A Message from our Assistant Principal
Dear Parents,
The last two weeks I have been moving around all the classrooms supporting students with Maths. It’s been wonderful to acknowledge the engagement of our students in lessons and to witness their learning, risk taking and critical thinking skills .
The ICAS testing begins next week with Science on Thursday. It spans over 3 weeks. Please refer to the newsletter for the dates of the other ICAS tests such as Digital Tech, English, Maths & Spelling.
At this stage the school photos are going ahead on 21st October, 2020 but like everything in this climate we will wait to see what restrictions are upon us at that time.
Parents should have received a school parent survey to complete online. This survey is distributed across our Archdiocese and is a valuable tool for us as a school to evaluate our current practices and drive improvement. The survey is due on Wednesday 19th August. I encourage parents to complete this survey so we can continue to ensure St Mary’s is the best school it can be.
Tomorrow the Catholic Church celebrates a Holy day of Obligation which is the Assumption of Mary. This Holy day marks the occasion of the Virgin Mary’s bodily ascent to heaven at the end of her life. Following the atrocities of WWII and the Holocaust, our world needed a radical shift in its valuing of the dignity of all human persons. On the 1st November, 1950 Pope Pius XII affirmed:
The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin, Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.
This affirmation of the dignity and destiny of the human person was a timely reminder that no material gain, no social engineering and no political ideology should outweigh our respect for the dignity of every human being and humanity as a whole. In recognising Mary’s Assumption we are acknowledging much about God’s relationship with us as human beings. We are also acknowledging Mary’s faithfulness to God’s mission.
We look forward to Mr Nielsen returning on Tuesday. Wishing everyone a restful weekend.
Kind regards,
Angela Scott
Assistant Principal