Principal's Post
Dear Families,
I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend. I enjoyed yesterday afternoon at home by the fire watching a very close game of footy which also raised awareness and funds for the MND foundation, championed by Neale Daniher.
Last Friday's INCLUSION DAY was a day full of energised, respectful, understanding and responsive students and staff. The two hour session all students spent in a mixed House Colour group (Prep - Yr 3 and Yr 4 - Yr 6) resulted in lots of learning, reinforcement and displaying of their understanding of inclusion and what it really means.
The day concluded with a most reverent and relevant prayer service led by our Year Five students. Part of the prayer service included each group presenting an understanding of inclusion and a display of a group photo representing inclusion.
Here are some of them ...
About Real Life Parent Child Night- TOMORROW
***** Book and pay via this link *****
https://www.trybooking.com/DCAJZ
This Wednesday 11 June here in our Community Centre.
Session: Family sessions
Parents and children in Years 3 & 4 6.30 -7.30pm
AND/OR
Parents and children Years 5 & 6 7.45 - 8.45pm
Planting Day - Growing Gardens for Wildlife
A message from the Prep team -
Last Thursday, our Prep students, along with their Grade 6 buddies, students from Vermont Secondary College, and volunteers from Whitehorse Council, took part in a special planting day at our school. We worked together to create a more wildlife-friendly garden space right here in our school grounds! Thank you to the staff at the Whitehorse Council who facilitated our planting session, assisted with gardening equipment and donated over 200 plants!
We are proud to announce that our school is now part of the Gardens for Wildlifeinitiative, supported by Whitehorse Council. This program helps schools and residents turn their gardens into welcoming habitats for local wildlife. It was wonderful to see how our garden will become a “stepping stone” for many species living in the area.
Students donned their gloves and worked hard to remove the plants from their pots, dig holes and water the plants. This was followed by an incursion- Kids for Trees, facilitated by Whitehorse Council and, in particular Sabrina. Thanks for their support and guidance—and for sharing their knowledge and resources with us. We look forward to watching our garden grow and seeing the wildlife it attracts in the months to come!
Preps 2026
Our letters of offer have gone out to all our 2026 Prep families and we hope to have this process finalised and our new intake confirmed within the fortnight. We look forward to welcoming all our new Preps and the new families to our St James Community.
Farmyard
Have you visited our farmyard lately to see the new chicken coup, 3 new chickens and 3 new ducks?
Our animal count is now: 2 goats, 9 chickens and 3 ducks.
Specialist Staff Changes
Carlie Eriksen has taken leave this week. Performing Arts classes will be taken by Anne Gleeson and Jess Moffat.
Nadine Jones has taken two weeks leave. STEM classes will be taught by Louisa Norwell.
Out of Hours School Care - MACSEYE
Please register your children here if you require this service.
If you have any questions you can email MACSEYE
directly at enrolments@macseye.vic.edu.au
Other News Items
As always, we are collecting grocery items for the St Vincent De Paul Food Drive which will be donated at the Feast of the Sacred Heart mass on Friday 27th June. For more details please look at the Education in Faith page.
Please book your tickets HERE for our St James P&F Social Event on August 2nd 2025.
Well done to Shelan for winning 1st place in his piano competition at the Ringwood Eisteddfod (one of the state competitions).
Hope you all have a great short week ahead
Kind regards,
Dave