Dear Members of our Community of Faith,

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A very warm welcome to the new school year. After a long summer break it is great to have everyone back at SMMC. It has been wonderful to see the way the students have come back to school and settled in so quickly to their studies.

 

Thank you to all the families who came along to our Working Bee last Saturday to get the school ready for the start of the year. It was very heartening to see it cleaned up after a long, dusty summer, so thank you for your generosity.

 

I want to thank the staff for all their hard work in preparing for the year. We are fortunate to welcome new staff members to our school this year. Welcome to Ms Magdalene Kaur (Secondary English), Mrs Mary McGrath (Secondary Maths and Science), Mrs Annita Bell (Yr.11 Legal Studies), Miss Victoria Kirley (Yr.1/2), Mrs Alison Patino (Yr.5), Miss Chloe Van Der Horst (Administration) and Mr Paul Griffin (Classroom Support).

 

A warm welcome to the Kunasegaran/Kaur family who have Pia in Yr.2, the Inbaraj family who have Jolene in Yr.4, Emmelia in Yr.6 and Elisa in Yr.8, the Peoples family who have Filomena in Yr.11, the Haywards who have Andrew in Kinder, the Maloneys with William in Kinder and the Clarks with Joseph also in Kinder. Also welcome to Phillipa Boglari-Davykoza who is a new Yr.7 student.

 

Last week teachers were involved in an intensive phonics course for 4 days. We will be working on implementing the LEM Phonics program throughout the Primary School for the teaching of reading, writing and spelling.

 

Our School Captains were invited to deliver a speech at our recent Australia Day Celebrations. Thank you to Sam and Hannah for taking up this opportunity to represent our school. Sam focussed in on the early settlement of Jindera and the ingenuity of Australians who have invented things that are now world renowned. Hannah was unfortunately unwell and unable to make it so I did my best to do her speech justice. It focussed on wanting Australia to be a positive place for herself and others to live, not a place that dwells on the past with regret and anger but instead looks to the future with hope and positivity. Congratulations to Tom Van Der Horst who received our school citizenship award at this ceremony.

 

Congratulations to Timothy Mott who received a Gold Award for coming first in his Elective Geography  last year. It is great to see the students putting in the effort and achieving such success with their distance subjects.

 

For any interested parents there is a cyber safety presentation at the Albury PCYC Club (Corner of Keene St & Andrews St, East Albury) in conjunction with the Safer Internet Day 2018.  This is a free event which is open to all members of the public. The presentation will run for approximately 1 hour from  7pm- 8pm next Tuesday the 6th of February, 2018. Registration for the event is required either by contacting the Albury PCYC club on 02 60 217437 or by registering online: https://www.pcycnsw.org.au/internet-safety.

 

A big congratulations to our Yr.12 students who graduated from SMMC last year. A special mention to Johanna Ryan who received an award at Assembly yesterday to recognise her achievement as Dux of the school with a score of 93.15.

 

Congratulations to our newly elected House Captains for 2018. Matthew Woods and Rachel Perry will be leading St Francis of Assisi with Tom Van Der Horst and Anna Bell as chief motivators of the gold team of St John Bosco. Our first sporting event of the year is our annual Swimming Carnival on Tuesday 13th February at the Jindera Pool.

 

As you will have noticed the portable classrooms have not yet been moved. These will now be moved during the end of term break. More on this next week.

 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

 

God Bless, Luke Burton (Principal)