15-9-15

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,

On Friday I had the opportunity to show a Principal from Invercargill around St Mary’s. The school he is from is getting an upgrade in the near future and he wanted to find out what worked well in our school. I was very proud to be able to show him around and for him to see our wonderful facilities and the children working hard in each of the classrooms. He was very impressed with all that he saw.

When you have the chance to see things through someone else’s eyes it can help you appreciate what you have. 

Pauline and I made some suggestions, which he could see the value in, although they would not necessarily work in his community as every school is different. To me that is what a school is – a place that is relevant to the community they are in and a place that is always striving to improve.

One of the key aspects of the wellbeing survey we sent out last week was to give parents and whānau an opportunity to give us feedback so that we can continue to move forward.

The children also completed a survey and we received some good feedback on their feelings about their school, what they see as important and how we can continue to improve.

Thank you to those who took the time to fill in the survey, we really value your input and the BOT will look to see how we can use your comments and suggestions to make our school even better.

Have a great week.

Lindsay Stevens

(Acting Principal)

8-9-15

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,

The 1^st of September has been and gone and that tells us that Spring has arrived. The weather doesn’t really reflect that but the daffodils in the garden, lambs in the paddock and the magnolia trees beginning to flower all say that Spring has arrived.

When my children were younger, I used to love the wee break between Winter sports and the start of Summer sports that happened at this time of year. It was a time of catching up, and an opportunity to reconnect with family and whānau.

We have had a busy time at school over the last couple of weeks with trips to the Art Gallery, Toitu Museum, a performance by Craig Smith (he sings the Wonky Donkey song), class Masses, talks from two authors- one at school and one at the Mosgiel Library and the Otago Cross country.

With all the sporting and cultural opportunities available at school the children certainly get a chance to experience a wide variety of activities and experiences.

In saying that – one of the most important things for children to experience is family time. Family time is so precious, playing games, talking, sharing, visiting whānau.– those are the times children remember most.  I encourage you to make the most of the free times you have, as life only seems to get busier as the children get older.

Have a great week.

Lindsay Stevens

(Acting Principal)

1-9-15

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,

This week I have been very lucky to observe and be involved in various aspects of teamwork.

The Stars on Stage performance on Thursday night epitomised teamwork. The children appeared nervous back stage before their item but once on stage they worked as a team to give a great performance. Thank you to Lisa Matheson and Judy Baines for all the work they did enabling the children to perform as a cohesive team.

I also saw great teamwork at netball on Saturday. The children worked really well together, encouraging and supporting each other and both teams came away with well deserved wins.

The teachers and support staff work hard as a team to provide opportunities for the children so their learning is interesting and motivating.

There are also a lot of other teams working behind the scenes. The PTA continually work as a team- they break off into sub committees and work together on a variety of projects for the benefit of our children and school.

The BOT are another example of people working together to make sure the school is functioning as well as it can. Today I saw a father and son team working together cleaning up and maintaining our school. I often see a whole family working in the garden and tidying it up.

A big thank you to all of the teams who continually work to make our school the best it can be.

Have a good week.

Lindsay Stevens

(Acting Principal)