Principal's Report

Manuela Watson

WEEK 11

"Do not be afraid.  Listen, I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people.  Today in the town of David a saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.  And here is a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying  in a manger."

Luke 2:10-12

Dear Parent and Carers,

As this is the final newsletter for 2019, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all my staff for everything they do for your children. They are a dedicated hard working group of teachers who work tirelessly at school and home to ensure they are giving your children the best education. I wish them a very well deserved and restful break. 

A very special thanks to Clare Moore (retirement), Tania Fragopoulos (maternity leave), Janine Turville and Laura Munari (moving to a new schools), Claire Tennant (taking leave from teaching), Edwina Moulin (on sick leave - please keep her in your prayers) and Peter (our cleaner who is seeking a career change) for their wonderful contribution to our school community and we wish them the very best for their future.

Next Year we welcome Di Manthos, Colleen Monaghan, Olivia Sargent and Stefanie Carriera to our wonderful community. 

We have a number of families whose youngest child finishes this year and will be ending their association with St Fidelis. I thank them for their support this year and you are always welcome back. 

Finally thank you to all the wonderful St Fidelis students. You are the reason all the teachers get out of bed in the morning. Thank you for being great students. It's been a pleasure getting to know you all and I wish you a safe a relaxing holiday break.

On behalf of Father Cartwright, Father Michael and the staff, I wish everyone a very Happy and Holy Christmas. Enjoy your break with your family and we look forward to working with all the families again in 2020. 

Sincerely,

Manuela 

Year 6 Graduation

Thank you to Father Michael for celebrating such a prayerful Graduation mass on Saturday night. Thank you to the senior teachers and Mrs Wenckowski for preparing the students for this Mass. Congratulations to the award winners on the night: Noah, Marcus, Olivia and Claudia who each received an Academic award and Antonio, Sofia, Clare and Amelia who received the Father Fitzpatrick award.

Special thank you to Crystal Nappo and Lucy Leahy who organised a fantastic celebration afterwards for the Year Six students and their families. 

Parents and Friends

Many, many thanks to the Parents and Friends and all the community for the $25,000 cheque presented to the school at assembly last week. This money will go directly to buying resources for your children’s education. As mentioned at assembly the money will buy some of the robotics equipment required for our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) program commencing in Term

2, 2020. I cannot express my gratitude to all the community in supporting these fundraising efforts and the Parents and Friends for the organising of these events.  

Unfortunately, we were unable to assign a President and Vice president last week at the AGM. If you would like to put your hand up for any of these positions (co-sharing is also possible ) please let Lucy, Crystal, Mira or anyone else on the current committee know. Without a president, we cannot have a committee and it would be a shame not to be able to raise much needed funds for our school and for the student's resources. Please consider asking a friend and sharing the role. Some future areas that  fundraising could support:

• School Play pods- Different areas of the playground for different types of play 

• Upgrade existing playground 

• Vegetable garden

• Shade sails 

Non-government Victorian School Grant 

If you haven't heard by now, St Fidelis was successful with their application for the non-government schools grant.  At last week’s assembly Mrs Lizzie Blandthorn presented the school with a $1,955,00.00 cheque. This grant will go towards the upgrade and refurbishment of the junior classrooms. We would like to thank Mrs Lizzie Blandthorn for her support and being an advocate for our application. Next year I will have further details and drawings of the plans for the community to view so you can see how the money will be spent. 

New School Logo

In Term Three, some students in Year 5/6 had the opportunity to work in several workshops with Maria Surace (A marketing professional and mother of Dante 3/4BF and Allegra 5/6GT) to teach the students the process of design. Their project was to develop a new school logo. As a result of these workshops the students have created a new school logo and have had the opportunity to present their Logo at the Parish Education Board last term. This Logo will now be the one we use as a school. Overtime this Logo will replace any other Logos that we currently have. Below are some of the students' reflections about the process, the new logo and the story behind the end product. Congratulations to these students and thank you to Maria for engaging these students with such a purposeful and authentic project.

ST FIDELIS DESIGN FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK

“I loved drawing in the design focus group, it was really fun and we had lots of ideas. We had a St Fidelis picture to help us get ideas. We had lessons that taught us about business and the logo.” Julian

“I have enjoyed helping design, like picking colours and brainstorming ideas and designs. It was fun creating and going through the design process to make the new logo.” Sienna

“I have enjoyed creating my own design and learning the process of creating the logo, including the colours, font, etc. I liked how I was free to ask questions and because of that I learnt more and was more engaged. This was a really enjoyable group and I would love to do it again.” Marcus

“I have enjoyed helping design the logo, picking colours and brainstorming ideas for the school logo. It have learnt that it takes a lot of time and effort into make and designing the logo.” Scarlett

“I really enjoyed presenting the final logos to the school board. I learnt all about the design process and about rebranding. I also learn how to create a new logo.” Mary

“What I enjoyed about helping create the logo was that it was fun and I liked how we were able to help pick some of the colours. What I learnt was that designing a logo is a lot harder than it looks. You have to pick different colours and fonts. Also making an original design was hard, but overall I really enjoyed it.” Amelia

“What I have learnt while designing the new school logo is the design process and how people pick the colours that match the most. I am very grateful that I got to do this as I learnt a lot.” Nina 

LOGO DESCRIPTION 

The St Fidelis Primary School Logo is representative of the co-educational catholic education school that caters for Foundation Year through to Year Six students. The logo has been designed in conjunction with a group of Year Five and Six students as part of a design focus group. The students undertook a five-part session to understand the key aspects of branding and visual design and all that it encompasses. Each student took part in designing options and these were then combined to form the basis of the new school logo.

The new logo incorporates a variety of Catholic faith elements including:

•         The shield represents the symbol of protection. It has been created as the shape of a chalice which is a cup used to hold sacramental wine during the Eucharist.

•         The cross within the shield represents the Catholic faith symbolising sacrifice, hope and salvation.

•         The olive leaf wreath represents peace and friendship.

The words St Fidelis Primary School uses a combination of serif and sans serif fonts for a contemporary design. The colours that represent the logo are red, blue and green.

Working Bee

The parents of St Fidelis Community continues to blow me aw