Did you blink and miss Term 3? I feel like I did! This term was a term for celebration: celebrating our amazing Mareeba SS students, staff and families and their achievements, celebrating our wonderful school review and celebrating the final chapter of my time at this wonderful school.
I want to congratulate staff, students and families on our strong start and strong finish to the term. Starting strong with our 4-year school review was such a highlight. And talk about a strong finish, we kicked off week 10 with our annual Art Show opening on Monday. What a feast for the eyes! Special thanks to our Visual Art teacher Ms Rose Torrisi who has done a fantastic job supporting our students to create these superb art pieces and to Ms Lyncia Curcio who came in and assisted with the art show display – we thank you for your time and effort. If you haven't had a chance to view our art show, get in quick, the display will be packed away tomorrow at 12pm.
In preparation for our Parent-Teacher-Student interviews, our teachers had the opportunity to moderate student work samples last week to ensure consistency of achievement against the Australian Curriculum. Our target at MSS is to have 80% of students achieve C or above for English, Maths and Science and I was pleased to hear of the amazing student successes at our recent moderation afternoon.
On that note, thank you to all of our wonderful families who came along to the parent-teacher-student interviews on Tuesday evening. This was organised a little differently to previous years and I think the new format ensured a streamlined approach for both families and the school. Well done to Mrs Nadine Apps who led the change for our Parent Teacher Interview structure.
Tomorrow (Thursday) we celebrate Under 8's Day. This event is hugely popular with Under 8's Day attracting families and visitors from across the community to join in the huge variety of fun-filled activities on offer. I would like to recognise the staff of Mareeba SS who consistently put in huge effort to ensure events such as this one happen with much of the preparation for these events happening after hours. This year, our Under 8's day coincides with 'R U OK" Day. It's important to check in with our family and friends on this important day and ask the question, “are you OK?"
Over the next term we will have some staffing changes. I start with welcoming Ms Kylie Cochran who will be our acting Principal for Term 4. Ms Cochran is the current Principal of Tolga SS and is looking forward to joining the Mareeba SS community. A HUGE thank you to Mrs Nadine Apps who will finish her Deputy Principal role at the end of Term 3. Nadine will continue in her substantive role as Prep Line Manager and Head of Department Curriculum for years 5 & 6. A BIG thank you also to Ms Teresita Nastasi who will finish her role as Head of Department Curriculum (Teresita has been replacing Nadine). Teresita will continue in her role as Pedagogy Coach for Term 4 and will continue to work as the Head of Department Curriculum for Year 4. In other staffing news, congratulations to Ms Sheridan Bolton, Ms Liz Roberts, Ms Pam Dalip and Mr Sam Brown who have been made permanent at Mareeba SS – well done.
This week we farewell Ms Kim Luke our acting Guidance Officer for Term 3. Ms Wendy Harris-Gallichan will return to Mareeba SS as our Guidance Officer in Term 4. This week we also farewell Ms Jennifer Jones, classroom teacher for 6A. Replacing Ms jones will be Amira Kalila for Term 4. We thank both Kim and Jen for their contributions to MSS and wish them all the very best.
As this is my final newsletter, I wish to take the opportunity to thank each and every one of you for supporting me during my 15 years at Mareeba SS. This school, this community and these students have helped shape the person I am today and for that I will be forever grateful. No doubt I will see many of you out and about in our wonderful community and I look forward to keeping up with all things Mareeba via the Facebook page and website. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Finally, I wish our families a happy and safe spring break. Don't forget Monday 2nd October is a Public Holiday so school will resume Tuesday 3rd October.
- Hannah Simpson, Principal