Dear Parents and Carers,

A very warm welcome to the 2022 school year. 

The students have returned to school well and everyone is happy and ready for another big year. It always astounds us how much children can grow in just 6 weeks; something I am sure you are well aware of when it comes to school uniforms.

Our new Kindergarten students have taken to school ‘like ducks to water’ and the sounds of their excitement  and energy are a joy to hear.  When things settle a bit more, we will host a special welcome lunch for our new Kinder parents. Mrs Jacqui Stephen and our support staff are doing an amazing job with your children, so please be assured they are happy and in very good hands. 

We make a special welcome to our other new students and their families. Charlie, Madelyn, Anikah, Kordel, Ava and Hugo have each settled in well and have already become an integral member of our beautiful St Mary’s family. I am also very proud of the way our students welcome and look after our new children. It comes so naturally to them.

At the end of last year, I sent home a list of staff and their roles for 2022. I have included it again for the benefit of our new families. As usual, our staff spent much of January preparing for the year ahead. Our stage based teams are planning a great year ahead for the students with quality learning experiences, co curricular activities, Peter Pan 2.0 Musical and excursions.

At present, the students are in Cohorts for their school day. Kinder, Year 1 and 2 in Cohort 1, Years 3-4 in Cohort 2 and Years 5-6 in Cohort 3. Each cohort has a separate playground area and students do not mix across cohorts during the school day. Short cohort assemblies will be held each Monday morning for Awards to be given out. 

Over the holidays, several classrooms were renovated to improve ventilation and make them more visually appealing. The upstairs classrooms, middle level room and large room (currently Year 3) look much brighter and welcoming for the students. Thank you to Mr Justin Bateman for overseeing the works during his holidays.

Congratulations 
Congratulations to Mrs Georgia Veneris on her marriage during the summer break. On behalf of the students, staff and families of St Mary’s, I wish Georgia and Zac all the best for their future together.

Communication
Compass
We began phasing in a Student Management system Compass late last year to give parents a ‘One Stop Shop’ for all communication with school. As with all new things, it will take some time to fully utilise Compass and for parents to become very familiar with it. 

At present, we use Compass for attendance, newsletters, parent notes, bookings for PT meetings and Reports. You will see that we have also moved our Parent Calendar over to Compass. For the time being, we will continue to email all important letters to parents, in case some parents are not using Compass yet. We are trying to limit hard copies of notes, but there will be some exceptions when parents need to update or return details. Preferably all payments are to be made via QKR. If you experience difficulties with QKR, please contact the Front Office for assistance. 

School Website and Facebook
We also place our newsletters on the school website link St Mary's School Website. Our Facebook page is used for sharing learning and school experiences and for some simple reminders. Each week you will see posts of one class group’s  learning and activities. This week is clearly Year 1’s turn! Please share our Facebook page with grandparents and friends. 

Weekly Class Memos 
Reading your child's Weekly Class Memo prior to each week, will give you a good insight into the learning taking place in your child's class. Classroom messages are included to keep you up to date. The Weekly Class Memos will continue to be emailed as teachers usually prepare them from home on the weekends and send them directly to parents. Please communicate with your child's teacher via email, understanding that they are teaching all day. Please give staff time to respond, usually within 24 hours. To support their family/work life balance, staff have been asked not to read and reply to parent emails after normal business hours or on the weekends. If anything is urgent, please contact the front office. 

Swimming Program
We believe that all children should be taught to swim, and this is especially the case for us living on the coast. We apologise for the short notice, but we have just found out that we are able to have an Intensive Swimming Program for all students in Years 1-6. Students will be taken in cohorts to the pool for an assessment next week. A special thank you to our wonderful School Community Council for donating $2000 to offset the cost of the program for families. Thank you also to parents for supporting the Community Council fundraising in 2021, thereby enabling this to happen. Unfortunately with current restrictions, parents are unable to attend the pool while the swimming program is on. Thank you to Mrs Megan Grant for organising the program as well as the recent swimming trials.  

Excursions and Camps
This year, we will be able to get our students out and about to extend and enrich their everyday learning at school. Younger students will experience local activities and day excursions and the older students will be taken on overnight excursions. Teachers are currently planning for an overnight excursion to Canberra for students in Years 3 and 4 and a Sport and Recreation Camp for students in Years 5 and 6.  Details will be forthcoming but as there are considerable costs for families, I wanted to give parents early notice.

Drop off and Pick up
Thank you for your support with our Drop off and Pick up procedures. Until parents can come on site again, all students will be walked to the Church Street car park for pick up.  Parents will need to get out of their car so the teachers can sight them before allowing the children to leave. Please be extra cautious as you drive in and out of the church car park.

Please do NOT arrange to pick your children up at the Bus gates. It is dangerous for the students and bus drivers, and it puts our staff in difficult situations. Only bus children are to use those gates. Walkers and bikers are taken across the Church Street crossing after school.

Whole School Events
Unfortunately, we are not permitted to proceed with our Opening Year Mass and Awards night planned for Term 1. At present, we can not mix students across cohorts and parents are not able to be on site. When restrictions ease, we will look into options to celebrate and introduce our Student Leaders. Sacramental celebrations can go ahead because they are parish based and will be held in the Church. Later this term, our Year 3 students will celebrate their First Reconciliation. Our K-12 Opening Year Mass with students from St Bernard’s and Carroll College is planned for the last week of Term. Let’s pray things improve before our Easter and Catholic Schools Week celebrations in May. 

Thank you again for your support with the RATs and COVID related restrictions. We balance our obligations with commonsense and realistic expectations at school because we want our students to be safe but to also enjoy their childhood and not worry excessively.

Thank you for keeping sick children at home and informing us of your circumstances. If your child does need to miss school at any point, and they are well enough to be learning, please direct them to the government's online learning platform. Click here for Online Learning

Wishing you all a wonderful year ahead. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns. 

Leadership Team 

Teaching Staff 

Support Staff 

Dear Parents and Carers,

A very warm welcome back to the beginning of the 2022 school year. I hope you were able to enjoy a restful break and some quality family time together.  It has been so wonderful to see all the bright smiling faces of the children as they returned, so happy to be back with their friends and back learning. It was especially lovely to welcome our new Kindergarten students.

K-12 School Theme
At the end of last year, the new Year 6 leaders and myself met with the 2022 leaders of St Bernards and Carroll College and worked together to develop our combined spiritual theme for the 2022 school year. After some discussion and collaboration, the student leaders unanimously decided on the theme, taken from a Mary Mackillop quote: 

“Find happiness in making others happy”  

Sacrament of Reconciliation
Students in Year 3 are invited to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation this term. The enrolment meeting will be held on Thursday 17th February at 5:00pm. More information will be provided to parents next week. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the sacrament of Reconciliation. 

Please also note the following key dates for the sacrament of Reconciliation:

Caught in the Act
This week while I was on playground duty, I was heartened to see, at the conclusion of their lunchtime footy game, each of the Year 5 boys made their way around to their teammates and opposition, shaking hands and giving each other a pat on the back. It was so wonderful to see such a positive display of sportsmanship and maturity from these boys. Keep it up, you are setting a wonderful example for our younger students.

A Prayer for Students

Dear Jesus,

here I am back at school,

not only ready to learn new subjects

but to grow in my love for You.

Open my eyes, my ears, and my heart,

to listen and learn from my teachers

as they share the words of Your Gospel

and the teachings of the Church.

Help me to be the best student and person

that I can be, reaching out to others as You did,

and giving good example to all.

Let me receive Your blessing

now and throughout this school year.

AMEN

Mrs Jess Afflick
Religious Education Coordinator

Welcome to 2022

It’s that time again! I hope that you all had the opportunity to relax and spend some precious time with family and friends over the summer holiday break. Our students and staff have returned to school for what promises to be a positive and prosperous 2022.  At the start of any new year we are filled with anticipation of what this year will deliver and I hope that prosperity, love and success is abundant. 

All of our students have commenced the school year excited and curious about the challenging and enjoyable learning opportunities they will be engaged in this term. They have all transitioned smoothly into their learning and routines, in the classroom and across the playground.

There is nothing quite like watching our Kindergarten students start their first day of school. From the moment they are dropped off by their parents, beaming with pride, there is something special that fills the air. A feeling of hope and promise, knowing that these students are about to embark on a journey of education that will see them through academic, personal and spiritual growth and accomplishment over the years to come. There is no better place to begin this journey than at St Mary’s, where adventure and exploration thrive. 

We look forward to working in partnership with you and sharing the wonderful learning that happens everyday at St Mary’s.

In 2021, we began using a Kinder to Year Two whole-class Literacy Program named InitiaLit. This is a research initiative of Macquarie University which is based on 30 years of research undertaken by members of the MultiLit Research Unit. Since the inclusion of this program at St Mary’s, we have observed our K-2 students thrive with their reading, writing, spelling and communicating skills. InitiaLit is a three-year program, covering the first three years of school and our K-2 classes will continue with this program in 2022. We are committed to ensuring that from the moment your child begins school, they engage in exceptional learning in the subject of Literacy. 

Regular data collection and analysis occurs at St Mary’s, ensuring that teaching practice and student achievement is constantly being reflected upon as an entire school. This reflective practice gives staff multiple opportunities to assess and pinpoint student progress, and make teaching and learning adjustments accordingly.

Literacy Programs in 2022
In 2021 we implemented two other programs from MultiLit called MiniLit and MacqLit, as part of the NSW Government ‘COVID-19 Intensive Learning Support’ initiative. We are fortunate to be continuing again with these programs in 2022.

The MiniLit program is a practical, systematic, explicit and effective model for teaching reading skills for Year 1 & Year 2 students who need some additional support. Students are assessed to determine their ideal starting point in the program and are grouped accordingly. Students are explicitly taught the relationship between sounds and letters and how this knowledge is critical to reading. Students are also given the opportunity to practise their reading skills using a variety of activities and resources.

MacqLit is specifically targeted for students in Year 3 and above. The primary focus for the MacqLit program is the need for older readers to develop strong word recognition strategies. It provides students with a comprehensive sequence of lessons that includes all the key components necessary for effective reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. 

MiniLit and MacqLit lessons are delivered by our trained Classroom Support Assistants in a small group situation (up to five students). These programs run for 40-50 minutes and students in the program have four sessions per week. The families of children participating in either the MiniLit or MacqLit programs this year will receive a letter about their child's participation. If you have any questions about any of these programs, please contact me for more information.

God bless and take care,

Sue Heffernan
Assistant Principal  

Welcome Kindergarten!

We are amazing! We welcomed our beautiful Kindergarten class for 2022 on Tuesday. They have hit the ground running. The boys and girls are learning all of the routines and rules of school and have shown how amazing they are at organising their own belongings, opening up packets and asking questions.

In our Investigations we have visited our class zoo. Rosa gave a report on a penguin. She told us that there are 17 different species of penguins, the dads look after the eggs while the mum fishes and did you know that penguins have knees? 

Rayne showed off her talents as a designer and builder. She knew how to angle the bricks so that they didn’t topple over. Christopher has been creating different animals using a variety of materials.

Religion
We have been talking about God and learning some different types of prayer.  We love singing “Welcome” by Andrew Chinn. We have learned some actions to go with the words.

Each morning we have been meditating. We have listened to stories about creation.

English
In Kindergarten we have been learning the difference between a letter and a word and rhyming words. We have counted words, hunted for words, and even copied some words.

Mathematics
In Mathematics we are counting up to five, matching the numerals, words and quantities for five. We have begun grouping objects. We had animals with long tails, animals with horns, meat eaters, boys and girls, and different coloured animals.

Science
We are exploring the different things that animals and humans need to live. We have two class pets to help us learn about the needs of animals. The boys and girls came up with names for them - the girl is “Diamond” and the boy is “Ryan”. While they look a little bit scary, many of the children enjoy looking at them from a distance, Evie found some gloves at the tinkering table and was able to hold the girl pet (clever thinking as she’s a bit spiky), Quinn picked up Ryan and he was enjoying crawling up her arm.

PDHPE
The boys and girls have been working on their fundamental movement skills with Mr Bateman. On Friday, we showed off our talents at bouncing a basketball with two hands.

Mrs Jacqui Stephen

Welcome to 2022! 

I hope everyone was able to enjoy their summer break and the slow mornings that holidays bring. We have lots to look forward to this year and we are very hopeful that school sport and the pathways to CSNSW will remain open and go ahead as planned. We are very excited for sport to take off again this year and we are sure the students will be as well.

Already this year, we have had much to celebrate in terms of sporting achievements.

Lily VW, December 2021 

We congratulate all these students on their determination to participate in these events, which are very competitive, with children in attendance from all over the Diocese. 

A special congratulations to Year 6 student, Kordel H, who was successful in gaining a position in the Canberra Goulburn Archdiocesan Basketball team which will be playing in the MacKillop trails in Wollongong on 25 February. We wish Kordel and the CG team all the very best of luck at the next competition.

St Mary’s Swimming Trials
We were very lucky to have a mostly sunny day to hold our swimming trials last Monday. Whilst we had to modify the event somewhat, it was a wonderful day. The students of each cohort showed determination and perseverance to do their best and cheer on others. Some students had very little breaks between their races and happily went about their swim without hesitation. Without the dedicated team of staff and helpers who were on hand to do timekeeping, starting and general duties the day wouldn't have been a success. A big thank you to those parents who assisted in any way, your help is always much appreciated. Many photos have been uploaded to the St Mary’s Facebook page from the day.

We have recently had confirmation that the Southern Region carnival will be going ahead as planned on Thursday 24 February at Narooma Swimming Pool. As soon as details have been finalised from the convening school, I will communicate to those families involved. In coming weeks students will be presented with ribbons and Age Champion medals.

Intensive Swimming Program
We are very excited that we are able to offer an intensive swimming program to our  students in Years 1 - 6 this term. An assessment day is being held next Tuesday, 15 February, where each grade will walk to the pool and demonstrate their swimming ability in order to group students. The program will then begin in Week 4. Swimming will take the place of the sport session for the week. More information will be sent home and will outline the cost of the program and the days/dates that each class will be attending the pool. It is important that you indicate the swimming ability of your child on the note as accurately as possible, so that groupings can be made according to swimming ability. The students are very excited to be taking part in this program and we thank the St Mary’s Community Council for their generous donation towards the overall cost of running the program.

Upcoming Dates:

Archdiocesan Individual Sports Trials
For individual sports trials, registrations must be completed online at https://csnsw.sport/ prior to the closing date. It is recommended that students trialling must be at a high level of skill and competency for that particular sport. For further information, please feel free to contact me at school or via email: megan.grant@cg.catholic.edu.au.

I am very excited for the year ahead and look forward to welcoming families back on the sporting fields in 2022.

Have a wonderful week ahead.

Megan Grant
Sports Co-ordinator

Hello and welcome families, new and returning to the 2022 school year.

As this is the first newsletter of the year we’d like to take the opportunity to introduce ourselves, and share a bit about our purpose. The St Mary’s Community Council is made up of a group of 8 parent volunteers, 2 teacher representatives and our Principal. We come together twice a term to plan fundraising activities and to support the school in non-teaching related decision making and planning. The 2022 community Council volunteers are Mary Dullard (Chair), Fiona Hall (Treasurer), Maree Turnbull (Secretary), Louise Thornton, Hayley Van Weerdenburg, Melissa Van Weerdenburg, Mel Price and Judy Toman. Our teacher representatives are Gen Schofield and Alicia Hampson-Afflick.

2021 was a challenging year for fundraising given the various COVID-19 restrictions and challenges within our community, however, we were still able to run a number of successful fundraising events. We are pleased to be able to contribute some of the funds raised to subsidise the upcoming swimming program, due to commence in February. We look forward to sharing further updates in the coming weeks of our fundraising plans due to be undertaken for the 2022 school year.

As a small, volunteer based group, we are always interested in new fundraising ideas, or volunteering support for our planned activities. Should you wish to contact us please get in touch with Mary Dullard (CC Chair) on 0438 662 805.