Week 3, Term 1 2023 - 7th February 2023

Principal's Reflection

Each year, St Mary’s sets priorities and goals to focus and guide the work of all school stakeholders.  Our 2023 school goals are listed below for your reference:

The formation of these goals began late last year and builds upon the 2022 goals. 

The goal formation process involved analysis of various school data as well as extensive consultation of teaching staff, School Board and senior leaders from Rockhampton Catholic Education.  Our school leadership team (Wes Rose, Belinda Battaia and Terri Leotta) also participated in the regional strategic planning day, which further helped refine our goals and assisted with alignment of common goals across our Mackay schools.

From this process, we have written four goals that I believe are relevant and meaningful to our school community.  I provide some commentary on each domain’s goal below;

• Catholic Identity. This goal aims to make explicit the Christian inspiration for people having active involvement in the things that affect them. For our parents and students, this means active participation and genuine engagement in the learning activities and the life of the school.  This continues our focus of the Catholic Church’s Catholic Social Teachings and links nicely with domains 3 and 4.  Terri Leotta wrote about this topic in last week’s newsletter, please have a read for further information.
• Effective Teaching and Learning. The focus on deepening mathematical understanding is in response to our academic data. Year on year, our whole-school Maths report card data shows that whilst the vast majority of students are at/above year level expectation, our percentage of students achieving substantially above expectation on other disgnostic maths tests (NAPLAN/PAT-Maths) is not as high as we would like.  As a whole school, we are investigating innovative teaching approaches to both stimulate and challenge deep mathematical thinking, which will hopefully convert into higher achievement for students.
• Pastoral Support and Wellbeing. Linking closely with Domain 1, our focus on developing student voice is a worthy goal.  We want students to have agency in decision-making in real and practical ways about their learning and the life of the school. 
• Leadership, Partnerships and Resourcing. A strong partnership between home and school is an important ingredient in student success.  Having engaged parents, who are both informed about the learning progress of their child, and feel like a valued member of the community, enhances the educational offering of the school.  Again, there is a clear link between this goal and the Catholic Identity goal.

I hope that you agree that these goals are relevant and meaningful for our school and look forward to working cooperatively to achieve our targets.

All the very best,

Wes Rose
Principal

From our Principal - Mr Wes Rose

Parent-Teacher Interviews
A good working relationship between home and school is an essential part of a positive schooling experience.  St Mary’s fosters this home-school relationship early in the school year with the parent-teacher interview. These interviews are being held this week, and are a time for teachers and parents to discuss a child’s needs, goals and other pertinent information.  I urge all parents to schedule an interview time with their child’s teacher.  Booking via this link.

Just 1 thing
Positive parent engagement in a child’s education is critical to achieve the very best of educational outcomes.  To assist the school and P&F to engage parents in their preferred ways, we ask that all parents complete this short, 1-minute survey. This survey will be open until Friday 17^th Feb.  The ‘Just 1 Thing’ campaign was hugely successful last year, with over 160 families submitting a response. 

We have received 115 responses to our just 1 thing campaign thus far.  It is our aim to achieve over 200 responses this year, so please make time to consider the ways to can be involved in your child’s education at St Mary’s school.  Please see below a graph of entries by class. Well done to Prep R for being the class with the most responses.  There is still two weeks to go, so let’s see which class can get the most responses!

If you have any questions, please contact the school office. Complete the survey here.

Diocesan Director Visit
This Friday afternoon we welcome our Diocesan Director of Catholic Education, Miss Leesa Jeffcoat.  During her visit, Leesa will tour the school, visit classes and meet with various school personnel.  I extend a warm welcome to Leesa and thank her for visiting our school.

Interschool Touch Football Term 1 Competition
Students who returned their touch footy note have been placed into teams, which were posted at school today.  A reminder that the first round of games starting on Wednesday 15^th February.   Please note that unfortunately there will not be any school training sessions this year, due to time constraints and other commitments.  Further announcements and game times will be communicated through our St Mary’s Facebook page. Thanks for your support!

School TV
St Mary’s is very excited to introduce a new initiative to help support the wellbeing of our students. After all, happy and well supported students are better equipped to learn and succeed.

We know that it can be difficult and time consuming for parents to source credible information when it comes to ongoing wellbeing support strategies for their children.   To aid with this we have partnered with SchoolTV, an online resource designed to empower parents to better deal with the challenges for raising happy, well and resilient young people.

Because parenting doesn't come with instructions, the SchoolTV resource has now been implemented at our school to assist parents and caregivers in navigating the challenges of modern-day parenting. This outstanding resource delivers credible information with practical strategies featuring video interviews with leading specialists, supported by a host of resources from key wellbeing organisations.

SchoolTV offers parents a fresh approach to the issues and pressures faced by children and young people in our communities throughout Australia.

Some topics featured include:

• Youth Anxiety
• Raising Girls
• School Refusal
• Positive Parenting
• Digital Reputation
• Managing Screen Time
• Cyberbullying

We encourage you to visit our SchoolTV site and view the content but more importantly use this resource if and when needed to support your child and family through particular needs as they may arise. At a time when the wellbeing of our youth has never been more challenged, we are pleased to be able to offer this accessible, credible and empowering resource to our families.

Many thanks again to the support provided by Catholic Education Rockhampton Northern Region to get this up and running across all schools in the region.

Quote of the Week

Reminder! School Photo Day Tomorrow

Please note that this year’s school photos are scheduled for tomorrow, (Wednesday 8th Feb). Students are to wear their formal school uniform (Preps to wear their prep uniform), including all-black shoes and ensure their hair is neat and tidy. Photo order packs have been sent home with students; please ensure your child returns these by photo day.

Welcome Mass 2023

All parents and carers are invited to attend our Opening School Mass
next Tuesday 14th February at 8:45am in the School Hall.

Book Club Orders

PLEASE NOTE: The new brochures for 2023 are newspaper style rather than the normal glossy brochures we are used to receiving.  

Parent Volunteer Induction

A huge thank you to all the parents who take time out of their busy lives to volunteer at St Mary’s Catholic Primary School.  In order to volunteer at St Mary’s, please read the 2023 Induction of Volunteers Guidelines (attached) and complete the google form.  

It is our hope that all parents complete this induction package and complete the acknowledgement via the google form.  If you have any questions, please contact the school office.

Safer Internet Day

Safer Internet Day is a worldwide event that raises awareness about online safety and encourages everyone to help create a better internet. This year Safer Internet Day takes place on Tuesday 7th February and the theme for this year’s event is “Want to talk about it?”.

Parents, caregivers, educators and the wider community can all play a part in ensuring that our youth have safe and enjoyable experiences online.  Resources available for parents can be found at eSafety Parents and include practical skills and advise for tackling the big issues such as time online, cyberbullying, digital reputation and understanding consent.  The students of St Mary’s learn about being safe online through classroom conversations, our school code of conduct and the Daniel Morcombe curriculum but we encourage you to “start the chat – and help make every day a Safer Internet Day!”

A Message from our School Counsellor

Welcome back to the 2023 school year!

During my time as school counsellor here at St Mary’s, I have noticed that many children seek assistance from parents or teachers when things go wrong, as they may lack the skills to navigate problems that arise at times on their own. As with general subject areas, we need to teach students these skills so that they can become more independent as they grow.

Over the past two weeks, I have been visiting classrooms from years 3 to 6 to discuss and teach children strategies to improve their problem-solving skills and encourage them to develop their independence. I am attempting to create a whole school language around the concept of ‘Coping Tools’ so that as educators and parents, we can support students with their ability to develop resilience and overcome small hurdles that they encounter in their day to day lives – either in the school environment, at home or during their extra-curricular activities.

I will be visiting prep to year 2 classrooms in week five and six to introduce a smaller, five point ‘Coping Tools’ list for them to focus on. If you have a child in these years, their tools will focus on coping tools 1, 3, 5, 6 and 9 (see below).

Students in years 3 to 6 have been challenged with the task of attempting to engage one or two of the following tools AFTER they have focused on their feelings and BEFORE they ask for help. I ask parents to encourage students to discuss these tools at home so that students become more familiar with them and begin to use them frequently and automatically. As adults, they are a reminder that we too can lead by example and acknowledge that the coping tools help us to negotiate problems that are faced.

The idea is that when students come to you with a problem, you can ask them which tools they have tried to use, creating a conversation around the best way to handle a problem and allowing them to develop their skills ready for the next issue that may arise.

Wendy Parker
School Counsellor

Sport News

Congratulations to Tommy Louw and Jimmy Rogers who were selected in the Mackay District 10-12 boys Cricket team. The boys are trying out for the Capricornia team this week. Good luck boys.

Simone Sibley
HPE Teacher

Run Club

RUN CLUB BEGINS THIS WEEK!

P-6 student ALL welcome
Time: 3.00pm-3.45pm
What to bring:  Comfortable shoes for running, hat, water bottle and a ‘have a go’ attitude
Where: Please meet under the big shady tree on the school oval.

Run training is highly beneficial in building fitness in other sports eg. football, soccer, basketball.

See you there!

Mrs Dalglish, Mrs Sibley & Mrs McGovern.

Student of the Week

Week 1, Term 1 Student Award Winners

Week 2, Term 1 Student Award Winners

Community News