Christmas Carols

Thursday’s carols morning was a spectacular celebration of the festive season, filled with joy and music. The children sang, danced, and grooved to Christmas classics, spreading cheer throughout the yard. We’re sure the neighbours enjoyed the free concert! A huge thank you to the families who joined us and made the event even more special with their presence. Special appreciation goes to Zoe and Sarah for their efforts behind the scenes, ensuring everything ran smoothly. We also extend our thanks to the teachers and children who dedicated time to practise, as well as to our amazing choir and rock band for their standout performances. Your hard work and passion shone brightly, making the morning a memorable occasion. It’s events like these that remind us how lucky we are to have such a talented and vibrant school community. Congratulations to everyone involved in making the morning a success. After the concert, the children enjoyed an icypole delivered to them as a special treat and to cool them down from the heat!

Staff Update

As in every year, we have some changes in staffing for the 2025 school year. Gemma Burnheim will be moving back to family in Brisbane to take up a teaching position with Brisbane Catholic Education. Patrick Torpy has accepted a position in Sunshine in a literacy intervention role. Baraa Hamandi and Meeka Smith (STEM) have both taken roles at schools closer to their homes. We wish Gemma, Pat, Baraa and Meeka every happiness and success in their new roles and thank them for the generous ways they have each contributed to our school community. We hope that they will each take a piece of HR with them in their hearts as they transition into their new roles. They will all be greatly missed.

Happily, I can report that we have employed fantastic teachers who will join us in 2025. We warmly welcome three new teachers on board; Gemma, Maree and Sophie. These teachers may be familiar to you; Gemma Tyrrell had her final prac here at HR with Lauren earlier in the year and has more recently been working in an intervention role working with small groups of students. Maree Nanos taught at HR for a year in 2008 and more recently she has been teaching here in a relief capacity. Finally, Sophie Duddington, formerly Burke, taught at Holy Rosary until the end of 2017. We are thrilled to have them on board and we’re confident that they will bring boundless energy and enthusiasm, care and creativity to our students and our community. You can see the year levels they will be teaching in the table below.

Schedule for Last day- Tuesday 17 December

The final day is a casual clothes day. Please ensure your children are sunsmart- clothes must have sleeves and school hats are still required- no caps

9:15 am	End of School Year Mass
10:15 am	Staff V Students netball
12:50 pm	Nutbush
1 pm	Dismissal
1:15 pm	Office closes Please ensure any fee payments are made by Friday 13th December.

Office Times

Please note the following important closure times for the office this coming week.

Monday 16 December	Office will close at 3:30pm
Tuesday 17 December	Office will close between 9:10-10:15am
	Office will close at 1:15pm

Fees

We have a number of families with outstanding fees. These were due by 30 November. Please give overdue fees your urgent attention to help us with our upcoming expenses in preparing for the year ahead.

Swimming

The government funding for swimming has changed for 2025 which means all students will be participating in swimming lessons. Our plan is to resume swimming at Kensington pool later in the 2025 school year, subject to the completion of this new facility.

Awards

Well done to the children who completed the Victorian Premiers' Reading Challenge. It’s wonderful to have so many children participate each year and this year was no exception. The Challenge encourages children to read a set number of books over the year and record their efforts online. Since the Challenge first began in 2005, more than 4.3 million students have read over 60 million books!

Ellen Sandell

A big thank you to Ellen Sandell, leader of the Victorian Greens and our local member, for generously donating two $50 vouchers for Erinbank on Macauley Rd. Classroom teachers nominated one deserving student from their class who demonstrated resilience and perseverance in improving their reading skills. Last week, we proudly presented the 13 outstanding nominees to our school community, celebrating their dedication and hard work. Congratulations to Sophie from Year 3/4W and Kado from Year 5/6S, who were the lucky winners of the vouchers! We hope you enjoy choosing some fantastic books to continue your reading journey. We hope to continue our relationship with Ellen in 2025. Well done to all the nominees—you are an inspiration to us all! Keep up the amazing work!

2025 Staff

Class Teachers

Specialist Teachers

Beginning of 2025 Literacy and Numeracy Assessments

The Years 1-6 Literacy and Numeracy Assessments will take place from Wednesday 29 January to Friday 31 January 2025. Later this afternoon, you will receive an email from School Interviews with detailed instructions on the booking process.

These individual assessments provide an opportunity for your child’s 2025 teachers to build connections with their students and gather valuable data on literacy and numeracy skills. This information helps us meet the needs of each student.

Key Information:

Duration: Each assessment takes approximately 30 minutes.
Attendance: These are student-only appointments, and parents are not required to attend. Simply drop your child at their classroom, wait in the Welcome Place, or leave the grounds and return 30 minutes later.
Uniform: School uniform is not required for the assessment sessions.
Schedule: This is not a full school day, and students are only required to attend during their scheduled assessment time.

Formal classes for Years 1-6 will commence on Monday 3 February 2025. If bookings are full or your family is on holiday, arrangements will be made to assess your child during school time. For any questions, please contact the school office.

TeamKids will continue to operate during assessment week should you require their services. The usual booking arrangements apply.

Our Prep children will begin their formal classes on Wednesday 29th January, 2025 as per previous notifications. They will have the opportunity to be assessed during their Wednesday RDOs. Further information will be shared with Prep parents early in 2025.

Reports

End of year reports will be available to parents on Friday 13 December. An email will be sent from nForma in the afternoon providing instructions on how to access reports.

Building and Maintenance

We have further refined Stage 1 compliance plans for the lower yard and we are awaiting the final quote and review from MACS. This will include building a retaining wall, boxing out the adventure playground with soft fall, a new sandpit with shade sail, a seating space, upgrade of elements of the adventure playground and works to improve garden bed stability. We anticipate works will commence early in the new year, subject to the availability of the contractor.
It’s a slow process towards a new roof, with our long awaited meeting happening last week. From here, I will engage with the architects who designed our masterplan.
New tables have arrived, ready for the new school year
Blinds will be repaired across the school and new blinds installed in Prep
Painting of the lower level hallway will happen in January
Carpets, window cleaning and deep cleaning will take place in January.

Parish Christmas Masses

Christine

Share the Joy - Vinnie’s Christmas Hampers, Final Days

Our beautiful Holy Rosary tradition of providing Christmas Hampers is continuing again this year. You are invited to join us in supporting our parish Vinnie’s group, by donating festive food to make Christmas hampers. The Kensington Vinnies volunteers will distribute the hampers to needy families in our neighbourhood. This act of kindness will provide families, not only with some delicious food for the Christmas season, but also with a sense that someone cares. Let’s shine our Holy Rosary light brightly to those in our local community!

Families, please use this opportunity to speak with your children about the spirit of giving. You could encourage them to be part of the process by giving up some of their money or treat foods, to purchase something special for our hampers. Alternatively, they could do extra jobs around the home to earn money to buy food.

Prep - Year 2

Year 3/4

Year 5/6

Christmas cake

Savoury biscuits

Chocolates

Longlife custard

Tinned ham (no SPAM)

Fruit Mince Pies

Packet of chips

Cranberry, mint or apple sauce

Sachets of gravy

Christmas pudding

Hand lotion

Christmas decoration

Confectionery stocking

Packet of lollies

Here’s what to do:

1. Purchase an item

2. Your child delivers it to their classroom (no need to wrap) by 10th December.