Friday 7th March 2025 ~ Issue 6

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

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 *bookings open on PAM*

Friday 28th March - Assembly at 2.55pm

Monday 31st March - Learning Conversations *bookings open on PAM*

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

Thursday 8th May - Spend the Day at Monivae (Grade 6 students)

Monday 12th 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,

What a fabulous day we enjoyed yesterday at our Athletic Sports! Thanks so much to all those that were able to attend and help out. A huge thank you to Elise Gordon for her outstanding organisation and to our staff for supporting her and our children. We also thank Monivae for sharing their beautiful facilities with us and to Woolworths for kindly donating all the fruit. Our students were amazing, showing such kindness and care for each other. And, congratulations to Loreto and all the age champions for their successes on the day!

This week we have participated in Shrove Tuesday activities and Ash Wednesday Mass. Some excellent learning has occurred around these traditions, as they mark the beginning of Lent and preparing for Easter.

Tomorrow is International Women's Day. I am so grateful for the amazing women in my life from my mum, daughters and daughter in law, to my sister and sister in laws, as well as my dear friends and of course my wonderful colleagues and the beautiful women in the lives of our students. We are truly blessed.

Speaking of being blessed, last week we welcomed our second grandchild in as many months! Harrison Andrew was born last Friday to our son Sam and his partner Emma! Our hearts are exploding with love! I'd really love to attach a hundred photos but I will show some restraint!!

Have a wonderful long weekend, shared with those you love,

Terrielynn

Welcoming God, free our hearts this Lent

To recognise all those you send into our lives who teach us about you. 

May every person and experience be a source of wonder. 

May we never miss the opportunity to find and embrace the stranger.

Open us to all. 

And comfort the lonely of heart, may we always offer them your friendship.

We ask this in the name of Jesus 

Amen

Adapted from Sheila Carney rsm

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 sympathies to the families of Mia Foster, Teddy Murrell and Isla Richardson as they mourn the loss of loved ones. They are all very much in our thoughts and prayers.

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

Preparations for the Sacrament of Reconciliation began this week with a meeting on Wednesday evening. The sacrament will be received in the last week of term.

Project Compassion

Every year during Lent at St Mary’s we fund raise for Caritas through Project Compassion.

Each child is sent home with a Project Compassion box and are asked to take on something or give something up as a way of raising money.  We have challenges at school - Making positive choices around our words and actions.

This year we are going to have a major focus on water. We will learn about people in different parts of the world who do not have access to clean water and how not to take this precious resource for granted.

Children will be challenged during Lent to make some water saving efforts in their home - they can use this as a way of raising money. Eg, parents might sponsor their child 20c for every time they have a 2 minute shower. OR, donate 20c for their child turning the tap off whilst brushing their teeth.

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 manners

SAFETY - Make sure your choices don't make someone else unsafe

RESPONSIBILITY - Participate in everything!

NAPLAN

Each year the students in Gr 3 and Gr 5 sit the NAPLAN assessments. This will happen next week on Wednesday and Thursday. Please see the above attachment that has some excellent information for families.

Sports Catch Up

Saturday Morning Netball

Netball takes a break for the Long Weekend. Enjoy!

Division Swimming

We congratulate Lachie R, Claire C, Lucy O, Libby R, Navvi T, Owen L, Michael T, Lexi W, Nina R, Hana C and Meki C on great swimming last Friday. We were sent the full results late last night so we will report on their efforts and share some photos next week! Thank you to the families who supported their children and our school at this event. We are very grateful for your time. 

Athletics Carnival

Wow! What an incredible day! Fantastic displays of sportsmanship, fantastic sporting skills, fantastic encouragement and fantastic support! Thank you everyone for making our Athletics Carnival a wonderful day! Together we provided all our students the chance to compete in a competitive, yet supportive environment. Primary School Athletics Days allow all students the opportunity to try all the different track and field events an athletics day has to offer, regardless of ability. They are also days many students remember fondly for years. So thank you to everyone who positively supported our Athletics Day in any way, from encouraging your child in the days leading up to the event or by cheering on your child on the day. Well done to our Age Champions, Loreto and to everyone who showed good sportsmanship, tried their hardest and had fun! 

There are so many people to thank for such a successful day. Firstly, to our families who volunteered and supported our kids on the day. I truly hope you enjoyed watching your aspiring athletes! The kids love and appreciate seeing our community turn out for such an event. Thank you to the parents who walked age groups around the events, your role was vital in the smooth running of the day. A special thank you to Paul Kuilboer and Hamish Turnbull for their efforts setting up and packing down our equipment, you were the first to arrive and the last to leave. We appreciate your time and support.  Thank you to our staff for their work running the events and organising the students with each event throughout the day. Thank you to Monivae for hosting us with your fantastic facilities. Our staff were impressed with the Monivae students who helped run our field events, so a thank you to you also!

Congratulations to all of our age group champions!

Well done to Loreto for being our champions on the day. The Loreto House Captains, Charlie and Ollie, did a fantastic job accepting the Athletics Shield and saying a few words on the day.

District Athletics

District Athletics is being held on Thursday 20th of March at Mitchell Park, for the students who have qualified from their results on our day. I will be sending home information and permission notes ASAP. 

St. Mary’s are responsible for running the four high jump mats, and we do need assistance with this. If your child attends on the day, and you are available to help out, could you please contact me. 

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 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 

Sustainability Leaders ~ Cleaning Up St Mary's

Thanks everyone for taking part in Clean Up Australia Day – Schools, last Friday.
With everyone helping, we managed to pick up lots of rubbish. There was rubbish that had clearly blown into our yard from other places, but there were also lots of food wrappers that are now safely where they need to be – not in nature or in our waterways, but in landfill.

Bentley, Jax, Jedah and Lola

Learning Conversations

Term 1 Parent Teacher Learning Conversations for students in Prep to Grade 6 will be held on Thursday 27th March and Monday 31st March between 2.30pm and 5.45pm.  This year, we have enabled these Learning Conversation bookings to occur within PAM.  You can also access the booking form through the SIMON Everywhere App. 

These bookings are now open.  Please let us know if you require any clarification on this booking system.

Please note - if you normally have a PSG meeting for your child, these are being scheduled at a different time, so you do not need to book them a time for a Learning Conversation.  Thank you.

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 a flyer about how to get started with parental controls on many of the devices and accounts that our children may be using. Both Apple and Android devices can be set up as part of a 'family sharing account', with the instructions below.

I have also included a flyer from SchoolTV with information about an upcoming webinar, featuring Dr Michael Carr-Gregg and Susan McLean.  This is part one of a two part series and will be held on Wednesday 19th March at 7pm. Scan the QR code to register for this important event.

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!

School Fees

School Fees have been sent home with today’s newsletter. If you would like to set up a Direct Debit payment for your school fees, the bank details are located on the top right hand side of your fee statement. The reference is your account number (shown on the statement) or your surname. If you have any queries or concerns or you would like help to set up a payment plan, please contact Helen at the office. Thank you.

Community Engagement

Assembly

Our next assembly will be on Friday 14th March at 2.55pm.

Spend the Day at Monivae

Grade 6 students are invited to SPEND THE DAY at Monivae College and experience a day of classes and activities on
Thursday 8th May 2025.  Please save the date and register via this link ~ https://www.monivae.com/spend-the-day 

Thank you Woolworths 

We are very grateful for the fruit Woolworths Hamilton donated for our Athletics Day. Woolworths donated a whole box of apples, a box of bananas, bags of oranges and grapes. Our students were able to take fruit and enjoy it all throughout the day. Thank you Woolworths Hamilton.

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.