Dear Parents/Guardians 

Welcome back to Term 3!  I hope that students, parents and families enjoyed a relaxing, and restorative break.   

Term 3 Opportunities 

Students at St Marys District School access their learning through multiple avenues. As well as completing learning in class teacher learning spaces, our students have the opportunity to access learning in other amazing learning spaces across the school. These include our specialist Science, Foods, Visual Art, Music, Performing Arts, Technology and Physical Education classrooms along with the school farm. Supplementing the learning that occurs onsite, this term St Marys District School students will be participating in the following additional learning activities and excursions. 

Australian Maritime College visit 

Book Week events and activities 

ENE Country Gold Trials 

The Drug and Education Network workshops 

Bravehearts 

Parent/Student/Teacher Conversations 

Footy Colours Day 

Netball Championships 

National Day of Action for the Prevention of Bullying and Violence 

Newstead College Production 

Terrapin Puppets Performance 

AFL Gala Day 

Pyengana Dairy Excursion 

Rock Challenge 

RUOK Day 

Student Wellbeing and Engagement Survey 

Fire Education 

Winter Sports including a Home Round 

Grade 8 Youth Mental Health First Aid 

Paraquad Wheelchair Basketball 

Thank you to our staff and school leaders for their proactive approach to seeking additional opportunities to extend and enhance learning for every student! 

Book Week 

This year’s book week theme is: ‘Book an Adventure!” 

To celebrate book week, on Tuesday 19 August all students from Kinder to Year 12 are invited to dress up and wear a costume based around the theme Book an Adventure or their favourite book or book character. I’m looking forward to seeing a wide range of ‘characters’ at school and on parade on the day. Students will also be engaging in other Book Week activities during Book Week including our annual Book Fair.

Attendance

Congratulations to students and families for the significant improvements we are seeing in student attendance data. With so many fantastic opportunities available this term and lots of learning to be done and connections to be made or strengthened, it is important for all students to be at school every day, unless they are feeling unwell. Being at school each day provides students with purpose and regular routine, and these in turn support wellbeing.  If you need any help or assistance in supporting your child/ren’s attendance at school, please contact us through the office on 63723900. 

Carolyn Watson

Principal

In the last few weeks of Term 2, students with a commitment to their own personal wellbeing and recognising how effective physical movement is for achieving positive mental, took Miss Bramich’s invitation to enjoy playing table tennis with friends during recess and lunch breaks.  

These table tennis opportunities were not offered as a formal teaching session by Miss Bramich but for students to engage with their friends in a physical activity in a fun and relaxed environment.   

These photos demonstrate the relaxed, respectful and engaging participation by the students who attended.   It is hoped to offer this opportunity again this term. 

Miss Bramich

On Wednesday 30 July, St Marys District School welcomed Queechy High School and Newstead Christian School sporting teams to our school for our home round of winter sports - 2025. All sports were played outside again this year, with the music playing and the smell of sausages wafting.  

The weather was beautiful, a big frost to start and then the sun shone for the duration of the games. The level of play, skill and sportsmanship was fantastic across all sports, and by students from all schools. Thank you to the students who filled in across all three sports on the day. Your contribution was very much appreciated.  

It was lovely to be able to welcome so many spectators from our community in to watch the matches and cheer on our teams. The Primary students also created an excellent atmosphere with their amazing cheering!! Thank you if you were able to make it up to offer your support. The day was a great success, and we are looking forward to hosting another home round next year.  

Thank you to Sam Smithurst, Rachel McGiveron and Indi H who umpired the games. To Declan B and Luka W for umpiring the boundary and Byron W and Mr Wardlaw for stepping up and assisting with the coaching in Mr Innis’ absence.  Your support is greatly appreciated.  

Thanks also to Dave for his amazing efforts to get the grounds up to scratch for playing on and for cooking the sausages. To Mr Stonehouse for organising and supplying all the coaches with hot drinks and to all the students who helped set-up. Lastly, a big thanks to Mrs Ringuet who organised the BBQ to raise funds for the Grade 10 excursion later in the term. The BBQ raised over $600.  

The results from the day are below: 

FOOTBALL: 

SMDS: 147      QUEECHY: 8 

SOCCER: 

SMDS: 6        QUEECHY: 7 

NETBALL 

DIV 2: 

SMDS 32       NCS: 2 

DIV 3A: 

SMDS: 15     QUEECHY 18 

Congratulations to all for a wonderfully successful day. 

Laura Swanson 

Round 3

NETBALL

Division 2 - SMDS 27  BHS 13

Division 3- SMDS 12   CTDHS   14

FOOTBALL

SMDS 58   KMHS: 101

SOCCER: Division 2

SMDS   6         SOTS     4

Round 4 - Wednesday 25^th June

NETBALL: 

SMDS Div 2: 35         PD Div 2: 7

SMDS Div 3: 22         PD Div 4: 5

MIXED SOCCER:  Div 2

SMDS: 3        Deloraine B: 2

FOOTBALL  DIV 3   Defeated Port Dalrymple (score not recorded)

On Wednesday 2 July, 1/2A joined Kinder to celebrate NAIDOC week early, as NAIDOC week for 2025 occurs throughout our school holidays 6-13 July.

As we enter 2025, NAIDOC Week marks a powerful milestone: 50 years of honouring and elevating Indigenous voices, culture, and resilience.

The 2025 theme, "The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy," celebrates not only the achievements of the past but the bright future ahead, empowered by the strength of our young leaders, the vision of our communities, and the legacy of our ancestors.

Our students enjoyed making symbol stories, reading books, painting, doing puzzles together, learning about the Aboriginal flag and creating a community leaf wreath. Such a wonderful time spent together learning important parts of our history and culture.

This week in Grade 2 UFLI lessons we have been learning about “r-controlled vowels”. We have learnt about the /ar/ and /or/ sounds and how we can use them at the beginning, middle and end of different words.

Check out students working with manipulative letters in our word work sessions.  

The Kinder children were very excited to return to school last week after a very much needed break.

This term our inquiry is learning about “life cycles”, investigating how all living things grow and change. Last week we started to observe the life cycle of a seed, engaging in a science experiment growing seeds in a variety of ways. Firstly, we planted some seeds in a pot with soil, then some seeds on wet cotton wool, some in a zip lock bag with water and in a jar lined with wet paper towel. We all predicted and recorded which way we thought might start growing first. We were very excited on Friday to see that the seeds in the zip lock bag had started to germinate and grow.  Well done to Carter who was the only one to predict that this way would be successful.  This week we will be exploring the life cycle of a butterfly, focusing on the book  “The Hungry Caterpillar”. 

Last week we read the story “I went walking” written by Sue Williams and illustrated by Julie Vivas. We talked about if we went for a walk near our house what might we see. We then made our own book “I went walking”, we will display these in Kinder for our families to have a read. 

During the week we had a visit from the girls from the Hub for the afternoon, they supported us with some maths experiences and lego, we also showed them how good we are at doing “Go Danny”. They then made us paper aeroplanes , taking these outside to see how well they flew, the children had a great time, a big thank you to the girls. 

Kinder families please don’t hesitate in visiting our classroom to see what we have been learning. We are always displaying new work on our walls of which we are very proud.  

Last week we welcomed back our Launching into Learning children and families after the school holiday break.

We are currently learning “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”.  We engaged in art experiences promoting the rhyme these included a glue and glitter star printing experience using a playdough cutter which we dipped into pva glue and then printed onto black card, we then sprinkled with silver glitter, we also made a sun catcher star using contact, glitter and star and moon sequences.

These experiences supported children to further develop their fine motor skills, as well as hand-eye co-ordination, language and vocabulary development as we talked about stars and the night sky. During our group time the children were very engaged in singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” using puppets when singing the nursery rhyme. The children had a fantastic time doing this eagerly waiting for their turn and wanting to repeat the experience.

We have had a fantastic number of children and families attending Launching into Learning and we welcome any new families, especially any children we will be attending Kindergarten next year. Launching into Learning is every Thursday from 9.15am – 10.30am, please see school calendar for each planned session.

These notices have been sent home to parents in the last fortnight.  If you did not receive one and would like to receive a copy of the notice, please contact the school office on 63 723 900.

PRIMARY

• Drug Education Network - Tuesday 12 August & Wednesday 13 August 2025 Grade 5-6
• Celebrate 100 days of school - Grade 1-2 - Friday 8 August 2025
• Grade 5/6 Excursion to Bicheno Primary School - Thursday 7 August 2025
• Grade 1-2 Excursion to Pyengana Dairy - Thursday 14 August 2025