Friday 13th June 2025 ~ Issue 17

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

Friday 27th June - Assembly

Friday 27th June - Student reports are sent home

Friday 4th July - Last day of Term 2 - 2.15pm finish

TERM 3

Monday 21st July - First day of Term 3

Friday 25th July - Grandparents' Day - details to come

Friday 1st August - Assembly

Sunday 31st August - Sacrament of First Eucharist

Friday 5th September - Father's Day celebration at school

Thursday 18th September - Last day of Term 3 - 3.15pm finish

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,

The long weekend has certainly made this week fly by!

Our staff are working incredibly hard on report writing. I am greatly enjoying reading about your children and the amazing learning growth they are making. The student reports will be sent home on Friday 27th June.

On Sunday we shared a most wonderful celebration as a number of our students received the Sacrament of Confirmation. It was a very special gathering for the children and their families. 

At today's assembly we will award three students with their Peg Collery Awards. We are so proud of all of our students and choosing just three students each year is a very difficult task. Please read more later in the newsletter.

Have a wonderful weekend, shared with those you love,

Terrielynn

Feast of the Holy Trinity 

Sunday, 15th June is The Feast of The Most Holy Trinity

God For Us, we call You Father, 

God Alongside Us, we call You Jesus, 

God Within Us, we call You Holy Spirit. 

 As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. 

Amen.

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 

Last Sunday at 10.30am, our sacramental candidates received the Sacrament of Confirmation. It was a wonderful celebration! Our deepest thanks to all those who have supported them on their faith journey.

Jonty, Mason, Amelia, Jed, Sophie, Mila, Naithan, Jet, Jayda, Nate, Mya, Olive, Indiana, Marlee, Selena, Audrey, Samuel, Selina, Austin.

Peg Collery Awards

At this week's assembly we awarded our Peg Collery Scholarships to three students, from P/1/2, 3/4 and 5/6. We will name them in next week's newsletter! 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.

Tinnies For Vinnies

For the last three weeks of term we will have a focus on donating tins of food for the St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal. If you are able to buy an extra tin of food in your grocery shop or have some spares at home, we'd love you to donate them. We will have tubs set up near the office. Thanks so much!

Then, on the last day of term, the children have decided that they will wear their warmest winter clothes with a crazy hair do! Each child is also invited to bring along a gold coin to donate to the winter appeal.

Diocesan Strategic Plan...continued

The Diocesan Plan provides direction and priorities for our system of Catholic schools. The strategy is guided by three practical principles - 

1. Deeper collaboration between schools in our system

2. Networked local innovation

3. Collective autonomy, where schools know that they are trusted to make decisions in the best interest of their community.

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 in our school

SAFETY - keep hands and feet off others

RESPONSIBILITY - seek help when needed

First Nations Project

Under the watchful eye of our Wellbeing Leader, Bec Sherlock, we are about to begin a First Nation's art project. This will involve working with Saige Bell, a Gunditjmara artist and former St Mary's student, to produce an artistic representation of our Acknowledgement of Country. We will keep you updated on our progress and when we will unveil the piece.

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

SSV Team Vic Trials - Netball

We congratulate Nina who has made it through to Stage Three State Trials for Netball. Nina will attend the final trial this Tuesday. We are incredibly proud of Nina and wish her all the very best. To already be an emergency for the SSV Team Vic Basketball team and now be selected for the final trial in Netball, is simply astounding. Well done Nina, you sporting superstar!

AFL Superkick Program - Postponed to Term Three

Unfortunately, due to low registration numbers and limited AFL Victoria staff availability, we have had to postpone the program at this time.

AFL Victoria are committed to delivering a fun and engaging experience, and under the current circumstances, they don’t believe they can meet the standard they aim for.

We would love to reschedule the program for Term 3, and AFL Victoria are very keen to run it and provide this opportunity to participants.

What is the Superkick Program?

Superkick is a program run by AFL Victoria offering boys and girls a safe and inclusive environment to further develop their skills and love for football. It aims to help create a more relatable and familiar setting for children and families who may be new to football or families who are not linked in with the "Club Football" environment.

It is a 5 week program aimed at 7-12 year olds. The program would run at St Mary’s on a Wednesday afternoon from 3.30pm-4.30pm (Day and Time TBC for Term Three). It costs $55. No special clothing or football boots are required. The students would get changed after school (they can just wear their sports uniform if wanted), and would be supervised by AFL Victoria staff until 4.30pm, when you would need to collect your child promptly.

The program consists of around 15 minutes of skill based drills or structured activities, before modified Superkick game play. We would need at least 12 interested students for the program to commence. 

Please email or message me on SeeSaw if you would be interested in the program for your child in Term Three. 

Dates for your Diary

TERM THREE

July

Thursday 24th July - State Cross Country @ Melbourne

Friday 25th July - Hockey 7’s @ Hamilton 

August

Thursday 14th August (TBC) - AFL 9’s @ Hamilton 

Wednesday 20th August - District Netball @ Hamilton 

September 

Tuesday 9th September - Grade 3/4 Hooptime @ Hamilton

Friday 12th September - Grade 5/6 Hooptime @ Hamilton 

TBC Primary Golf and Table Tennis 

Elise Gordon

egordon@smhamilton.catholic.edu.au 

Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD)

Please find attached some information regarding the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD).

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 9 - Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed.

 At St Mary’s we can see this standard in action in a variety of ways. At the beginning of each year, as part of our Learning to Learn curriculum, the children talk about and record their ‘Five Trusted Adults’. These are adults that they feel they can speak to if they are worried about something and may include teachers, extended family members, older siblings, as well as parents. Our 3-6 students also have a yearly ICT safe usage policy that they discuss, take home to their families and sign. This is particularly pertinent in this area as it is when the use of Chromebooks is introduced. Each year, our students take part in eSafety lessons. These are presented by the eSafety Commissioner and focus on different topics that help to keep children safe while online. We also have our child safety slides, in all classrooms and learning areas. These slides outline, in child friendly language, what child safety looks like at St Mary’s. Here are the slides that can be found in our school.

More information can be found on the Commission for Children and Young People (CCYP) website - the link to this website is 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 two of a two part series and will be held on Wednesday 18th June at 7:30pm. This is the second part of the webinar that was held in March.  Even if you were unable to attend the first part, this would still have a lot of valuable information and is well worth tuning in to. Scan the QR code to register for this important event.

Tania Stevens
tstevens@smhamilton.catholic.edu.au

Leadership and Stewardship

School Advisory Council AGM

Our School Advisory Council (SAC) AGM was on Wednesday 11th June. We are very grateful that Joyce Nedziwe will continue in her role as Chairperson with Rhassell Mhasho taking on the Vice-Chairperson role.

Kitchen Garden Green Light!

I am delighted to let our community know that our Kitchen Garden program will be starting in June! 

With a lot of work happening behind the scenes by our amazing volunteers, we are kitting out the kitchen and planning recipes that we can make according to the produce we will have.

There is much education that goes with a program like this, both for leaders and students. So, when it is your child’s turn to cook, make sure you ask them all about it!

We will start with groups of approximately ten students per cook and we will ensure that everyone gets to cook. We will share plenty of photos and recipes with you all.

I’d like to thank Monique Sobey who has championed us to get this program up and running and through her leadership position with the Kitchen Garden Foundation, has supported us financially, allowing us to purchase equipment and supplies that seemed so far out of our reach.

Catherine Egan

School Beanies

We have navy blue school beanies the students are allowed to wear (they have our school name on them) here for sale at the office for $15 each.  If you would like to purchase one for your child, please come to the front office. You can pay cash or card.

Community Engagement

Assembly

Our next assembly will be on Friday 27th June at 2.55pm.

Community Events