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

During the last two days of last week Mrs Dillon and I were at the Diocese Principals and DRS

conference. This was a very informative couple of days lead by Brendan Spillane. One key message that came out of the conference was to remember to celebrate success.

In this busy world it is always so easy to focus solely on the negative, the glass is half empty, but the glass is also half full.

In life it’s not how we deal with our successes that part is usually easy but rather what we want to teach our children, is how we deal with the times that we don’t get the result we desire.

When we aren’t selected in a team, how do we react.

My daughter Grace has enjoyed a lot of success in her sporting endeavours, but the time I believe that she gained the most as a person from sport was a time when she didn’t get selected into a team that she trialled for. She on missing selection, had two options: suck in her pride and aim to be the best player in the B Team or throw her toys out of the cot and refuse to play for the lower team. She chose I am pleased to say, option A. She was the team MVP and has gone on to enjoy a lot of success. But the key lesson was she celebrated being in a team, being a leader, being well coached and winning. She didn’t focus on the negative.

Our school National standard results are a huge source of pride for us so this week to help us celebrate successes I have included them for you also to also share in this success.

Have a great week

Mike Brosnahan
National Standards Data Summary

Year	Writing	Reading	Maths
2014 – Whole School National Average	80% 71.1%	86.9% 78%	79.2% 75.2%
2015 – Whole School	81.8%	89.2%	82.6%