Principal’s News

Dear Parents and Carers,

I trust you have had an enjoyable and restful weekend.  As you can probably tell from the photo above, I am pretty excited about our unexpected, nail biting win over the Gold Coast Suns on Saturday.  I hope your team won too. Go Roos!

Assembly Wednesday

Due to a calendar clash, our last assembly was held over for a week.  To keep things in alignment, we will be having another assembly this week.  It will be run by our school leaders and our Year 1/2s will be presenting their learning.  We will be presenting our Students of the Week for weeks 4 and 5.  You will find the names of the recipients later in the newsletter.

2027 Enrolments

Enrolments for 2027 are progressing very well, with around a dozen enrolment forms already submitted.  This is a great result so far as we have only just run our Enrolment Information Night and we have more School Tours booked in.  I believe all of our current families with Foundation 2027 students have submitted their enrolment forms.  If you have a child in Foundation next year and have not submitted your form, please do so at your earliest convenience.

Enterprise Bargaining Agreement

As you would not doubt have seen in the news, the Victorian Branch of Australian Education Union (AEU) have been engaging in Industrial Action over recent months, leading to the establishment of an in principle agreement with the Victorian Government over wages for staff in Victorian State Schools.  While the Independent Education Union - Victoria and Tasmania (IEU - Vic/Tas) supports the action of the AEU, IEU members are not protected under current Industrial Law to participate in strike action.

At this stage, we are hopeful that the pay and condition negotiations will proceed quickly, as Catholic School Teachers will receive the same pay and conditions as the State Teachers.  The pay deal is nearly six months overdue and our teachers, LSOs and other staff should be getting the pay rise they deserve.

Photo Day

On Friday we had our School Photos.  Unfortunately, there were some hiccups throughout the day, leading to a late start and a bit of a scramble to get things done before our senior students headed off to Cross Country.  Sadly, some of the children whose families  requested and paid for Sibling Photos did not have these taken.  I am currently in discussion with the photographer about returning to take these photos in the coming days.  The plan will be for them to take the photos of all siblings together.  This gives parents an opportunity to view them and choose whether to purchase them at a later dateequested to return and take sibling photos.  You will be notified about the date once this has been finalised.

Building Master Plan - Shelter in Place (SIP)

The Building Master Plan shared with the community in term four was as follows:

• Stage 1: Vegetation Reduction, Installation of Water Tanks and Retrofitting SPA Centre as Shelter-in-Place (SIP)
• Stage 2: Renovation of the Core Building, Moving Library and STEAM Programs into spare classrooms (demolition of the STEAM Room and Library)
• Stage 3: Construction of three General Purpose Classrooms and two Specialist classrooms in the space between the SPA Centre and the main building, adjacent to the oval.

Since then, investigations have revealed that it will not be possible to bring the  SPA Centre up to specifications for a complient SIP.  It would, in fact be more cost effective to bulldoze it and start again.  Clearly, this is not going to happen.

Consequently, the plan is now to change the order of the plan and build the two Specialist Classrooms in the space between the SPA Centre and the Main Building.  In an emergency, each classroom could conceivably accommodate around 75 people, meaning up to 150 staff, students and visitors visitors could shelter in this building in the event of a catastrophic event.

The next step is to apply to Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools for a grant to complete these works.  We believe this application will be looked on favourably, due to the fact that we are rated at Level 2 on the Bush Fire at Risk Register and do not have a complient SIP.  We will keep you updated about the progress of this plan.

Best wishes for the week ahead.

Nick.

Nicholas Boyhan

Principal