Welcome back for the final term of 2024. I hope you all enjoyed some dedicated family time over the holiday break.

We have an action-packed term planned, so please keep a close eye on the calendar and newsletter for information, dates and updates.

A reminder that School Hats are a compulsory element of the Summer Uniform. The new girl's summer shirts have been delayed but should be here within the week.

Congratulations

Our school community welcomes another member of the Chapple family! Piper-Lee (K) along with Tahnee, Jono and Isla were blessed with a healthy baby girl to add to their family. Elsie Mae was born on Thursday 10 October and is the fifth grandchild for Mrs Romer.

Kindergarten/Year One Showcase

Congratulations to our Kinder and Year One students and their wonderful teachers for a fantastic Showcase to finish off Term Three. We hope you enjoyed it as much as they enjoyed presenting it to you.

#ST MARY'S REPRESENTS

MACKILLOP GOLF

Congratulations to Jaydan Costello and Henry Galland who competed at the NSWPSSA State Golf Carnival last term at Hunter Valley Golf Course. They represented their school and Dioceses with pride and are to be commended on their sportsmanship and commitment to their sport.

From Tuesday 17 to Thursday 19 September 2024, the MacKillop Golf Team travelled to Hunter Valley Golf Course to compete in the NSW PSSA State Championships. 

The event is scored over 2 rounds of golf for individuals (Gross and Nett) and for teams (Gross and Nett, top 3 boy scores and top girl score), as well as beginning with an Ambrose Competition on Day 1. The MacKillop team finished in 2nd place in the Stroke Event out of 9 teams which was a great effort given the quality of teams participating. Well done MacKillop, this was a great team effort with contributions from all team members!

Special mention to Jaydan who was selected in the NSWPSSA Golf Team to represent at the School Sport Australia Championships in November.

INTERSCHOOL EQUESTRIAN

During the school holidays, four students from St Mary's competed at the Berry lnterschool Equestrian Championships.

Grace and Joe McCormack, along with Sophie and Tommy Culley, competed for three full days, participating in show jumping, dressage, sporting, and flatwork.

At the end of the very long weekend, the kids came away with a swag of ribbons and rosettes.

 Grace was crowned primary school sporting champion, while Tommy received reserve primary sporting champion.

Tommy was awarded champion overall for year 2 and Grace was reserve champion for year 5.

Joe was brilliant in the sporting, with numerous first places and fourth places in Showjumping, which he had never competed in before.

Sophie gained a number of ribbons in the sporting and second places in her show jumping rounds.

Overall, the kids had an amazing time and made St Mary's and their parents very proud when they won overall Primary School  Champions, which was no mean feat for four kids with 180 students participating over the weekend.

CONGRATULATIONS and well done.

MACKILLOP CRICKET

Year Six student, Henry Galland, is in Armidale this week competing as the Captain of the Mackiilop Cricket Team at the NSWPSSA Cricket Championships. Results to date are positive with wins and Henry posting 62 runs in their first game against North West, Mackillop bowling Hunter out for 36 yesterday and posting 8/125 today against Riverina. Impressive results !

Updated results will be communicated upon completion of the NSWPSSA event.

Upcoming Events

Boorowa Touch Football and Netball Carnival

Grandparents Day

On Friday, 15 November, we invite our parents, carers, grandparents and special friends to St Mary's to share our Grandparents Day. The day will commence with Mass at 9.30am. Following Mass, our visitors are invited to visit with their grandchildren in their classrooms, see their wonderful work and participate in some fun class activities. Following that we will move to the MP Hall for morning tea. After morning tea, our students will perform their amazing skipping skills to music. This will be presented on the Basketball Court at the Bottom Playground. Seating and shade will be provided and we are sure you will be blown away by the skill and expertise of our skipping students!

Also, St Mary's is renowned for its incredible morning tea spreads; let us not disappoint this year. We ask families to donate a plate of food to share on this special day. Our Year 6 families, coordinated by Rechell and Reane, are asked to support with the setting up and serving of morning tea.

Please mark this date on your calendar.

Absences

CE has brought to attention the emerging absenteeism increase across the Canberra-Goulburn schools, particularly since COVID-19.

St Mary's absenteeism rates are the highest they have ever been. We realise this is partly due to parents' vigilance with keeping sick children home (thank you); however, it is also related to additional days off for family travel and long weekends. 

The following information outlines the absenteeism categories and our current rates across each grade for Term 3. The CECG attendance target is 90%.

The other noteworthy fact is that 17% of student absences for the year remain unexplained. This equals to 365 separate unexplained absences in total!

** Please check your child's status by logging onto the parent portal, looking at the "Attendance" tab, and updating any explained dates **

An automatic email will be sent to parents at 10am each day if your child is marked absent without an explanation, asking for the notification to be completed by logging onto the parent portal. This is an easy process once you get the hang of it. Let's work together to improve our statistics this term. 

Catholic Education Canberra Goulburn has asked each school to aim to achieve a rating of 90% this term; let's see if we can blitz that! 

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact the Office.

If you make contact with the teacher directly about your child's absence, please include Belinda in the Office as she is the one who enters the information into Compass.

Operation Christmas Child

This year every class has one box to fill. In order to have boxes packed and ready for collection to be sent overseas, items for Operation Christmas Child can kindly be sent to school asap as they will be collected on Friday 1 November.

Below are ideas for items that can be donated.