In This Edition

Welcome Back to Term 4!

Welcome back to Term 4! We begin this term with Mr Stephen Arthurson taking some well-deserved leave, and we look forward to welcoming Stephen back in Week 4.  In the interim, Ms Leona Dean and Mrs Lauri Plummer will be sharing the role of Acting Principal. We look forward to working together to ensure a smooth and positive start to Term 4 for our students, families and staff.

Term 4 is always a busy and exciting term as we prepare our students for the year ahead and begin looking towards 2027. It is a special time of year as we reflect on the time we have shared with our Year 6 students and prepare to celebrate their journey at St Anne’s, while also helping all of our students get ready to transition into their new year level next year.

There are plenty of exciting things happening across the school this term. We have many celebrations to look forward to, including our Year 6 Graduation and End-of-Year Christmas Picnic. Our Year 4 students are also heading off to camp, while many of our other year levels will be out and about enjoying excursions and learning experiences beyond the classroom.

There is certainly lots to look forward to, and we can’t wait to see all that Term 4 brings! We hope it is a term filled with learning, laughter, celebration and many wonderful memories for our students and families.

🌟 Prep Transition Mornings Begin!

Our Prep Transition Mornings start over the next few weeks, we look forward to welcoming our future Prep students to St Anne’s as they begin getting to know our school, teachers and new friends.

Some of our future Preps have already had the opportunity to visit us through our Kinder Story Time sessions, where they come into school and enjoy a story with our Literacy Leaders Bianca Cutajar and Vanessa Willis and our Wellbeing Leader Lindy Brown. We are excited to continue helping our newest students feel comfortable, confident and excited about starting their school journey at St Anne’s! 💙

Attendance Policy Update

As mentioned in previous newsletters, we have been working with MACS (Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools) on student attendance across all Catholic schools.

As part of this work, we have been working with SIMON to provide families with more regular updates about their child’s attendance. Our aim is to make attendance more visible and help families understand where their child’s attendance currently sits in relation to our school’s attendance policy.

Once finalised, families will receive a fortnightly email through SIMON outlining the number of days their child has been absent and providing a clear picture of their current attendance. We hope to have this new process in place over the next few weeks. We are just waiting for some final changes to be made within SIMON before we can get started.

We appreciate your support in helping us promote regular attendance and ensuring our students have every opportunity to learn, connect and participate in school life.

Please see below our Attendance Process that was sent out earlier in the year.

Trialling a New Transition Process

Learning Buddies

Following feedback from our SAC meetings, we have been working with staff and families to explore how we can continue to improve our transition processes. Together, we have developed some new initiatives that we will begin trialling this year to give students and families greater opportunities to give teachers input into their individual needs.

Students from Prep to Year 2 

This week, students will bring home a worksheet titled Positive Learning Buddies to complete together with their families. The form provides an opportunity for students and parents to talk about the students they feel have been positive learning buddies this year. This information will be considered by teachers as part of the class grouping process for next year. Parents will also receive a SeeSaw message explaining how to complete the form together including conversation questions. We ask that completed forms are returned to the classroom teacher by Thursday 15th October, forms not completed and returned by the date will be done by the students with the classroom teachers. 

Students from Years 3 to 5 

As students grow we encourage them to have more autonomy and sense of responsibility. As a result, parents will receive some conversation questions via SeeSaw to discuss with their child about what makes a good learning buddy. During Week 2, students will then complete a short survey to independently identify students they feel they work well with. The information gathered will be considered by teachers as part of the overall class grouping process. 

While this gives students a voice, it does not guarantee that students will be placed with all students they nominate. Where possible, we hope each student will have at least one positive learning buddy from their list in their class the following year.

Additional Transition Day

Feedback also highlighted the value of giving students more than one opportunity to meet their new teacher and classmates before the new school year begins.

We understand that change can bring a range of emotions, including excitement, nervousness and anxiety. By providing an additional orientation session, one in week 9 and an additional one in week 10,  we hope to give our students more time to become familiar with their new classroom, meet their teacher and get to know some of the other students in their class. Our aim is to help students feel more comfortable, confident and excited about the year ahead.

Transition times are also a wonderful opportunity to help build resilience in our children. As parents, we naturally want our children to be happy, settled and doing well. We don’t want to see them upset or experiencing disappointment – and that is part of being a good parent. However, we also know that life will bring challenges, changes and moments that don’t always go the way we hoped. By supporting our children through these experiences while they are young, rather than trying to remove the challenges for them, we can help them develop the skills and confidence to navigate difficulties as they get older.

As children move through school and eventually into adulthood, they will face increasingly complex challenges. Giving them opportunities to practise resilience, problem-solving and coping with change now can help prepare them for whatever comes their way in the future.

Please reach out via email or phone with any questions, compliments or concerns,

Warm Regards,

Lauri Plummer

Acting Principal

principal@sasunbury.catholic.edu.au

Ph 8746 6800