Principal's News

Who Said Science Can't Be Fun?

Children are born scientists. They are naturally curious; they look at the world around them and develop their own ideas based on what they see and hear every day.

Wanting to know about where things come from, why things happen, how things are made are a part of your child’s everyday experiences. Your child’s natural curiosity generates lots of questions. No doubt you’ve already fielded questions about why the sun shines, how volcanoes erupt, how plants grow, where stars come from and how the weather works.

The more your child learns about the world around them, the more amazing everything seems. Keeping that sense of amazement, curiosity and discovery is what we want every child – and every adult – to experience throughout their life.

Last Tuesday evening St. Mary’s held its School Advisory Council Annual General Meeting. I would like to pass on a big thank you to our retiring council members of 2012.  To Kaine Hazlett, Joel Davies and Mandy Hinton I pass on my gratitude for the significant contributions that they have made to the success of the School Advisory Council over their tenure.

We welcome to our School Advisory Council three new members; Noel Meney, David Girdwood and Jason Perry. We look forward to working with them over the next two years and thank them for making the commitment to support our school.

Congratulations to Catherine Howison who has accepted the position of Chairperson, Carolyn Zambelli Vice Chairperson and Joe Dorigo as Secretary.

The new email version of our St. Mary's School Newsletter is still in the development phase. We hope that the electronic format will allow for better communication between home and school with the ability to regularly add photos and other relevant content. We welcome your feedback and thoughts on this new format. Please email comments to principal@smswanhill.catholic.edu.au 

Our Prep children and their families will be leading the Mass at church on Sunday 13th for Mother’s Day. It would be great to see as many people there as possible as we celebrate and give thanks for our terrific mums.

Enrolments are now open for children who start Prep in 2013. Interviews for new families will take place in Term 2 and existing families in Term 3. Parents of existing families who have a child to start in 2013 please complete the slip on the newsletter today and return it to the office so an enrolment form can be forwarded to you.

On Friday 11^th May we will be holding an Open Day from 9:30am for families with children enrolling in Prep in 2013. Open Day is a chance for prospective parents to have a look around our beautiful school, particularly our vibrant prep classrooms and to gather information about St. Mary's.

St. Mary’s Flying Start - A school familiarization program for PRE- SCHOOL CHILDREN

Come and experience life at St. Mary’s enjoying our “Get Reading Right” Phonics, Music, Italian and Digital Literacy Programs for children.

This FREE program will be run in Term 2 and 3 on Friday mornings from 9:30 to 11:00 for all interested families.

Please contact the school office for an enrolment form or for further enquiries phone Mr. Paul Bissinella on 03 50332541 Email principal@smswanhill.catholic.edu.au or visit http://www.smswanhill.catholic.edu.au

Parent's Car Park

Just a reminder to everyone that we continue to use the Murlong Street car park as our parent car park. For the safety of all the children, please make sure you are using the car parking spaces.

Parents must park their cars in either the first or second bay of the front carpark and walk their children across the bus bay.  In the morning there will be a teacher on duty to assist with the process of walking children across the bus bay.

At 3.15pm children that are town bus travellers will be dismissed. At 3.20pm country bus travellers will be dismissed. At 3.25pm car travellers will be dismissed.  No parents or students will be allowed to cross the bus bay between 3.10pm and 3.25pm.  Teachers will be on duty to ensure student and parent safety. 

Parents collecting their children are asked to arrive at 3.25pm, park in one of the allotted spaces and walk into the grassed area at the front of the school to collect their child.  If parents wish to collect their children from the room they must be parked and across the bus bay before 3.10pm and wait on the grassed area until after 3.25pm to cross the bus bay.

The St. Mary’s Way

Last year our St. Mary’s teachers researched and participated in Professional Learning to develop a whole school Behaviour Management program. We based our investigations on Lee Canter’s Assertive Discipline research and have developed a set of rules and consequences that we are going to promote in both the classroom and playground. The ultimate aim of the program is to teach all the children to manage their behaviour well thus allowing them to focus on their learning and to build positive relationships.

At St. Mary’s we:

• Follow adult instructions immediately
• Keep hands, feet and objects to ourselves
• Do not call out
• Do not swear,  tease or call others names