We are delighted to share our St Mary’s College Prefects for 2020. 

The group will be led by Head Prefect, Amy Prokopiec and Deputy Head Prefects, Lucy Eade and Hannah O’Connell.

Congratulations to our Prefects for 2020:

Amy Prokopiec – Head Prefect)
Hannah O’Connell (Deputy) – Senior School
Lucy Eade (Deputy) – Communications
Ruby Banks – Nagle House
Gabriella Colavecchio – Culture
Ruby Dean – Wellbeing
Anya Grimmett – Sustainability
Maddison Lamb – Identity and Mission
Florence Mann – College House
Hannah Manning – Manresa House
Brianna McVilly – Junior School
Matilda Noonan – Arts
Kate Oliver – Health and Sport
Claire Riley – Presentation House
Laura Scott – Wellbeing
Selamwit Woldeabzghi – Academic

We wish these 16 young ladies the very best in their new roles and know they will lead and guide their fellow students with respect, resilience, spirit and pride. 

We also congratulate our Junior School leaders for 2020: 

Head Girl – Lucy Hofler
Deputy – Isobel Geard, Sarah Thomas
College Captain – Ruby Berry
College Deputy – Ava Baker
Manresa Captain – Phoebe Green
Manresa Deputy – Abbie Graves
Nagle Captain – Ellie Smith
Nagle Deputy – Mia Smith
Presentation Captain – Piper Spotswood
Presentation Deputy – Ruby Wighton
Councillors – Mackenzie Graves, Layla Lukianenko, Holly Richardson, Lyanne Olesco

We hold the safety of students and staff with the utmost importance and would like to provide you with additional details about novel coronavirus.

For information about the novel coronavirus provided by the Australian Government Department of Health, please read here.

While we do not wish to disrupt families or cause unnecessary alarm, the College will adopt a similar approach to many other schools who may have students who have visited the affected areas in China, particularly the Hubei Province. Please note the following:

What you need to know

Health authorities identified cases of novel coronavirus in Australia in January 2020.

The novel coronavirus originated in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. The majority of cases are there. There is evidence of person-to-person spread, particularly in Hubei Province.

Health authorities have also identified novel coronavirus cases in several other countries.

Currently in Australia, people most at risk of contracting the virus are people who have:

• Been in mainland China recently.
• Been in close contact with someone who has a confirmed case of coronavirus​.

You need to isolate yourself in the following circumstances:

• If you have travelled from Hubei Province within the past 30 days, you must isolate yourself until 14 days have elapsed after leaving Hubei Province and show no symptoms.
• If you have left, or transited through, mainland China on or after 1 February 2020 you must isolate yourself until 14 days after leaving China.
• If you have been in close contact with a confirmed case of novel coronavirus, you must isolate yourself for 14 days after your last contact with the confirmed case.

You do not need to self-isolate in the following circumstances:

• If you have travelled from other provinces in mainland China prior to 1 February 2020 AND have not been in Hubei Province.
• If you have only travelled in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

For example:

• If someone left the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province on 22 January 2020, they would need to isolate themselves until 6 February 2020.
• If someone left Shanghai on 28 January 2020 and came to Australia via another country on 3 February 2020, they would not need to isolate themselves (as they left mainland China before 1 February 2020).
• If someone left Beijing on 3 February 2020 and arrived in Australia on the same day, they would need to isolate themselves for 14 days until 17 February 2020.

Should you have any concerns about this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me via email jlambert@smc.tas.edu.au or phone 03 61082560.

We pray for those who have been affected by this virus.

Welcome to the 2020 school year.

St Mary’s College is excited to introduce and warmly welcome our new Year 7–12 Counsellor, Jane Sutcliffe, pictured, who will be working on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. 

Jane comes to us with a Bachelor of Psychological Science with Honours and a Master of (Clinical) Psychology, University of Tasmania.

Role of the School Counsellor at SMC

There are many new families to St Mary’s College and we thought it would be a good idea to introduce ourselves and provide you with information about our school counselling service.

Who are the School Counsellors, when are they available and how can a booking be made? 

We, the School Counsellors, each work at SMC three-days-a-week. Gai generally supports the Junior School students and Jane generally supports the Senior School students, however we each have clients in both sections of the school. Please add us to your list of people you can turn to when your child needs help. If your child is finding difficulty in coping with any of life’s challenges (it does not have to be a school-based problem), we are available each day of the week. Booking is easy. Please email Gai at gbath@smc.tas.edu.au or Jane at jsutcliffe@smc.tas.edu.au or phone Student Services on 6108 2560 to contact us. Your child can also approach us in person or via email, speak with the office staff or talk to their class or Homeroom teacher about an appointment.

What can we help with?

We provide a confidential service where we listen carefully to every concern and work with your child, and sometimes you, to find a good solution, or at least a way to cope with the difficulty.

Parents of Junior School students are always phoned prior to a child engaging in counselling. If we have any concerns about your child’s health or wellbeing we will contact you by phone. We keep information provided in counselling confidential, however, if we believe someone is at risk of being harmed we are required by law to make a report (mandatory reporting).

Chances are that whatever the problem, we have helped someone else with a similar one before. In our training (Gai – Bachelor of Education and Master of Counselling, University of Tasmania; Jane – Bachelor of Psychological Science and Master of Psychology, UTAS) we focused on child and adolescent development, how to listen and respond to children and teens, and how to help them learn to solve problems, build positive relationships, make decisions, cope with stress and be assertive. We are experienced counsellors and can provide options and ideas for a myriad of issues. We are also able to refer students and their families to outside resources. In any given year we see approximately 20 per cent of students in both the Junior and Senior Schools in a one-on-one setting in our capacity as counsellors.

Given that BeYou Australia tells us that at any given time one in five young people are experiencing mental health difficulties of some kind, this is not an unusual statistic.

We also occasionally address classes on topics related to wellbeing and we organise guest speakers and special days such as ‘Bullying. No Way!’ and the Bravehearts presentations. A current major focus is the formation of a wellbeing team to audit all aspects of wellbeing at St Mary’s, collect data from all stakeholders, including families, interpret the results and establish the areas in which we can improve mental health, relationships at school and assistance for students.

Ultimately, we are about helping to make your child’s school experience the best it can be and creating a positive environment for everyone at school.

In each fortnightly edition of The Fountain newsletter you will find an article ‘From the Counsellors’. Over the years, this has developed into a vast resource for parents and carers. All past articles can be found on the SMC website at www.smc.tas.edu.au/your-mind-matters/parent-matters/

Developing leadership skills at home – parenting ideas

The following link outlines some simple things that parents can do to help children’s potential for leadership: www.parentingideas.com.au/blog/developing-leadership-skills-at-home

Podcasts that may interest you – Generation Next

Topics include: Kids, Consumerism & Materialism, Sexting – Why Do Young People Do It and What Are the Consequences?, Supporting Children with Anxiety, Could It Be Asperger’s?, Encouraging Boys to be Respectful and Caring, Conversations We Should be Having with Teens About Mental Health, Gorgeous to Grumpy – Motivating Early Teens and many more. For more information, visit the Generation Next website.

Enjoy the learning while reading and listening. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you or your child would like an appointment.

Gai Bath (Kinder–Year 6) and Jane Sutcliffe (Year 7–12)
SMC Counsellors
gbath@smc.tas.edu.au
jsutcliffe@smc.tas.edu.au

Save the date for a social evening to warmly welcome new families to the St Mary’s College community on Wednesday 19 February on the College Green.

This event is a wonderful opportunity for new and existing families of the College to meet and mingle with one another and make some new friends.

Please refer to the below invitation for more information and RSVP details.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

Congratulations to Year 12 graduates Eloise Clark, Chloe Cooper, Eloise Deconinck and Saakshi Dhakal who achieved a Tertiary Entrance Score in the top 100 in Tasmania.

We are very proud of our students who completed their Tasmanian Certificate of Education (TCE) and these young women have achieved exceptional results.

We wish all our graduates every success in their future endeavours and a well-deserved break over the Christmas holiday period.