Friday 23rd May 2025 ~ Issue 14

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

TERM 2

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

Monday 26th - Students are invited to wear crazy, coloured socks with their school uniform

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

Friday 30th May - Assembly

Wednesday 4th June - School Photos

Friday 13th June - Assembly ~ Peg Collery Awards

Friday 27th June - Assembly

Friday 4th July - Last day of Term 2

PUPIL FREE DAYS IN 2025

Friday 19th September - Structured Literacy

Wednesday 17th December - Last day of the school year for students

ADVANCE NOTICE

Wednesday 17th September - St Mary's School Concert at Hamilton PAC

From the Principal

Dear Families,

While we are very much enjoying the beautiful sunshine, we know that our region is absolutely desperate for rain. As someone who lives on a farm, we have never seen our land so dry. I know that many of our families are experiencing the same conditions. Please reach out to us if paying school fees is a challenge - we are here to help.

For the last four weeks, we have had the great pleasure of having former parent, Mel Fitzpatrick work with us as part of her teacher placement. Mel has worked in the 3/4 area and it has been our absolute pleasure to have her work with us. We wish her the very best as she continues her studies.

I am delighted to report on some more outstanding student achievements beyond our school gate! Rebecca Shelley came third last weekend in the State Eventing Championships, Alaska Bremner won the U14 All Schools Road Walking State Championships and Nina Roll has been named as an emergency for the State Basketball! Congratulations to you all! We are just so proud! We are also very proud of the six students who are representing us a Regional Cross Country on Monday. Read more about them later in the newsletter.

Next week is Catholic Education Week. We have some much to be proud of in our school and in the wonderful system of schools that we belong to. We will celebrate on Monday by wearing crazy, colourful socks with our school uniform, having lunch together as a whole school and joining together in prayer.

Have a wonderful weekend, shared with those you love,

Terrielynn

Ten Years Of Inspiration And Action

Ten years ago, Pope Francis wrote Laudato Si’, setting out a bold vision for our common home. While we celebrate 10 years of prayer and action together, we look ahead to an even brighter future. The next chapter of Laudato Si’ begins with us. The theme of Laudato Si Week 2025 is Raise Hope. In many ways each and every day across the schools of our Diocese that is the work that we do. We Raise Hope on so many levels. Once again, this Laudato Si Week  we take time to reflect on ways that we can Raise Hope for every part of creation, as we seek to bring the aspirations of Laudato Si to life in our lives and particularly in our school communities.

A Prayer for All Creation

Creator God, we give thanks for the gift of creation.

We give thanks for its beauty and the joy that beauty brings us.

We give thanks for light that shines in the darkness, for the stars and the sun, for the air we breathe and the plants and animals that you have created, for earth and water, and for the daily sustenance we draw from them.

Inspire us to see You, Creator, through all that You have created—all that you look upon as very good.

Help us to care for creation as You instructed us.

Help us be stewards of its abundant life.

We ask this through Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

From: EN_Creation novena.pdf

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

Sacramental Program 

Our Saturday evening Mass gatherings are well underway. During these sessions, the candidates work with a member of staff, learning more about the Sacrament of Confirmation.

Peg Collery Awards

At our Week 8 assembly we will award our Peg Collery Scholarships to three students, from P/1/2, 3/4 and 5/6. These awards are very important to our school. Peg Collery and her husband Joe were parishioners and, although they didn't have their own children, they were active members of our school community. Upon Peg's death, Joe set up a scholarship fund for our school, to be awarded to three students each year. The criteria is that these students live our school values and are hard working, kind people. Students are nominated by the staff in each area and our Leadership Team makes the final decision.

Diocesan Strategic Plan

Last Wednesday, our whole staff headed to Horsham to learn about the Diocesan Ten Year Strategic Plan. It was very exciting to hear of the plans for the future to ensure our system of Catholic schools has a strong presence in our communities into the future. The name of the strategy is PURSUING FULLNESS OF LIFE FOR ALL, a title that features strongly in our Diocesan vision statement and our own school vision statement. The children are very familiar with this and we work towards this every day. Next week we will explore more of the plan.

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 - care for the people and resources in our school

SAFETY - uses resources and equipment safely

RESPONSIBILITY - ask questions about your learning

Reporting - Changes to the Reporting of Numeracy

This year we are reporting on the new Numeracy Curriculum. The staff have been teaching to this in 2025 and will be reporting on this too. One of the changes to our reporting is that instead of reporting to several strands - Number and Algebra, Measurement, Space etc - we will now report to 'Mathematics' which will include all of the strands. Look out for this when our new look reports come home later in the term.

Staffing

At the end of Term 2, Teagan Wishart will be taking Maternity Leave until the beginning of 2026. Leroy Perez will move into her role and we are very grateful to him for providing continuity of learning for the 5/6s. We are now in the process of appointing a part time teacher to join Chris Minney.

Sports Catch Up

Division Cross Country

We had 16 students qualify for Division Cross Country in Warrnambool last Friday. Once again our students represented St Mary’s beautifully. We are very proud of every student who ran on the day. Although some students didn’t finish in the top 20 they achieved new PBs, which is great! We love hearing that our students are doing their best and having success!  

Thank you to the parents and grandparents who supported the students on the day and Latham Wishart who represented the HDSA at this event. 

Results 

9/10 Year Boys

Sean N 9th

Jed R  26th

9/10 Year Girls

Claire M 5th

Denni S 44th

11 Year Boys

James N 21st

Xavier L 34th

Michael T 36th

Owen L 38th

Dylan F 39th

11 Year Girls

Alaska B 1st

Libby R 6th

12 Year Boys

Marcus McRae 31st

12 Year Girls

Johannah W 4th

Bella T 5th

Sophie U 32nd

Regional Cross Country 

We have 6 students who finished in the Top 12 at Division Cross Country! This qualifies them for Regional Cross Country to be held this Monday 26th May at Warrnambool again. We wish Sean N, Claire M, Alaska B, Libby R, Johannah W and Bella T all the very best! 

SSV Team Vic - Nina Roll

We are thrilled to announce that Nina Roll has been named as an emergency for the SSV 12 Year & Under Girls Basketball team. You may also know this as Team Vic. This means that Nina was selected as one of the Top 13 12 Year Girls Basketballers in the State, from all the children who trialled. WOWZERS!! Well done Nina, this is absolutely incredible. Nina was telling me that the last two day trial was very physical and the other girls were ‘giants’. She should be immensely proud of herself. What a superstar! 

Grade 1/2 Swimming Programs

The Grade 1/2s have their swimming program from Monday 26th May - Friday 30th May from 12.00-1.30pm. 

Dates for your Diary

May

Monday 26th May - Regional Cross Country @ Warrnambool

Monday 26th May-Friday 30th May - Grade 1/2 Swimming Program

Elise Gordon

egordon@smhamilton.catholic.edu.au 

Wellbeing

Child Safety ~ Child Safe Standards

The new Child Safe Standards (eleven in total) came into effect in July 2022 and are a
vital part of what we do here at St Mary’s. But, what do these standards look like in practice? Each week, we will look at a standard in closer detail.

Standard 6 - People working with children and young people are suitable and supported to reflect child safety and wellbeing values in practice.

At St Mary’s we can see this standard in action in a variety of ways. As part of Child Safety, any volunteers coming in to work with our children must be vetted and hold a valid Working With Children’s Check (WWCC) Parent helpers for school activities, such as camps, excursions or our swimming program, are required to hold a current WWCC. Any new CRT’s that start at St Mary’s are invited in for an orientation meeting with our CRT coordinator, Tania, who runs through our policies and procedures here at St Mary's, particularly in the area of Child Safety. All adults working with our students must hold either registration with the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) or a valid WWCC. We also have a new sign in system at the front desk, that holds all policies, including Child Safety, that visitors or contractors must read and agree too, as well as requiring a copy of either VIT or WWCC. 

More information can be found on the Commission for Children and Young People (CCYP) website - the link to this website is below.

Each term, the eSafety Commissioner runs free Parent Webinars on a variety of topics around internet safety and the online world. The topics are listed on the flyer below.  If your would like to find out more information, including the dates available and to register, you can do so here.

Tania Stevens
tstevens@smhamilton.catholic.edu.au

Leadership and Stewardship

School Advisory Council AGM

Our School Advisory Council (SAC) AGM is on Wednesday 11th June. We are very pleased to know that Joyce Nedziwe and Rhassell Mhasho will take on their second term. We thank them for their generosity.

Term 2 Uniform

We usually take a week or two to swap into our full winter uniform but this year we might take a bit longer, given the weather! We are very happy for the summer uniform to continue for another week. Maybe we'll be in the winter uniform by June!

Sickness

If your child is sick they should stay at home to stop the spread of illness to other students and staff. You should seek medical attention for your child as needed, including about when to return to school.

Community Engagement

Assembly

Our next assembly will be on Friday 30th May at 2.55pm.

Community Events