Term 3 Week 8 | 28 August 2024

Principal - Ms Katrina Dunne

Charleville Performing Arts Festival

I am honoured to have shared in the performing arts performances from Thursday – Sunday last week/end. St Mary’s School was hugely represented at the festival, and it was exciting to see our talented students, (and our talented parents), performing on the stage.  I take a moment to thank our teachers and school staff for their dedication to these performances and supporting opportunities for our students to showcase their talents at the festival.

Staffing changes 2025

Staffing changes were shared on the Parent Portal this week. Please be sure to be checking and engaging with all information shared each day/week on Parent Portal. If your Portal application is not working, be sure to have this rectified as soon as possible. We invite you to bring your device to the school office for support with addressing this issue if so.

2025 Enrolment and Class Planning

Class arrangements and planning for 2025 is underway. If you know that you will not be returning to St Mary’s in 2025, please let Loretta or Deidre, (at the school office), know at your earliest convenience. The number of class teachers and the year level class model is directly linked to the number of students in the school.

St Mary’s Fete – 6 weeks to go!

SAVE THE DATE | Friday 11^th October 2024

Vanessa Alexander is the fete coordinator this year. Only six weeks to go! Vanessa has scheduled a weekly fete meeting WEDNESDAYS 4:30-5:30pm. Please join us in person in the staffroom, or via TEAMs link below. Let’s create a successful fete for 2024.

Join the meeting now

Meeting ID: 477 791 503 263

Passcode: H9grbM

Parent-Teacher Interviews  

Parent-teacher interviews are occurring across all year levels. I strongly urge all parents to engage with their child’s teacher to discuss their child’s progress. If you have missed the booking window on the Parent Portal, please contact your child’s teacher to arrange an interview before the end of term. These meetings are crucial for understanding your child’s academic and social-emotional development, and I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity.

School Fees are due – Fee Relief will be applied in Term 4 to all balanced accounts

The school has been granted Choice and Affordability funding from the Australian Government through Toowoomba Catholic Schools Office. These funds will be used to offer families with up-to-date fee accounts a $200 fee relief for each child enrolled at the school. This relief credit will be applied in Week 1 of Term 4. Please ensure your fee invoices for 2024 (Terms 1, 2 and 3) have been paid to receive this fee relief.

Parent Engagement Network  

I am excited to share that we are in the process of forming our school’s Parent Engagement Network (PEN). Communication will be shared with the school community regarding the formation of our PEN later this week. This network aims to foster greater collaboration and engagement between parents, teachers, and the school leadership. We look forward to your participation and input in this important initiative.  

Principal Review | Term 4 Week 1

Next term, I will be engaging in a Principal summative performance appraisal in line with Toowoomba Catholic School’s (TCS) focus on professional recognition and development, as this is my fourth year as Principal at St Mary’s School.

A Principal’s summative performance appraisal occurs in the final year of their contract and is based on outcomes of their annual performance reviews and school-based data.

The appraisal will be conducted by a Panel consisting of the TCS Senior Education Leader and a peer principal. It will consist of a self-review, a 360-degree survey completed by school staff and parents along with individual or focus group interviews.

Based on the outcomes of these review tools, the Panel will produce a written report outlining their findings and providing feedback to the Principal for continued and future professional learning. These outcomes will also be communicated with the school community.

To assist with my appraisal, I invite all school staff and parents to participate in the 360-degree survey. This survey is an externally validated perception survey that will be compiled to allow for anonymous feedback around the leadership dimensions of religion, education, organisational skills, strategic planning, staff and community engagement and general leadership capabilities. The survey will be emailed to all school staff and many families over the coming weeks.

Interviews/focus groups with staff, parent representatives and myself will also occur as part of the appraisal. Requested interviewees will be contacted via email over the coming weeks to confirm their availability. If you would like to be part of these focus groups, please email me directly and I will arrange timings with the Panel.  Consideration will be given to hold these interviews via video conference or phone calls, if face to face is not achievable. 

Once again, I encourage all school staff and parents to complete the 360-degree survey and provide open and honest feedback on my leadership as Principal in the school. I look forward to engaging in this process with you all, an opportunity for review and reflection to acknowledge and improve what I bring to our school.

Have a wonderful fortnight.

Kind regards,

Katrina

APRE - Mrs Kirsty Lines

Grandparents Celebration

Our annual celebration of grandparents and special people in our students’ lives is coming up on Monday, 9^th September. Grandparents' liturgy begins at 9:30am, with students from every class participating.  This is a beloved tradition of our school, with students able to sit with their families during the liturgy.  After the liturgy we open our classrooms and students have the opportunity to show their learning to their grandparents, followed by a shared morning tea.  We would love to see you there to share in this special event.  Please see flyer below.

Prayer Assemblies

With the term drawing to a close, we have the Year 4 and 6 classes combining for a Prayer Assembly this coming Thursday, at 11:10am in the PAH.  Thank you for your ongoing support of our students at assemblies.  They love seeing their loved ones  - a special memory for parents and grandparents to cherish in years to come. 

Wishing you all a blessed and peaceful fortnight,

Kirsty Lines

APRE

The Arts - Mrs Leilani Thomas

A jolly job well done to our performers who competed in this year's Charleville Performing Arts Festival. St Mary’s entered a total of 21 group performances with many of our students also competing in trios, duets, and solos across Speech & Drama, Music, Dance, and Vocals. To say I am proud is a tremendous understatement. Our children were spectacular and exceeded my expectations. I extend my congratulations and thanks to our parents and teachers who performed beautifully. It was a thoroughly entertaining year, that is for sure! I would like to particularly thank Mrs. Vanessa Alexander and Ms. Katherine Spalding who also volunteered throughout the weekend and helped the festival, the amazing event it is.

Of course, if you have any feedback, of any kind, please forward it on to me so we can work to make next year’s event even better!

Now the Arts classroom will be focusing on our assessment pieces in creating, choreographing, filming and composing, a fabulous way to see out the term.

Year 3 - Miss Katherine Spalding

My goodness the term has gone quickly. We have been very busy in Year Three. First up, I would love to acknowledge the amazing work of the year threes during the Performing Arts Festival. We were awarded silver for our ‘Circle of Life’ song and GOLD for our poem ‘The longest journey in the world’. They did such an amazing job that they were welcomed back to perform for the Gala. A huge thank you to the students, (and parents), who put on the school uniform on a Sunday and came to perform the poem again.

In week seven, we had the responsibility of leading the ‘Assumption of Mary’ liturgy at the church. The students were beautifully respectful and did a very mature job in sharing this feast day for our school’s parish.

We have also invited some experts into our classroom to share their knowledge. As we have been learning about narratives, Mrs Alexander shared how she has written and published her very own book! We are very excited to see her published book of ‘Someone’. We also had Sophie and Clara, who have recently made their first communion, share their knowledge as we learn about sacraments in the Catholic Church.

And even though the Olympics have finished, our Olympic spirit is still strong. During our buddy time, we have been competing in some friendly games with our prep buddies.

Looking forward to a strong finish to the term and a relaxing holiday ahead!

Year 4 - Mrs Madisen Flaherty

Hello to all our families,

We are well and truly on our way to the end of Term Three! We have been busy in Year Four starting our assessments and continuing with our team building activities. 

Last week the Year Four students participated in the Charleville Performing Arts Festival. The class received a highly commended for their ‘Where You Are’ chorale piece and a second place for their poem ‘Someone’ by Mrs Alexander. The students did a great job conducting themselves and representing St Mary’s throughout this process! 

I wish you all a safe and happy holiday if I do not speak with you before the term ends and look forward to liaising with you again in Term Four.

Mrs Flaherty

Year 5 - Miss Holly Price

Year 6 - Miss Taylor Morrison

The Term 3 homestretch begins!

Welcome to Week 8.

We have had a fun-filled few weeks in Year 6 and the learning never stops!

Our senior students did a fabulous job assisting with the Variety Bash in Week 6. See photos below.

Last week, we celebrated our Year 6’s last St Mary’s Book Week.

We also took part in the Charleville State High School Transition Day. We loved getting to know some of our future teachers and peers!

Additionally, we performed in the Charleville Performing Arts Festival. How fun!

This week, I look forward to catching up with parents and guardians to discuss how far our students have come this year!

On Thursday 29^th August, our Year 4 and 6 classes will share their Prayer Assembly, ‘Living in Community’ at 11:10am in the Performing Arts Hall. We would love for you to join us!

Until next time,

Miss Morrison, Mr Thompson and the Year 6 Crew

August Birthdays

Flyers

I would just like to take this time to reach out and let you know we have National Bilby Day coming up on 8^th September and would love to see you all there.

We would just like to throw out the idea of having some of your student’s talent join us on the day, whether it be a baking stall, handmade items stall, talent to share, or a music option.

Charleville Visitor Information Centre

9:30am Setup

10:00am – 2:00pm operation

We will have a colouring competition for the students to participate in. We ask they bring the completed colouring on National Bilby Day and receive a prize.

Everyone will be a winner on the day!

We will send out the colouring competition on Monday 2^nd September or this can be collected from the Visitor Information Centre.  

If you, or someone you know, is interested in joining us as a stall holder on the day, please contact me on 07 4656 8359 or email Teisha_Boland@murweh.qld.gov.au