Assistant Principal News
Welcome Back to Term 3
A very warm welcome back to all our St Mary's families for Term 3. Thank you for sending your children dressed so beautifully in their correct full winter school uniform. Our focus for this term is on students wearing correct school uniform with pride.
At St Mary's we take great care wearing the correct school uniform, this signifies who we are and promotes a sense of community and inclusivity. Parents and community members often comment on how well St Mary's students wear their school uniform. If your child cannot wear full school uniform for a particular reason please inform your child's teacher. Please make sure your child's clothing is labelled with their name, we find many jackets and jumpers without names and it is then difficult to return the items to their owners.
NAIDOC Week
This week we have been celebrating NAIDOC Week. NAIDOC Week gives First Nations people and non-Indigenous people the opportunity to celebrate and connect with community and country. And it’s a chance for everyone, not just First Nations people, to celebrate all aspects of First Nations’ histories and cultures.The theme in 2024 is Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud and Proud. This recognises the enduring legacy of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Not only have they preserved their culture, but they continue to ignite passion in others by sharing their practices and teaching us about their histories.
At St Mary’s, throughout the year, our students are continually exploring the cultures, languages, lifestyles and identity of Aboriginal peoples as part of the units of work we study. During NAIDOC Week, we have a particular focus on Aboriginal culture, and this past week our students have engaged in various activities that honoured and explored Indigenous culture and traditions. We have witnessed our Aboriginal students proudly sharing their culture and traditions with their peers through story, music, art and dance. They certainly have embodied the theme of Keep the Fire Burning.
Let’s ensure our flame is both warm to those we interact with and serves as a light showing others where the love of God is to be found (Matthew 5:16).
NAPLAN
All parents of children in Year 3 and Year 5 should have received paper copies of The National Assessment Program- Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results. These were sent home from school last Friday. This assessment was held early in Term One 2024 in March.
The report includes:
- an achievement scale showing your child's results for each assessment area
- a national average marker for each assessment area, indicating the average performance achieved by the national cohort of students in Year 3
- tables which provide additional information on your child's performance and a description of the skills and understanding assessed.
The assessment provides a snapshot of your child's achievement at a point in time. The information in this report should be considered together with school based assessments and reports.
Book Week / Parade Friday 23 August 2024
The theme for Children's Book Week this year is READING IS MAGIC. The Reading is Magic theme celebrates the reading of stories and their amazing power to transport minds.
The Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) event concludes with winners announced during the official book week of 17-23 August.
The feature artist of this year’s poster is Jess Racklyeft. She is a Melbourne based author and illustrator of several picture books and board books and has won several awards, including a CBCA Award.
You can learn more about this artwork and the theme in the video below. Jess talks about the reasons behind the design choices in the video.
Book Parade
On Friday, 23 August we will be holding our Book Parade. Students will be invited to conjure a magic array of costumes and celebrate their favourite literary characters. This is always a spellbinding event for the kids and costumes in previous years have been quite ‘magical’. So put your thinking caps on and start preparing now.
The book parade is scheduled for 9.00am-10.00am Friday 23 August. We look forward to sharing our literary and magical costumes with you on this day.
God bless and take care
Mrs Sue Heffernan
Assistant Principal