Dear Families,

One core bit of feedback from families over the past year has been before and after school care. Before school, we now have families able to drop off students from 8:15am and they can enter the school and have breakfast.

From Term Four, we will open our after school care. This will be run by our Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools Early Years Education team.

The sessions will be based in the ART room. Pick up and drop off will be from the Basketball Courts hallway door. The centre will have two staff. Anyone with qualifications in early childhood care is encouraged to apply for the positions available. More information available in this newsletter.

We know that this will provide great opportunities for our students to not only be cared for, but also thrive. They will have access to the school resources and great activities to do after school.

We surveyed many families about this, and over 17 families expressed the need and said they would use the service. It is really important now that our families do take the opportunity provided to ensure that the centre is a viable operation and a success.

Discussing this at Father’s Day, a few dads said this will be an enormous help, so we look forward to our families utilising the service, which will assist the ultimate goal of growing the school.

New Uniform

We have finished consulting with families, teachers and students about an update to our uniform, in line with our new logo. This will be a phased introduction over two years, and no family will be made to purchase the new uniform immediately. Discussions around other uniform items will take place with the advisory board early next term.

New Staff:

In recent weeks, we have welcomed three part time staff to cover for Bern whilst she recovers. Bern will not be back this year. She has every intention to return in the new year, and we will support her fully. In the meantime, we have Donna Allen, an experienced admin and bursar who will run the finances. She will work Monday afternoon and Wednesday.

We also welcome Jerome Giaccotto and Shokouhfeh Mohammadi, who are both mothers of children at our school. Jerome will work Mondays and Friday Mornings and Shokoufeh will work Tuesday and Thursday. Both these ladies have experience in schools, so we are grateful to have them work in our administration.

Teacher Shortage

We have been fortunate to be covered from the teacher shortage for most of the time I have been here. This is because, as a leadership team, we have got into classrooms and taught our students. This may be a challenge in the coming months as we have some staff on leave or on professional learning at different times. During the last week of term, I will be attending the Australian and New Zealand Primary School Principals Conference in Christchurch New Zealand. This conference will have close to 1000 Principals working to understand the challenges of modern schooling and what can be done to solve these challenges. I will be focusing on building a connection with a school in New Zealand for some shared learning opportunities through video conferencing. Pauline Moran and Julie Feddersen will be travelling to Europe on a Pilgrimage, taking their well deserved Long Service Leave.

At Holy Family, we have extremely small class sizes compared to most schools. We will have to join classes occasionally, but they will join classes of a similar age, to ensure they continue to learn at their year level.

Exciting Announcement:

We wish to congratulate Jenna Wynd, our Year ½ teacher on the impending birth of her second child. Jenna and her partner will welcome their second child late this year. This will mean that ½ will have another teacher for the final part of the school year to work alongside Serena. We will make these announcements shortly.

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