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

As I mentioned in last weeks newsletter, last week I was lucky enough to attend the senior camp at Pukerau.

As always this is a real highlight as we see our senior pupils attempt and achieve a huge range of personal challenges. Seeing someone look up the climbing wall or down the abseiling face and show doubt but then climb to the top or abseil to the bottom is a common occurrence. Then once they have achieved this goal you see that person walking 30cm taller, full of confidence and self belief.

Our school vision states that we want our students to be "confident, reflective, risk taking, life long

learners in a Catholic School."

Camp is an excellent way of ensuring that the first three goals are under lined and because of the success that the students achieve this understanding of setting a challenge and achieving will be life-long.

Camp could not happen without a huge amount of support from the parents who go on camp with us; so a huge thank you to John Hyde, Paul Anderton, Charlie Harrex, Bridget Dougherty, and Luanna Clough. And of course a huge thank you to Mrs Judy Baines for the huge amount of planning, effort and the time she puts in to make the camp such a huge success.

Our next two big events are the South Taieri Schools Athletics sports tomorrow, and the school fair on Sunday. We are praying for good weather on both days and I look forward to seeing you at these events.

Have a great week.

Mike Brosnahan

Principal