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Dear Parents, Guardians and Community,
Welcome Back!! It feels like we have taken another step towards normal with the removal of masks and the return to assemblies on Mondays and Thursdays. We welcome two new students this week. We welcome Luca in Year 3 (3E) and Olivia in Year 5. (5H) We welcome their parents Justin and Katrina.
2023 Enrolments. At the start of May we send out our 2023 offers for Prep. We already have more applications than positions. Can I ask that any existing families get on their application ASAP as we need to have these in our count. Existing families are number one priority. So far we already have more than one class worth of siblings, so we have limited places that we can offer new families. We continue to get enrolments regularly which is great news. Covid certainly had an impact over the last couple of years.
Painting and Shade Sails. Well, we had good news and bad. The outside painting was completed as planned, however the shade sail installation was impacted by the rain over the holidays. We thought it would have been completed on the weekend. We are hoping it is installed soon.
Archbishop Peter Comensoli. This year marks the school's 180th Birthday. To help us celebrate Archbishop Peter Comensoli will be coming to celebrate Mass with us on August 23 at 11:30 am. It is not every day the school has the Archbishop visit, so it is a big occasion. Please mark this one in your diaries.
Painting of the School Toilets. If all goes to plan, we will have some students from Mount St Joseph's at our school on Friday to paint the toilet cubicles. Toilets have always been problematic in schools and newly built schools position them next to classrooms to make it easier and safer for students to access. Stephen Heppell, who does innovative school design, has a whole section on toilets in schools http://rubble.heppell.net/places/toilets/ The Mount St Joseph's students will be decorating our cubicles to make them more inviting and not so industrial.
Intervention Framework: We had a great last day of term with staff completing Modules 1 and 2 of the Intervention Framework. We had to have a last minute change and had to move to an online meeting with a staff member going down with Covid, but it worked well and we made some key inroads to one of School Improvement Goals. (2022 to 2025)
Module 1 - Culture of Inclusive Practices
Module 2 - Underpinning Methodologies
Part of our day was also spent evaluating our Annual Action Plan (AAP) to make sure we tracking where we want to be.
Our Main Goals of our School Improvement Plan (SIP) are
- Introduce Instructional Coaching
- Introduce the Intervention Framework
- Improve our work around Data Literacy
- Improve our work around Student Voice, Agency and Participation
This is broken down further into our Annual Action Plan
God Bless
Anthony
Faith News - School and Parish Connections
Important dates to Remember for Term 2
We look forward to welcoming parents back to school Masses and liturgies in the Church.
Event |
Date |
Time |
Where |
Mother’s Day Mass |
6th May |
9:15am |
Church |
Year 4 Eucharist Information Session |
11th May |
6:30 pm |
School Hall |
Year 4 Family Mass |
14th May |
6:00pm |
Church |
Year 4 Eucharist |
21st May |
6:00pm |
Church |
Year 4 Eucharist |
22nd May |
8:30am |
Church |
Year 4 Eucharist |
22nd May |
10:30 am |
Church |
Year 2 Family Mass |
12th June |
10:30 am |
Church |
Year 1 Family Mass |
19th June |
10:30 am |
Church |
Confirmation - Year 6 Term 3
Tuesday 26th July 6pm
Wednesday 27th July 6pm
Thursday 28th July 6pm
Mother’s Day Stall
The Mother’s Day stall coordinator, Tania Dias, has once again sourced some beautiful gifts for this Fridays Mother’s Day stall. The children will enjoy choosing their special gifts for Mum, Grandma, Aunty and those special people who love them like a Mum. Remember, voucher sales end TONIGHT, and there will be no cash sales on the day, so jump onto CDFpay so the kids don’t miss out. Vouchers are $5 each and students will be able to purchase one gift with each voucher. Multiple vouchers can be purchased if your child would like to also buy a gift for Nonna, Grandma, Aunty or any other significant person in their life. Please remember to send a bag for the children to carry their gift home; a shopping bag will be adequate.
Mother’s Day Breakfast
The Mother’s Day Breakfast will be held in the morning before the Mother’s Day Mass on Friday 6th May. We are looking for 10 enthusiastic fathers to serve at the Mother’s Day Breakfast. If you can help, or would like to volunteer a father to help out, please email Bianca Paton at volunteers@smwilliamstown.catholic.edu.au
Photos of Mum with their children for the photo display can be emailed to pnf@smwilliamstown.catholic.edu.au
St Mary’s Pantry
In Term 2 we will be seeking expression of interest from people who would like to be involved with the St Mary’s Pantry. In the words of Mary MacKillop, “Never see a need without trying to do something about it”. Therefore in this spirit, the St Mary’s Pantry is a community safety-net for families within our school community who are struggling due to illness, death, job-loss or any other significant event. The pantry provides immediate access to an emergency meal for a family of 5. Volunteers can be called upon to provide additional meals as the need arises. Meals are provided and received anonymously, and are coordinated through the school. The expression of interest form will be circulated to the eldest child this week. Forms can be returned to the school, and you will be contacted directly by the St Mary’s Pantry coordinator.
Jogathon
We are just one student away from finding out which class will claim the honour of winning the Hot Lunch for the first class to return all sponsorships. Don’t forget, your sponsorship can be as little or as large as you choose. Your sponsorship pledges can be returned at any time using the CDFpay app; contact treasurer@smwilliamstown.catholic.edu.au if you require any help with this app.
Second Hand Uniform Pop Up Shop
The Second hand uniform shop will be back next term on Wednesday 27th April, from 8:30-9:30am in the hall, and fortnightly after that. In addition, uniforms can still be ordered at any time by emailing Sherrine and Meagan at uniformspf@smwilliamstown.catholic.edu.au
What’s happening in the 2nd Term?
This is just a snapshot of what the P&F Association has planned for the second term
Date |
What’s happening |
Wednesday 27th April (8.30am - 9.30am) |
Second-hand uniform sales in the Hall |
Wednesday 27th April (11.59pm) |
Mother’s Day Stall voucher sales end |
Friday 29th April (TBA) |
Mother’s Day stall in the Parish Centre |
Friday 6th May (TBA) |
Mother’s Day Breakfast (Hall), followed by Mother’s Day Mass (St Mary’s Church) |
Monday 9th May (7.00pm) |
P&F Association Meeting (Parish Centre) |
Wednesday 11th May (8.30am - 9.30am) |
Second-hand uniform sales in the Hall |
Monday 17th May |
Fair Working Group (Parish Centre) |
St Mary’s Fabulous Family Fair 2022
Stall Champions
Thank you to all our stall champions. We still have a number of stalls without a champion. Pair up with a friend or a group of friends to run a stall. There is lots of support for you and is such a fun way to contribute to the Fair and our school community.
- BBQ
- Devonshire Tea and Cake Stall
- Art and Photography Show
- Hot food vendors
- Books
- Face Painting
- Fruit, Vegetables and Plants
- Lollies
- Sandpit “Dig for treasure”
Watch out for a flyer going out this week with more information or please get in contact with us today fair@smwilliamstown.catholic.edu.au
Calling out for coordinators
Have some great skills you want to share? To make sure our Fair comes back with a big bang we are needing some help with sponsorship, event logistics, and donations management. If you think you can help out and have some skills/experience we would love to hear from you fair@smwilliamstown.catholic.edu.au
Sponsorship
There are a wide variety of sponsorship options available for St Mary’s Fabulous Family Fair and we would like to make sure that these opportunities are made available first to our school families and school community. Thank you for those that have already reached out. If you would like to know more or would like to discuss please contact fair@smwilliamstown.catholic.edu.au alternatively a prospectus can be collected from the school office.
St Mary's School is a Child Safe School and as such complies with all aspects and legal obligations that relate to the Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005 (VIC)