:30am.
A number of students have been coming to the staffroom at lunchtime with noodles from home for staff to pour boiling water in. This cannot happen unless arrangements have been made with your teacher. This is a safety issue as we cannot have students on the playground with boiling water. Many thanks for your co-operation.
Next week will see our Year 3 and 5 students complete the NAPLAN tests. The window for the completion of the tests will begin on Wednesday the 13th of March and conclude on the 25th of March. NAPLAN is just one part of our school’s assessment program. The tests assess literacy and numeracy skills that your child is already learning at school.
In preparation for NAPLAN, our school will undertake activities to help students become familiar with the format and functionality of the online tests. These activities are not an assessment of student ability and will not be marked.
The public demonstration site (https://www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/public-demonstration-site) is available to see the types of questions, tools and functions used in the NAPLAN tests.
Further information about NAPLAN is available on the NESA website (https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/understanding-the-curriculum/naplan/parent-information).
If you have any questions about NAPLAN, please contact your child’s teacher. If you have made appointments for your son or daughter during any of these testing times and these cannot be re-arranged, please contact your classroom teacher or myself as soon as possible, to let them know.
A reminder that if a student is absent due to illness, they will be required to make up the test they missed before they can sit any future ones as ACARA stipulates the testing sequence. I will be managing the make-up testing schedule and will communicate with those students when the make-ups will take place. We encourage you to help your child(ren) to stay calm and remind them that NAPLAN is just a snapshot of their learning and only ONE measure of their achievement. Please refer to the attached advice regarding children’s wellbeing during NAPLAN. Please note that your child’s iPad needs to come to school each day fully charged. If your child is using their own Bluetooth headphones or keyboard it too must be fully charged.
This week will be my first week as Acting Principal of St Mary’s. The majority of the week will be spent with other principals across the diocese in Bowral at the annual principal’s retreat. It will be Katrina McGrath’s final week as she kindly offered to stay and help out the school during my absence. We are currently advertising for an Acting Assistant Principal. We look forward to making an announcement soon. Please remember my door is always open.
Damian Collins
Acting Principal