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Dear Parents, Community and Guardians,
Colourrun Colourrun Colourrun. This week is all about our first ever colour run on this Friday. The students are super excited so it will be a great day of fun. Thank you to all who are fundraisiing for this event. The more we raise the quicker we can develop our playground to make it a space of learning, quiet space, adventure and mystery.
Preps 2024: This week we welcomed our new Preps for 2024 for the first time. They had their first session with the two teachers Charlotte Lipnicki and Danielle Mahony while the parents listened to the school leaders. Our next session gives the parents a chance to complete the Parent Helper tarining so they can become parent helpers in the classroom. If you are interested in completing this training please let the office know.
National History Challenge; A big congratulations to Arthur Dunlop who won a Silver Award in the Year 5-6 Category in the Victorian Finals. Arthur's entry now goes to the National finals in Canberra for judging. We wish him luck in the National finals. An amazing achievement. Well done Arthur!!
Our Grade Six students this week had a big day at the Australian Centre of Moving Images (ACMI) at Federation Square. The students loved it working in animation, digital media and film. If you have not visited it yourself, it is well worth the visit.
Big Day Out. Last week our Grade 1/2 's had their Big Day Out in the city, finishing with dinner at the school. They visited the Museum and Imax, caught trains and had an adventure. Thanks to all who organised this.
Prep Breakfast. Last Friday we had a very excited group of Prep Students having breakfast at the school. Thank you to the staff and families for making this possible. The students really appreciated it.
A reminder that Monday is a school closure day with the Melbourne Cup Public Holiday on Tuesday, so students do not come to school until Wednesday next week.
Class Structure 2024 update. So what is happening with the class structure next year? Despite the whispers and rumours, there has been no final decisions about what our class structures will look like in 2024. Yes, it is more than likely that we will have some multi age classes, however what that will look like still has too many factors to finalise that decision, including extreme teacher shortages. We need to have teachers for every classroom, that is our number one priority at the moment and once we get that sorted we can make some final decisions, so realistically we are still a few weeks away from this decision
What I do encourage you to do if you have some questions or concerns about multi-age classes, is to have a look at some really good information about what does make a difference for students. I really encourage you to look at these two very respected sites of educational research that looks at factors that make a difference
https://evidenceforlearning.org.au/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit
The Evidence for learning is very well respected and is one we will go to for clarification of whether a strategy works or does not work. It is easy to read and follow.
https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/
The other site is John Hattie's list of effect size on what works and does not work in schools. This is a very extensive list with things given an effect size and a ranking based an a metastudy of thousands of Educational Reserach around the world. This list is extensively followed around the world.
I guess the message is, when we look at the reserach, there are far more things that affect the success of a classroom than whether it is straight, multi-age or composite, to the point of I am yet to find any research that shows that students perform better in a straight classroom or worse in a multi-age classroom. (If you look at Hattie's list, multi-age classrooms is not mentioned to after the 200th ranking, so it has very little effect at all. In other words, I would be more worried about the 200 things before multiage classrooms on the list about how successful the classroom will be) What is always by far more important is quality teaching, quality teachers, teachers working together, building from what students know, intervention programs, classroom discussion and many other factors. So I really encourage you to look at the research if you have any concerns. In Hattie's list, the highest ranking thing in schools is Collective Teacher Efficacy ( teachers working together) something we have here at St Mary's and one of the reasons we continue to have above State and National results across our school.
School Fees At St Mary's 2024. I am sometimes asked why school fees at St Mary's at more expensive than other schools in the area. Basically it comes down to government funding. Catholic schools across Australia receive 80% of our funding from the Federal Government. the other 20 % is made up of State Funding and school Fees. Each Catholic School receives a different level of Government Funding and this is determined by a Capacity to Pay Score. Each School receives this score based on the level of income of the families in the school so it is determined by our tax returns of families in our schools. It is one of the reasons why our group certificates now go directly to the tax office instead of us receiving them individually. Currently St Mary's sits on the 92nd percentile for schools in Australia, it would actually make us one of the wealthiest Catholic Primary Schools in Australia. This year we rose one percentile point which increased our Capacity to Pay Score meaning we have less government funding in 2024 for example. So when it comes to school fees this is one of the main factor that determines the level for each school. So when we look at school fees each year we must consider any changes to government funding, inflation, the cost of living and other factors and I think we all know the cost of living has increased everywhere. Thus we have tried to keep our increase as low as possible in 2024, but we had to factor in the decrease in government funding we are to receive when we discussed this at the School Board level. The school board advised us to go with the following.
School Fees in 2024
Family Fee $3530 (increase $220)
Curriculum Levy $395 (Increase $10) per child
Excursion Levy $140 (increase $5) per child
Technology Levy $100 (no increase) perchild
Victorian Catholic Primary School Fees are still the cheapest in Australia by a long way. My Northern Territory experience would tell me I would be paying closer to $12000 for my three children to attend a Catholic Primary School, whereas in Victoria it would not even be half of that.
God Bless
Anthony
St Mary’s Faith News
School and Parish Connections
Gospel – Matthew 22:34-40
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,
and one of them, a scholar of the law tested him by asking,
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
New!!
Our School Song
Thank you to all the children in the choir who helped in the making of the video. We all very proud of you.
We will be singing this song at the Friday assemblies in place of the prayer.
Here is the new song ‘The Courage of Mary’
Some important dates to Remember for Term 4
Event |
Date |
Time |
Where |
Remembrance Day |
Friday 10th November |
10:45 am |
School Playground |
Advent Liturgy 1 |
Friday 24th November |
3:00 pm |
School Hall |
Prep family Mass |
Sunday 26th November |
10:30 am |
Church |
Seniors Mass |
Friday 1st December |
11:30 am |
Church |
Advent Liturgy 2 |
Friday 1st December |
3:00 pm |
School Hall |
Feast of the Immaculate Conception |
Friday 8th December |
9:15 am |
Church |
Advent Liturgy 3 |
Friday 8th December |
3:00 pm |
School Hall |
End of Year Mass |
Thursday 14th December |
11:30 am |
Church |
Colour Explosion Jogathon
Our Colour Explosion Jogathon is on this Friday!
Thanks to those who have been busily fundraising. If you haven’t done so, please activate your children’s online profile to begin fundraising. It’s very easy and only takes two minutes:
- Go to australianfundraising.com.au
- Click on ‘Login’ and select ‘School Run 4 Fun’
- Search “St Mary’s School – Williamstown”
To create some friendly competition, the class that fundraises the most money will win “slime time”. The winning class will get to slime their classmates and play with slime at the end of the Jogathon. Our two top classes to date are 3SL and Prep S who have activated the most profiles and raised the most money. Please contact the office if your child has any allergies to slime.
We encourage parents to come along and cheer on the students, so please join us if you can. Classes will be running at the following times:
- Prep – Year 2: 11:40am – 12.30pm
- Years 3 & 4: – 12.30pm – 1.20pm
- Years 5 & 6: – 1.20pm – 2.10pm
Don’t forget a white t-shirt on the day (if possible) & a towel for the car ride home.
Students are encouraged to bring a light lunch, with a sausage sizzle to follow.
A huge thank you to Treehaus Williamstown for their continued support of this event.
We encourage all children to participate in the Colour Run, but if for any reason you would like your child to be exempt from having any colour or water on them while they are running, please email Karoline Cooke kcooke@smwilliamstown.
Thank you to those parents/carers who have previously helped on the Maclean Reserve Roster and a very warm welcome to all our new families who may like to think about assisting. The Term 4 roster is about to be completed and we are seeking a few more volunteers. There are specific dates that we really need people - be it mums, dads or carers. Below are that dates and if you are able to help, please click on the link and sign up.
November - 2, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30
December - 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Maclean Reserve is used daily by your children at lunch and recess. Collecting any rubbish keeps the area safe and clean for our students and siblings alike that use ‘the green’. It takes 10-15 minutes anytime between 8.30 - 10.45am on your rostered date.
Thanks in advance