Friday 28th February 2025 ~ Issue 5

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

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

Thursday 3rd April - Farewell Assembly for Lindy Cullinane at 2.55pm

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

TERM 2

Monday 28th April - First day of Term 2

Monday 28th April - Open Day

Thursday 1st May - Step Into Prep

Friday 2nd May - Assembly

Thursday 8th May - Step Into Prep

Friday 9th May - Mother's Day Celebration at school

Friday 16th May - Assembly

Monday 26th - Friday 30th May - Catholic Education Week

Wednesday 28th May - Friday 30th May - Gr 5/6 Camp - Warrnambool

Friday 30th May - Assembly

Wednesday 4th June - School Photos

Friday 13th June - Assembly

Friday 27th June - Assembly

Friday 4th July - Last day of Term 2

PUPIL FREE DAYS IN 2025

Tuesday 22nd April - Religious Education PD - Hamilton

Wednesday 23rd April - Whole School PD - English Curriculum - Horsham

Thursday 24th April - Numeracy PD - Hamilton

Wednesday 14th May - Whole School PD - Diocesan Strategic Plan - Horsham

Friday 19th September - Structured Literacy

From the Principal

Dear Families,

Here we are at the end of Week 5! This term is really flying by.

This week we welcomed Eliza Groves to the Prep area - her mum is very pleased to have her here! We have also had the joy of seeing Madeleine Bell here at school - it is wonderful to have her around.

I wanted to let you all know that at the end of this term we will be farewelling Lindy Cullinane from our school. We are incredibly sad to hear this news - she is a wonderful teacher and a great person to work with - but we are very excited for her and her family, as they begin a new chapter in Port Fairy. Lindy has taught at St Mary's since the 90s and is deeply embedded in our culture! In the last week of this term, we will have a special assembly on Thursday 3rd April for our students and community to say thank you and goodbye to Lindy. Please pop that important date in your diary.

Congratulations to those students who are representing our school at Division Swimming today. We are very proud of you all!

Finally, I wanted to bring to your attention the issue of student attendance at school. While we certainly understand that children need to be at home if they are unwell, missing days of school regularly, hugely impacts on student learning and socialisation. Missing a day a fortnight adds up to a month of lost learning opportunity over a year, something for us all to be very aware of.

Thanks for another fabulous week at St Mary's! 

Enjoy the weekend 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

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

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

This weekend marks the halfway point in the Saturday Netball competition! 

Round Three

8.30am 

St Mary’s Mavericks (5-6) vs College Sapphires Court 4 

St Mary’s Swifts (5-6) vs Gray St Sky Blue Court1

**8.30am as well**

St Mary’s Magic (3-4) vs Dunkeld-Coleraine Court 6

Hockey Clinic

On Monday, students in Grades 1-4 participated in the Hockey Victoria School Roadshow at St. Mary’s. The students experienced a taste of the fun that is hockey and had a great time!

Division Swimming

We have 11 super swimmers representing St Mary’s at the Division Swimming Carnival today. To make the qualifying times for this event is a wonderful achievement. We wish Lachie R, Claire C, Lucy O, Libby R, Navvi T, Owen L, Michael T, Lexi W, Nina R, Hana C and Meki C all the very best! We cannot wait to report on your efforts! 

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. Thank you to those families who have volunteered their time to help out on the day. We are looking forward to an incredible day! 

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 

3x3 Basketball

A couple of families have reached out for their children to participate in a 3x3 basketball tournament, the 3XCup, being run by Basketball Victoria. The 3XCup school’s pathway starts with qualifying days in Melbourne across dates in March-May with teams qualifying into the Schools State Championships in Term 2. The Primary School competition has only one age group, Year 5 & 6. Please note that families will be responsible for registering their children with a 3x3 player profile, creating a team, transporting, supervising and paying any associated fees for this event. We will register the team and provide you with a St Mary’s basketball uniform. If this is something you would be interested in knowing more about please contact me by Wednesday the 12th of March.

Dates for your Diary

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

Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to add in some resources from the eSafety Commissioner, that looks at how we, as parents and carers for our young people, can manage devices and apps that our children access. 

All of these resources are taken from the esafety.gov.au website.  This is an excellent resource and well worth a look if you have any questions regarding eSafety.

The resource that I have attached today is an app checklist for parents and carers and the aim of this checklist is to help you navigate the app world and give you the tools to ensure that you and your family enjoy safe and positive online experiences.  

Tania Stevens

Leadership and Stewardship

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 14th March at 2.55pm.

Icy Poles

This term we are selling icy poles every Friday for $1.00 each. We met with our Student Councillors last week and they have decided that the money raised from the sale of icy poles will be donated to the Royal Children's Hospital.

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
• Term 4 Pass $148.40

Town bus routes are available 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

Good Friday Bake Sale

The annual bake sale will be held on Friday 18th April, more details to come.
It’s a good excuse to jump out of bed, get a cuppa and stock up on some yummy treats for Easter.
Please share this information and get the word out. Come and support this awesome event and raise
some funds for the amazing Royal Children’s Hospital.
If we have any parents, grandparents or guardians who would like to bake for this day, please contact Erika on 0408 721 991.