Newsletter, Week 9, Term 4, #4

Principal's Report

Dear Parents & Carers,

As the school year draws to a close, this will be my final report for 2023. Before I begin I’d like to take the opportunity to sincerely thank you all for your ongoing support of our school this year. I’m also extending an invitation to all members of our community to attend our AGM at 5pm on the 13th December 2023, in the school administration building. 

Even though we are on the home straight there are still many school events for students and families to participate in and celebrate. In addition to the end of year events listed below there are Fun Days, the Wishing Tree Christmas Appeal, our Major Raffle, Prep & Whole School Transition and the Junior Swimming Program still to come.

End of 2023 Dates & Times

• Friday 1st December 11am - End of Year Mass & Annual Awards 
• Friday 8th December 9.30am - Year 8 Graduation & Final Assembly 
• Tuesday 12th December - Semester Two Reports in Mail
• Wednesday 13th December 5pm - AGM 
• Friday 15th December 10am - Year 6 Graduation & Morning Tea 
• Monday 18th December 3.30pm - School Closed for the Year

Beginning of 2024 Dates & Times

• Wednesday 24th January 9am-3.30pm - Office Open
• Wednesday 24th January 12pm-6pm - Uniform Shop Open (by appointment)
• Thursday 25th January 9am-3.30pm - Office Open
• Thursday 25th January 10am-3pm - Uniform Shop Open (by appointment)
• Friday 26th January - Australia Day Public Holiday
• Monday 29th January - Staff Start 
• Tuesday 30th January - Student Free Day
• Wednesday 31st January - Students Start

This Friday 1st December St Mary’s will have a BBQ stall at the Robinvale Christmas Market in Caix Square. Along with delicious sausages, burgers and drinks, tickets for our Major Raffle will be on sale. We look forward to seeing our school families at the market and in particular at our stall!

Next Tuesday 5th December, we will have our whole school transition where all students will spend the day in next year’s classes. As always, please be aware that at this stage, class lists are not final and there may be some changes made between this day and the end of the year. Final class lists will be sent home with Semester Two reports. A friendly reminder that I place my trust in the professionalism of our teachers. I respect their knowledge of how each student in their care functions in the school environment and learns best when it comes to creating class lists. It is my hope that parents and carers feel the same way. 

This week I would like to provide you with a staffing update. Our 2024 secondary team has undergone some changes since I last reported on staffing. Stella Le Roux has, unfortunately, had to tender her resignation as her husband has been relocated for work. We have enjoyed having Stella with us and wish her the very best for her and her family when they move on from our school and the Robinvale district at the end of this year. On the other hand, I’m very pleased to announce that Charlie Ford has accepted a full time position teaching our secondary students next year. Charlie is relocating to Robinvale from Finley, NSW where he has been teaching at the Finley High School and comes to us very highly recommended. We are thrilled to have Charlie working at St Mary’s and are very much looking forward to having him join our community. We are also expecting to be able to announce that another full time teacher will be joining the secondary team by the beginning of next year. These two new staff members, along with Maryanne Leslie and Fiona Pike will form a very capable and supportive team to teach and lead our Year 7 & 8 students next year. I’d also like to welcome Belle Giofrelle back to St Mary’s staff. Belle will be rejoining the Learning Diversity Team working as a Learning Support Officer (LSO) in our school. We are looking forward to having Belle working with us again.

As I’m sure you would have heard through the media, we are currently experiencing a nationwide teacher shortage and, due to this, we are still looking to fill two primary classroom teacher positions for next year. We are currently exploring a number of promising options and I’m confident that we will be able to employ two quality teachers by the time school resumes in 2024. However, because we don’t have staffing complete yet, this year we will approach Transition Day a little differently than in the past in that all our 2023 classroom teachers will spend the day with the new classes. This does mean that not every class will meet their 2024 teacher by the end of this year. Although some students may have to wait a little longer to learn who will be teaching them in 2024 I do expect to be able to welcome new staff into our primary school team in the not too distant future. I will keep you up to date with any changes in this regard. In the meantime, the vast majority of the primary teachers and all our support staff are in place and ready to hit the ground running!

Kind regards, 

Andrea Welsh

SWPBS

School Wide Positive Behaviour Awards Sponsorship

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your current sponsors, Irribiz and Manang Handyman and cleaning services. 

Your sponsorship is greatly appreciated and has enabled us to recognise the students each week at assembly, who are consistently demonstrating the expectations of our school behaviour matrix and setting an excellent example for the rest of our school community.

The sponsorship has been used to provide award recipients with a Robinvale Euston Business Association (REBA) voucher.  Providing these vouchers as part of the awards has not only enabled us to raise the profile of SWPBS in our school but has also enabled us to support other local traders by having the vouchers spent locally. 

As we continue our journey to support our students through the School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) Framework we are seeking 2024 sponsorship from local businesses.

Sponsorship is a wonderful way to advertise your business while supporting our school. Sponsorship will be used to provide a weekly award to a student who displays our school values; We are Respectful, We are Safe and We are Learners.

This sponsorship program will enable us to support our local businesses in the Robinvale and Euston community while we recognise and promote positive behaviour at St Mary’s. If you are interested in sponsoring this initiative please contact the office.

Primary

Foundation

We are looking forward to participating in the annual swimming program during Weeks 10 & 11. Our dates are the 4th, 6th, 7th & 14th of December. All students need to bring their bathers, spare change of underwear, sunscreen, towel, googles (if they have any but it’s not required) and a plastic bag for wet items to school on these days. All items need to be clearly labelled. We will not be swimming on the 12th of December as we will have our Foundation Fun Day excursion to Mildura on this day. More information about this will be shared closer to the date. Thankyou to all parents/carers for returning the swimming note so promptly.

The Foundation team would like to warmly welcome Vincenza (Cenza) Tassone to our team. Cenza is a pre-service teacher that many of you will know from her role at the Robinvale Preschool. She will be working in Room 5 until the 13th of December. Thank you Cenza, for helping support our Foundation students, we hope you will enjoy your time here at St Mary’s.

Year 1/2

We have come to the point of the year where we look back and see just how far we have come! In a year that seemed to have passed so quickly, our learning accomplishments have been tremendous. The Year 1/2 students have experienced visits from musicians, scientists and teddy doctors. We have participated in swimming carnivals, athletics days and recently the colour run. 

As the term closes, we will be attending swimming lessons. Please look out for Dojo reminders from your teachers. 

All library books are to be returned to school, so if you have books at home, please send them back to school as soon as possible.

Raffle tickets have been sent home to fundraise for the school. Please return before the draw on the 15th of December. 

There will be a Fun Day excursion for all Year 1/2 students on 11th December. A note has been sent home with a consent form attached. Please return this promptly, if you haven't already.

We will be very sad to say goodbye to Miss Pepping at the end of this term. We wish her the most exciting of travels in 2024 and look forward to her return in 2025.

Miss Pepping, Miss Westland and Miss O’Loughlin would like to congratulate our students on a very successful year. 

We have deep gratitude to all families for supporting the students and the school over this past year. We extend sincere holiday wishes to you all and look forward to seeing you in the next school year.

Year 3/4

We find ourselves at the end of the year once again! The teachers of the 3/4 unit would like to congratulate each and every student for their wonderful efforts across the year. Students have enjoyed learning about character traits and character point of views in narratives. They have worked on interesting projects such as making a room that displays their character’s traits and creating unique characters to build interest and connection for the reader.

The Christmas spirit is settling in and all the students are enjoying working on getting small Christmas gifts ready to share anonymously with other students around the school. 

The project requires our 3/4 students to make small gifts with no names and put them across the school. Any student who finds a gift gets to keep it. This gesture of making and giving gifts without any names has resonated well with the kids and is helping them learn the art of giving selflessly.

Students are looking forward to our Swimming Program in weeks 10 and 11. Please ensure all permission notes are returned promptly.

Keep reading during the holidays, it’s a great way to relax and unwind. Find yourself immersed in the stories found in words on the page rather than watching a movie. 

Congratulations to all the students in the 3/ 4 Unit on a wonderful year of learning.

Goodbyes are always difficult…the friendly smile, funny jokes, fantastic teaching ideas and melodious singing of Mr. Brouwers will be missed, as we bid goodbye to him at the end of this term. All the teachers and students of the 3/4 Unit would like to say a HUGE THANK YOU to Mr. Brouwers and would like to wish him the best for the future . 

Year 5/6

Time is absolutely flying by as we head into the final weeks of the school year! We hope that everyone enjoyed the Colour Run Day and there’s still lots of work to be done and many more special events to look forward to. 

In Writing, we have been creating informative presentations about a celebration, holiday, or annual event. Students have been very creative with their presentations; some have even presented to the class! We would congratulate all our 5/6 students on their progress in organising and writing factual, formal and educational sentences.

We’ve also been working on a very exciting final project in Humanities. Our students have been given the task of creating their own theme parks! They’ve been hard at work budgeting, buying, designing, advertising and creating! We can’t wait to see the finished products.

Our Year 6s have begun to practice for their graduation ceremony on the 15th of December, whilst our Year 5s have formed a student choir to celebrate their peers. We are looking forward to our Fun Day on the 13th of December as well!

The Year 5-6 teachers would like to wish all our

 families a happy and safe break. 

Thank you for a wonderful year and best of luck to our

 Year 6 students moving into secondary schooling.

Performing Arts

Over the last few weeks Years 3-6 have been working on creating a Collaborative Artwork that will be part of the ‘Special Forever: Voices of the Children’ exhibition at the Mildura Arts Centre. Special Forever: Voices of the Children is an annual exhibition that encourages Sunraysia students to voice their thoughts, feelings, and visualisation of the world around them through art and writing.

This year’s Special Forever is extremely special as it celebrates the 30th Anniversary of the exhibition, and all the wonderful work from past and present students.

Each student has created a gum leaf which has been added to a gum tree to showcase individuality through its leaves. Representing our multiculturalism, the leaves also feature flags from diverse cultures within our school community, reminding us of our unity as Australians. The artwork also celebrates the beauty of our local surroundings and reminds us of the importance of cherishing and preserving our environment for future generations.

The exhibition is open from Friday 15th of December - Sunday 11th of February in Gallery 4 at Mildura Arts Centre. Entry is free.

More information can be found at the Mildura Arts Centre website.

Years 5/6 have also been busy creating artwork about ‘Christmas time in Robinvale’ for the Sentinel Christmas drawing competition. Everyone did a fantastic job. Keep a lookout in the Sentinel windows for the entries to be displayed. The winner will have their artwork featured on the front page in one of the Christmas Editions 

Branches of Belonging

Special forever exhibition - Mildrua Arts Centre

 Our collaborative artwork ‘Branches of Belonging’ symbolises the connection we have with the environment and the sense of place it provides. Just like the branches of a tree intertwine and support one another, our relationship with nature is essential for our wellbeing and sense of belonging. 

Secondary School Immunisation Program                        Missed school vaccinations 2023

• The Secondary school immunisation program offers free vaccines provided by the National Immunisation Program each year to students in Year 7 (HPV and Diphtheria/Tetanus/Whooping cough) and Year 10 (Meningococcal ACWY)                                                                                  
  
• If your child missed out on receiving their vaccinations at school this year, it's not too late to get vaccinated.

• Free vaccines can be accessed at your local council immunisation service, GP or pharmacist immuniser.

• To see if your child is due for any vaccines, check your child’s immunisation history statement on the Australian Immunisation Register using your MyGov account. Children aged 14 years of age and over can access their own immunisation history statement via MyGov.

2024 School Fees