Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to Week 8. With intensive swimming behind us we turn our attention to preparing for our play Blue Ribbon Belle which is promised to be better than ever. We will be holding a whole school rehearsal on Friday at the S & C Club. Please keep this in mind when packing your child’s recess as there will be no canteen option, however, students will still be able to order lunches. They will be delivered to the S & C Club at 1pm.

Last week we farewelled Mr Brad Gaynor. Brad is required to continue his support of 13 other schools throughout the Archdiocese. He supports them in many areas including annual improvement plans, budgets, staffing and other end of year duties. Katrina McGrath is joining St Mary’s to support myself and our school for the last three weeks. Katrina is an experienced principal who has recently retired but is still doing fabulous work for our Archdiocese. I know we will make Katrina welcome. But please do not hesitate to contact Brad if you have any concerns or would like to discuss anything.  Brad will be remaining in regular contact until the end of term. I join everyone in thanking him for his support and presence over the past weeks and look forward to this continuing in 2024.

Our “Thank You” morning tea will be held on Tuesday in the hall at 11am. I look forward to seeing many parents. No matter how big or small your contribution to St Mary’s has been you are very welcome. Please register your attendance by clicking ‘Going’ on the event on Facebook. It will be a great opportunity for our school to say thank you.

The election of our student leaders for 2024 will take place next week. Our Year 5 students are busily preparing their speech on why they’d make a great school leader in 2024. With the announcement of our school leadership team for 2024 and the announcement of winners of our end of year awards it is a timely reminder to chat to your child about the importance of dealing with both joy and disappointment, about being humble in victory and gracious in defeat.   

On the last day of the year (15th of December) our community council is holding an in-school disco to finish the year. Students are invited to wear casual clothes and are reminded that this is still a school day and their behaviour is expected to be the usual high standard set at St Mary’s.  

The class structure for next year will be as follows, with the teachers yet to be determined. Unfortunately due to numbers we will lose a class from the seven we had in 2023. On the positive side of this we are lucky to have small class sizes to ensure our direct instruction programs are being administered professionally and to a high standard. 

* 5/6 Faith will receive support due to being the only multi-year class. This may include some students being split for Literacy and Maths instruction.

Please remember my door is always open.

Damian Collins

Assistant Principal