Dear Families,

I’d like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to everyone involved in making our Athletics Carnival on Monday such a wonderful day for our school community!

To our incredible students – well done for giving your best, cheering each other on, and showing such great sportsmanship throughout the day. Your enthusiasm and team spirit made the carnival a truly memorable event.

To our dedicated staff – thank you for your tireless support, supervision, and encouragement of our students. These events don’t happen without a strong team effort, and I’m so proud of the way you all came together to make the day run smoothly.

To our generous parent helpers – we are so grateful for the time and energy you gave to support the event. Whether you were helping at a station, handing out ribbons, or cheering from the sidelines, your involvement made a big difference.

A very special thank you goes to Mrs Chloe Orchard, our fantastic PE teacher, for her outstanding organisation and leadership throughout the day. Chloe put in an enormous amount of time and effort to plan and run the carnival, and her passion for sport and student participation truly shone through.

Although I was very sad to miss the carnival while on Long Service Leave, I’ve loved hearing all the positive feedback and seeing the smiling faces in the photos. It’s clear it was a day filled with fun, friendship, and sportsmanship.

On Wednesday of last week, our whole school attended the Peace Mass at Sale Catholic College. This is an annual Mass where local Catholic schools gather to pray for peace around the world. You would have been very proud of how beautifully our students represented the school – singing along to the songs while showing great respect and reverence. Thank you to Mrs Burgiel for coordinating our visit to Sale.

You may have noticed that our building works have begun this week. I look forward to giving you regular updates as our new classroom begins to take shape.

Wishing you all a safe and happy weekend with your families.

Kind regards,

Julian

St. Mary's Green Team's collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria to save the critically endangered Craspedia Canens is yielding positive results. Most of our 36 plants have already flowered and all are healthy. Students will fit the flower heads with organza bags in the coming weeks to collect the seeds. Our scientists in training have taken weekly readings of soil temperature and pH along with recording plant development and monitoring for damage. This information is then uploaded to the RBGV. Tash Van Velzen, RBGV outreach officer and facilitator of the program, has praised St. Mary's students' dedication to the project, their team work in building and filling the garden beds and their accuracy in reporting. I am extremely proud of all the enthusiastic students who have volunteered their time to rescue this species. 

Jess Uldrich (Sensei)

We had an amazing time marking our 100th day at school! 
To celebrate, we threw a party, made our very own "100 Days Smarter" crowns, and even drew pictures of what we think we'll look like when we're 100 years old — wrinkles, glasses, moustaches and all!!
What a fun way to reflect on how far we've come!