Tuesday, October 25, 2016




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

Week three of term four already and the term is really flying through. Yesterday was Labour Day, a day that we

commemorate the implementation of the forty hour working week and the development of decent conditions for workers. If a number of people over a number of decades had not worked really hard we would still have no

minimum wage, no minimum age to leave school, no forty hour working week and we would not have the high

expectation for safe working conditions for all working people. We still have a long way to go when we have so many people earning below a living wage, but we have a generally caring society.

This week we welcome into our school two ladies from the Catholic Education Review Office:

Mrs Tui Pascoe and Mrs Jo McKay will be looking at how we at St Mary’s live our Catholic Special Character. Please make them feel welcome.

Please remember that we have the South Taieri Schools Athletics Sports this Friday. Also remember to listen to the Radio cancellations, or look on our facebook page for postponements if the weather is wet. The postponement day is Wednesday 2nd November.

The final countdown is on for our school fair. We still need a number of helpers on stalls, please remember that all of the money raised goes to benefit the children, so if you have a spare hour and a half on Sunday 6th please put your name down to help. A list of activities still requiring helpers is available at the school office.

Have a great week

Mike Brosnahan

Tuesday, October 11, 2016




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

Welcome back everybody to the fourth term for the 2016 school year.

This term there are a number of important functions scheduled: The South Taieri Athletic Sports (followed by the Otago Championships), the school production, senior swimming, and of course our end of the year Advent and Christmas celebrations.

This of course doesn’t include the usual high level of in class teaching, learning and co-curricular

activities.

During the school holidays a small but busy group of people were working away at the school to put in place the new amenities that you can see: the new sandpit, long jump pit and tunnel. I would like to thank the PTA for their funding of these additions to our school, Janet McDonald for organizing and

co-ordinating the project, Lisa Matheson for procuring and arranging for the pipe to be installed, Guy Matheson for being our digger driver along with Mark McDonald and Gareth Davis who put in huge hours on all three projects and I think that you will agree they are all of a very high standard.

To finish off the project we had a ‘Working Bee’ on Saturday and I would like to thank Richard O’Neill for co-ordinating this, Peter O’Neill for his "back saving" tractor work and our other helpers, Jacqui Hyde, Janet McDonald, Shane McFelin and Alison O’Neill.

A lot of time, effort and sweat went into these projects so a huge thank you to all involved.

We began the term with a performance by Mr Yipadee (Dean O’Brien) yesterday.

Dean is an ex-pupil of our school and a professional children’s entertainer based in the U.K. He chose St Mary’s as the place that he would begin his nation-wide tour. The students really enjoyed his concert and throughout it there were smiles from ear to ear.

Have a great term,

Mike Brosnahan