Principal's Report

Dear Parents and Carers,

Year 5 Portsea Camp

My sincere thanks to the staff who supported our Year 5 Camp this year:

Mrs Diakrousis, Mrs Benoiton, Miss Douglas, Mr Daidone, Mrs Connell, Mrs Mackay, Mr Edwards, Miss Amanda and Miss Leanne.  Without their support of our camp program, our children would not be able to have these wonderful experiences. The campers were very lucky to have avoided the wild Melbourne weather yesterday with most scheduled events completed.  My congratulations to the Year 5 students for their resilience and good spirit shown during the camp.  I was able to attend on Tuesday and I was very pleased with all students' manners and their ability to step outside their comfort zone, particularly when it came to the Giant Swing and Flying Fox activities.

Social Media

It is wonderful for our families and the wider communtiy to see the amazing things our students get up to whilst on camps, excursions and at school, via our social media platforms.  Please share and like our posts and celebrate what the St. Patrick's school has to offer.  

Can I remind all parents that it is never okay to use your child's (or any other child's) name in comments on these platforms.  These comments will be deleted.   Repeat offenders will be followed up with a phone call from myself and possible blocking of access to our sites. My thanks for your assistance in this important privacy matter.

Parents and Friends Information

My sincere thanks to the many parents who attended the P & F meeting on Tuesday evening at the school.  We had a great meeting with robust discussion regarding our future events and planning.  Further information will be communicated regarding internet and group chat protocols once I have convened with the School Advisory Council later this term.

Please check further in this newsletter for the many upcoming events for our community.

New School Website

I am currently in the production phase with our school website provider in updating our online presence.  I have had some drone photos taken of the school site which coincidently was on the day we had Kaboom kids sports here and I'm sure you would all agree the photos look fantastic!  Our new website should be up and running by the end of Term 1.  We have also taken some action shots of the children at school during the week which we would like to use on the updated website.  The school will be contacting parents directly in the coming weeks for permission to use the photos we have taken for our website.

Parent - Teacher Exchange

The teachers will be holding information exchange sessions where parents will have the opportunity to pass on valuable information about your child/children. These will begin in Week 4 on Monday 19th February and Wednesday 21st February for students from Year 1-6.  Students from Year 3-6 will be invited to attend these meetings as well. 

Bookings can be made HERE via our online booking system and are now open for families to make their booking.  Bookings will close 24 hours prior to the meeting days.

Sibling - Prep 2025 Enrolments and Open Days

Sibling Prep enrolments for 2025 are now open and are accessible from our school website or from the office.  Our 'Open Days' are scheduled for Tuesday 27th February, Tuesday 12th March and Tuesday 26th March or by appointment.  As per our enrolment policy, current families will have priority enrolment, followed by baptised catholics in our boundries and then baptised catholics outside our boundries, if we have availablity, we can then accept other enrolments.  We are currently expecting to have 3 Prep classes for 2025 of around 23-24 students per class.  Sibling enrolment interviews will occur at the end of Term 1.  This will enable us to determine how many places we will have avaliable for new families.

School Fees

Please find attached below our 2024 school fee schedule.  Individual school fees should be out next week.  Apologies for the delay.

School Calendar

Please use the following google link to add the school calendar to your own calendar for ease of information exchange. School Google Calendar HERE.

God Bless

Pat Berlingeri

Principal