Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
Next week we host Paul Ferris and his team from the Catholic Review Office. They will come
into our school to look at how our school’s Special Character manifests itself. The key phrase I
believe in this is “our schools” special character. All schools are different because they serve
different communities or Parishes comprised of different mixes of people.
St Mary’s special Catholic Character will be subtly different from other Catholic Primary Schools;
we are the only surviving full primary, we are the only Catholic School on the Taieri, we have
children from rural and urban families, our ethnic mix and the backgrounds of our staff,
pupils, parents and parish will be unique. Even our physical setting in a new school is unique.
The challenge for us all is to ensure that within our unique setting we ensure that our school lives
the values and Charism of The Mercy Sisters and the Catholic Church. That our pupils live by a
moral compass based on the Gospel and that as a school at the beginning of the twenty first
century we ensure that we are instilling in our pupils all that they need to be Catholic Christians
in an ever changing modern world.
John Wayne in his epic film ‘True Grit’ said “looking back is a bad habit” and to a degree I can
see what he means. We don’t want to become focused on the past and things that we can’t
change, but we equally need to consider the saying “those who don’t learn from history are
doomed to repeat it”. What we need to do is to learn from the past to give our young people the
skills, values and attitudes that they need to work in the present and to move confidently into the
future.
Have a great week.
Mike Brosnahan
Principal

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
Over the past week one major topic has caught the imagination of local people: the potential loss
of a large number of jobs at the Invermay Research Centre. The loss of each of these jobs,
when added to other job losses in Dunedin is a highly significant event. Each job lost is a family
that needs to reconsider it’s future; do we stay or do we go? Centralization is a model that brings
with it huge risks. We only have to look at the South Island and the Christchurch Earthquake. If
all of your eggs are in one basket and the basket gets knocked over, where do you go?
Bigger is not always better and if you have only one centre of importance in each Island then you
court disaster in the event of a catastrophic event. We only need think of the floods of a few
months ago when no one South of the flooding could get bread.
This time of the year is also the time when parents are considering the educational journey that
their child will begin once they leave their primary school. Secondary school’s spend vast
amounts of money on promoting their schools. They present the very best that their school
offers while eliminating any reference to the negative. As always I urge parents to be cautious,
don’t merely look at the superficial glossy promo, but rather list what your expectations are and
ask the tough questions.
Recently a number of Taieri College leaders, including Ryan Rosevear the Head Boy, have been
working with Year Six sports teams. All of the leaders were pupils who graduated from our Year
Eight class!
To keep our Year Five and Six parents informed of the opportunities that our senior class offers,
we will be holding an information night about our senior school. It is open to all, but, we especial-ly encourage our Year Five and Six pupils and their parents to attend.
Have a great week.
Mike Brosnahan
Principal
Room 4 “The Great Escape”

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

 Welcome back for term three, as I write this July is almost over and we are beginning to see the end of winter.

This term is going to be another busy time with a number of sports afternoons, class Masses and the continuation of the sacramental programme.  We also have groups of senior pupils taking part in the Stars on Stage dance performance and the Catholic Schools Choir.

At St Mary’s we pride ourselves on giving our pupils a wide range of opportunities to enable us to do this we rely heavily on parental support.  I would like thank all of those parents who give up their time to support us, thank you.

 

One of the highlights of my position is meeting with Principals of schools that our children move to at the end of Year Eight.  Our pupils universally move into Year Nine seamlessly and judging by the feedback that I have from the high schools that our pupils go to, they achieve great things.  A full primary education ensures that our pupils are fully prepared for their move to secondary school in Year Nine (the old Third Form).  We will be holding an information evening for our senior class soon (date to be confirmed) so that the parents of pupils in Year Five and Six can appreciate fully the opportunities that our pupils get in Year Seven and Eight at St Mary’s.

Have a great week.

Mike Brosnahan

Principal

 

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
Yesterday I had the privilege of attending our annual inter-school sports competition with St Josephs from
Oamaru. This is the fourth year that this event has been held and again from the point of view of sports-man ship and participation, it was a great success. The first time the event was held we lost the rubber
3-2. The deciding event was the girls B netball which we lost 8-9. Then over the following two years we
struggled for success winning only the occasional game. Yesterday, however was a revelation. We
narrowly lost the B basketball but then won the A basketball and football by large margins and a great
team effort in the rugby ensured that we would win the challenge shield for the first time.
Then the netball girls put on a brave effort against much larger athletes and never gave in. The after
match afternoon and prize giving was a nice occasion and was a great chance for the competitors to
mingle.
The success that we enjoyed was due to the hard work put in by our teams and their coaches before
hand, so I would like to officially thank Simone Reynolds, Ray Kelly, John Hyde, John Peita (who also refereed the rugby) Jane Abernethy, Stacey Peita and also Mrs Matheson for preparing the teams. Also I’d
like to thank all of the parents who helped to ensure the success of the event by their behind the scenes
support. But especially I’d like to thank Mrs Baines for her stewardship and organisational skills that
ensured the successes of the whole day.
As this is the ;last week of the term I wish you all a great break and look forward to seeing you back next
term.
Have a great week.
Mike Brosnahan
Principal

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
What a week of wild weather we have just experienced, while the snow never really eventuated
the cold rain, winds and general greyness tell us that winter is well and truly here.
Most winter sports (of the outdoor variety) has been put on hold until the grounds dry up.
Initially I was sceptical of this happening at all before spring but the winds we have experienced
over the past few days have certainly dried up our ‘Lake’ and the grounds are almost at a
suitable standard for the pupils to play on at lunch time.
Next Sunday (30th June) we will be holding a family Mass and opening our new school for the
parish and general public to visit, from 10-11am. We would appreciate a good turn out at Mass
and it would be great to have a number of children at the opening to answer questions and act as
tour guides.
A pupil attending Mass or the Open Day needs to be in full dress uniform i.e. no tracksuit
bottoms.
The reason we have decided to hold this open day is as a small way of thanking our greater
community for their support over a number of years but also to publicise and highlight the great
new facility that we have.
The final pieces of the puzzle are lining up as the team from A.J. Grant have begun to put the
playgrounds in. Thank you to Donald Mitchell and Grant Dodson for their hard work in digging
the holes to put the playground in over the weekend.
Also I would like to finish by wishing our hard working Deputy Principal Lindsay Stevens well as
she goes on sick leave to have an operation on her foot.
Have a great week.
Mike Brosnahan
Confirm

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
Winter has arrived with a vengeance, we are almost forced to build an ark at the beginning of the week-end and an igloo by the end. But you only have to watch the T.V. to realize that our trials and tribulations are indeed minor in comparison to those experienced in other parts of the world.
It is very important that on mornings where the weather is extreme that you check to see that school is open at the normal time or indeed at all. For the places to check we have put in an article later in the newsletter, but once again I say please check, as while you may deem it possible for your child to walk to school, a number of other factors come into play to determine if school will be shut or have a late start.
The reasons include: the state of the roads (do police deem them safe for use), the possibility for the
weather to get worse (nobody wants the situation of trying to get children home in a blizzard), the ability for the teachers and children from outlying districts to get to school (while the majority of our teachers live in the Mosgiel area a number don’t and putting them or the bus children at risk is not an option. But ultimately the bottom line is one of safety for all.
The call to either start late or close the school for the day is made by the local Principals’ Association in consultation with Civil Defence, the Met service and the Police. The reason for this is obvious as having one collective announcement for all primary schools means individual schools do not clog up the cancellation sites with a variety of notices and parents only need to listen for one notice, not one in a huge range of similar notices that could lead to confusion i.e. St Mary’s could be either Mosgiel, Milton or Kaikorai.
I am always hopeful that the predicted snow will pass us by and I know my sheep would agree but on the off chance the forecasts are correct please use the procedure to check that school is open.
Have a great week.
Mike Brosnahan
Principal

The triennial Board of Trustee elections were held last week and I would like to offer my thanks
to all of the candidates who stood for election (we are truly lucky to have such a high level of
people ready, willing and able to govern our school) and to congratulate the successful candi-dates.
I would like here to offer my thanks and gratitude to the BOT members who are standing down.
The last three years (Board of Trustees term) has been a busy one: we had visits from the Edu-cation Review Office team, The Catholic Education Review Office. We had a new school built
and moved onto the new site, we saw the advent of ‘National Standards’ and have endured the
‘Novopay’ debacle and we have developed a new Strategic Plan that will guide our school into
the future. All of these tasks have been completed to a high degree and with a great level of
success.
This success is only possible because of the excellent governance that our school received over
the previous term. So to Donald Mitchell (outgoing Board of Trustees Chairperson), Donna
Burns, Sally McNeilly and Marty McArthur, on behalf of the school community, thank you!
We have just concluded our consultation on homework in school, and I have received a wide
range of opinions and suggestions. This information will now be collated and presented to a
Board of Trustees meeting along side other relevant information and some recommendations.
I envisage a parent information night early next term to explain what our homework recommendation will be.
A huge thank you to our resident handyman Mr Dave Scott (Connor and Callum’s father) who
gave a day of his time last week to put up a number of shelves around the school.
Have a great week.
Mike Brosnahan
Principal