25 Term 1 Week 3

WELCOME TO 2025:

Welcome to 2025! It is a great joy to be back at Stella Maris celebrating our 69^th year of offering an education to families in the South-West of Adelaide.

As I reflect on what our school looks like today and compare it to what it would have looked like back in 1956, there are no doubt some major differences. Even over the last few years we have experienced some significant changes to our school environment. But I have no doubt that at the heart of what we do – and many of the values we hold as vital to our existence today would be quite similar to what they were back then and what they have been through our history.

As I have watched and interacted with our students and staff over the last few weeks, I have seen them living our hard held school values with examples of Compassion, Inclusivity, Respect and Courage, every day. I have seen them become aware of the importance of living our school theme – with moments of Joy, Hope and Gratitude all over the place.

It has been a fantastic start to our year!

NEW FAMILIES AND STAFF:

We have a large number of new Reception families joining our school and we look forward to our Welcome to Stella assembly for our Receptions next Monday. We also welcome a number of other new families to our community who have begun with us including:

Dishant (Y2), Kiansh (Y1), Mason (Y3), Sanvi (Y3) and Kole (Y1). We welcome them and their families to Stella Maris.

I also extend a very special welcome to some new staff who have begun with us this year. Welcome to Sara LeCornu (Y4), Lauren Daw (Administration), Jade Black (ESO) and Lachie Scannell (ESO) to our community.

SCHOOL LEADERS:

It was a great delight to officially announce and congratulate our 2025 School Leaders at our Community gathering in Week 2 of this term. This group of students were elected as our School Leaders after a very thorough selection process late last year. Please join me in congratulating:

School Captains:

Harper, Bryn, Myah, Moksha

House Captains:

Carmel – Koby and Lily

Polding – Sam and Maya

Murphy House – Oscar and Kirby

Sontrop House – Patrick and Lucy

A BUSY TERM:

All terms are busy of course, but Term 1 is as always, a very busy one. This week we held our Welcome to 2025 Whole school mass which provided us with the opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist together for the first time and further unpack our school theme of Joy, Hope and Gratitude. It was great to have Fr Joseph celebrate our mass and we look forward to our ongoing partnership with him this year.

During week 1 and 2 of this term your child may have come home telling you that they “are not doing any work” – if they did, I can tell you that they were wrong! It is actually just different “work” than what they are used to! Here at Stella, we believe that Wellbeing - feeling positive, connected and flourishing is an essential element of our learning program. As such, we make a focussed decision to ensure that a vast majority of Week 1 and Week 2 is spent connecting in relationships, having some fun and getting to know their classmates, teachers and the ESOs who your child will work with.

During the first couple of weeks students will also complete a class code of conduct, unpack our annual school theme, revise our school values and school expectations about behaviour and let our teachers know what is important about them. By doing this, we are beginning the vital process of ensuring students feel comfortable, safe and positive about coming to school.

Next week (Week 4) we hold our Parent-Teacher conversations. These are a great way to start the year off in a positive manner and to discuss the year ahead with your child’s class teacher. Information about this has been sent out via Kirralee in the front office. Please contact her if you need any further information about them.

Our Annual General Meeting will take place on Tuesday the 11^th March at 6:00pm. This is a great opportunity for our community to hear about the great things that have occurred over the last 12 months and the plans afoot for the year ahead. Everyone is welcome to attend our AGM.

On Monday night this week we held our first School Board meeting of the year. We have a very collaborative and involved Board, with excellent discussion and conversation about our school occurring during our meetings. At this Board meeting, I shared our 2025 Annual Improvement Plan which summarizes the key areas of focus and attention for us this year. If you would like a copy of this plan, please feel free to contact us here at school. This will be discussed at the AGM in March.

During Week 5 of this term we will hold our first in a series of Parent Workshops aimed to support parents in helping their children be ‘the best they can be’. These workshops will focus on how we can support our students develop and practice skills in Literacy (Reading) and Numeracy (Number) at home. These will be very practical workshops with ideas and suggestions for you to use at home with your child. Please see the flyer in the Newsletter further down for more information and booking details.

In Week 7 (Friday 14^th March) we will hold our annual Sports Day. Traditionally this has been held in Term 4 at Stella. Over the last few years we have had a number of issues with our Sports Day – with both rain and heat causing havoc with our planned Sports Day. As such, we have decided to move Sports Day to term 1 with the hope that it will present us with a more ‘consistent’ day weather wise, but also allow for rescheduling to occur more easily should we need to. Our Sports Day will take place at Bowker St oval and be a similar format to previous years. More information will be sent out to parents in the coming week.

We are very much looking forward to another ‘Stella year’ here at Stella Maris. We thank you for your ongoing support and interest in our school and we look forward to sharing more of the outstanding highlights of the year as it progresses.

Regards,

The Leadership Team