Newsletter - 5th March 2025

Acknowledgement of Country

We respectfully acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Wadawurrung people.  It is a privilege to be standing on Wadawurrung country.  

We pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.  We acknowledge the contributions of Indigenous Peoples from the past, present and future who contribute to this country in which we live.  

May Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians continue to work together to educate, unite and live in peace on this land we call home, Australia.

Upcoming Events

7th March:  Swim & Gym Lessons

8th March:  International Women's Day

10th March:  Labour Day Public Holiday

11th March:  School Closure Day - Staff Professional Development

12th - 13th March:  NAPLAN testing

14th March:  Swim & Gym Lessons

21st March:  Last Swim & Gym Lessons

25th March:  Celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, 5:30pm-6:30pm

4th April:  End of Term 1

18th April:  Good Friday

20th April:  Easter Sunday

21st April:  Easter Monday Public Holiday

22nd April:  Start of Term 2 - School Closure Day - Staff Professional Development

23rd April:  Students return; Inform & Empower Parent Information Session, 7pm at Doug Lindsay Recreation Reserve, Creswick

25th April:  ANZAC Day Public Holiday

Prayer

Messages from the Principal

ASH WEDNESDAY

Today we celebrate Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of the Catholic Church’s season of Lent. Lent prepares us for the season of Easter, the most important time in the Church’s calendar. By praying, fasting and giving alms, we are reminded of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We were delighted to celebrate Ash Wednesday at Ballan with Fr Justin and the staff and students from St Brigid’s, where the blessed Ashes were distributed to all.

STALL AT SUNFLOWER FARM

A huge thank you to Melinda and Bryden for their hard work and dedication at our stall at the Dunnstown Sunflower Farm on Saturday. Their efforts truly made our presence there a success, and I appreciate the time and energy you both invested in making it such a memorable experience for everyone who visited.

Thank you also to Melinda’s mum, Shirley, who helped out for the whole day and Ben G and Ben P for helping with the setting up and packing up.

QUESTACON SCIENCE CIRCUS

On Monday our students had an unforgettable experience at the Questacon Science Incursion, where they delved into the fascinating worlds of forces and bubbles. The interactive exhibits allowed them to explore the structures needed to put into place to build a bridge, while the bubble experiments revealed the wonders of surface tension and fluid dynamics.

The hands-on activities not only captivated our young learners but also provided valuable insights into scientific principles. We are grateful for the opportunity to engage with Questacon's programs, which inspire a love for science and learning. The students left with big smiles and a newfound appreciation for the magic of science!

The Questacon Science Circus will be running events at Ballarat High School this weekend, March 8 & 9.  Please see the flyer below for information regarding free tickets and event times.

2025 LUNCH ORDERS

Lunch orders will commence again this term on Monday, 17th March and be delivered fortnightly.  A separate note is attached with this newsletter,  with the specific dates and prices on it. 

A reminder that lunch orders need to be in at school on the Thursday before.  The correct money in an envelope is required.

NAPLAN 2025 

Students in Year 3 and Year 5 will be involved in the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) this term. The assessments are completed online (except for Year 3 Writing which is completed on paper), which allows them to be adaptive and give a more accurate measure of student progress. The dates and assessments are as follows: 

• Wednesday 12th March - Reading and Writing 
• Thursday 13th March - Conventions of Language and Numeracy. 

We encourage all students to view NAPLAN tests as an opportunity to show what they know and not to allow these assessments to cause any stress or concern.

FOOTY TIPPING

Are you interested in joining the St Mary’s Legends footy tipping competition. There is no entrance fee, it is just for fun. 

Can you win the bragging rights at the end of the season and be the winner of the inaugural St Mary’s tipping competition? Can you tip more than your kids? Can you beat the teacher?  Everyone is welcome to join.  There’ll be a small prize for the leader mid season and also at the end of the season.  

Here’s the link to join https://www.footytips.com.au/comps/st_marys_legends&p=legends and the password is legends.

Get tipping and have fun!

OUT OF SCHOOL HOURS CARE

Bungaree Primary School invites families from St Mary’s to attend ‘Bunga Buddies’ after school care at their school.  If you are looking for after school care, please call the school on 5334 0253 or email them on bungaree.ps@education.vic.gov.au with your details.  

God bless,

Clare

News from the Banksia Room

It has been another busy couple of weeks, with lots of learning and different activities taking place. 

PhOrMeS (Will)

Each day we do PhOrMeS. It really helps us with our spelling and reading. Each day we review what we have already learnt and this helps us because by doing it over and over again we get it locked in our brain. We have a take two for the people who need it a couple more times. Last week we were focussing on ‘adding s when using the 3rd person singular’.

AUSLAN (Kaezia and Emilia)

In Auslan we learn the Auslan signing alphabet with Renee.  Renee helps us on Zoom every Mon day and Thursday.  We also do basic signs such as please,  thank you, where, what, which and who. Each morning we  are able to communicate in Auslan to each other and it helps us talk to the deaf community. We have all  learnt to spell our names in Auslan.  We would love to show you, so why not ask us to sign our names to you.

SWIMMING (Ellie)

We have been swimming at the Aquatic Centre on Fridays.  We have been put in groups. 

In my group there is Kaezia, William, Vanessa, Abbey and Addy.

We all did freestyle and we had to go through a hula hoop, then on the way back we had to get the sinky at the bottom of the pool. We all had so much fun!

GYM (Vanessa and Skyler)

After swimming and lunch. We go to the gym. We meet our teacher Lilly. She shows us what to do. We are in groups of 2 . We have  fun at the gym.  We start at the gym at 1:00 and finish at 2:00.  We have  it from week 4 to week 9 when we finish the gym. 

My favourite gym activity last week was jumping into the foam pit.

RESPONSIBLE PET EDUCATION (Adelaide)

Last week we met a girl named Tracy and she brought a cute corgi named Bebe to school.  She taught us how to pat a dog safely if you don’t know them. First you need to take 3 steps back and ask the owner if you can pat their dog,  let them sniff your hand, then move your hand to the side of them and pat from their collar down their back. Don’t pat their head.

If a scary dog is after you, stop, put your  hands by your side and look at the ground and be as quiet as a mouse.

TENNIS (Pat)

This term we are doing tennis with Jo. She is teaching us our back and front hand hits. We have our own tennis nets that are easy to put up. It only takes five minutes to set up. We had fun playing tennis games  like Tennis Four Square. We also learnt a game where we got points by hitting  cones and tennis rackets with the tennis ball.

STEAM

This term our focus is Science. We have completed our first experiment, finding out if custard is a liquid or a solid. We predicted that it would be a liquid.

After the experiment we discovered that it could be a liquid or a solid. It depended on how much water we added to the custard powder. 

Gumnut Room News

QUESTACON SCIENCE CIRCUS

On Monday, Corey and Sam from the Questacon Science Circus came to St Mary's to show us all the great things relating to science.

Skyler said today was her best day ever in her whole life!!  She couldn't believe she was inside a bubble!

Genevieve loved learning about bridges!

There was definitely lots of fun at our Questacon incursion.

SHROVE TUESDAY

Students in the Gumnut Room were very busy on Shrove Tuesday!  As our friends from Playgroup were at school, we were able to share pancakes with them, along with a story.  It was lovely to spend time with our smaller friends.

Sarah then helped us make our own pancakes in the staffroom.  We shared these with Clare.  It was a great day!

Sacramental Program

Will and Adelaide are preparing to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This is one of the healing sacraments. They will learn about making the right choices so that their relationships with others are good. They will learn that if ever they do make a poor choice, they can say sorry and ask for forgiveness. Reconciliation is when the relationship is healed and they can get back on to having fun again.

Please think about Adelaide and Will as they prepare for this Sacrament  along with other children in the Ballan, Gordon and Bungaree Parishes.

Inform and Empower

Each term we participate in an online session with Inform and Empower. The sessions are live streamed and we love hearing our school name mentioned.

The Banksia Room session for Term 1 was "Adventures Online", with the learning focusing on what the internet is and how it works. We also explored the rights and responsibilities of digital citizens. See the attached parent info sheet for more information.

The Gumnut Room session for Term 1 was "The Internet and You". We focused on what the internet is and how listening to our body is important. We also learnt how trusted adults help keep us safe online.  See the attached parent info sheet for more information.

Child Safety Information

As is stated on our Vision and Mission, our schools ‘…are committed to the safety, wellbeing and inclusion of all children and young people.’ Our procedures and policies are now in line with the 11 Child Safe Standards and can be found on the St Mary's website under the tab – Child Safety.

Child Safe Standard 1:   Culturally Safe Environments

Organisations establish a culturally safe environment in which the diverse and unique identities and experiences of Aboriginal children and young people are respected and valued.

Child Safe Standard 2:   Child Safety and Wellbeing is embedded in Leadership, Governance and Culture

Child safety and wellbeing is embedded in organisational leadership, governance and culture.  Our Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy confirms the school's commitment to child safety and includes a plan to ensure a child-safe culture is championed and implemented across the school.