Principal's Message
Dear parents, students and families,
Our senior students and some Year 4's had the opportunity to play against local Catholic schools at John Paul College. Our students had a couple of wins in the footy, were Runner's Up in the netball and won the Volleystars/Newcombe. Many thanks to everyone at JPC who facilitated this under the leadership of Principal John Visentin, to Mrs Ary and our staff who organised our students for the day and to parent Ben Cadd who again coached our footy team.
In school improvements we can obviously all see that the building project is moving forwards. The windows are currently being installed and the plastering will commence next week. I remain hopeful that we will have furniture in the build area by the end of the year so it is a quick set up for classes in 2026. Yesterday we had a sliding sensor door installed to replace the very old front door of the Admin Block which will be a great improvement.
Tomorrow is All Souls' Day and a school closure day as is Monday 3rd November as part of the teacher's employment agreement. As such students will finish this week today and then return to school on Wednesday 5th November. If families are using this as a chance to get away may you travel safely.
With tomorrow being All Soul's Day and Saturday being All Saints Day some families may be involved in celebrating Halloween. I have shared a couple of articles sourced from the Vatican on the Catholic Church roots behind the almost secular fascination with Halloween that you may be interested in reading.
Tomorrow is also the Australian celebration of World Teachers Day so I would like to take the opportunity to express my gratefulness for the Christ-filled caring and educating of our students that they do every day at school. We are blessed to have such a high quality staff.
God Bless
Rod Shaw
Principal
School Attendance and Unexplained Absence
Please contact the school if your child is going to be absent by leaving a message on
9786 4736 and press 1. Please give details of your child’s name and class with areason for their absence such as: unwell, appointment, holiday or family reasons. Alternatively an email can be sent to office@saseaford.catholic.edu.au with cc to the child’s teacher.
If you are running late, (after 9:00 am) please attend the office to sign your child into school.
If you are picking up your child early you will need to collect them and sign them out from the office.
As per our policy this will be our morning routine for absences:
Parents will be contacted as soon as practicable on the morning a student is absent via a text message.
If parent does not contact the school after receiving the text message, the school will contact the parent by phone. If the parent is unreachable the emergency contacts will be contacted by the school.
If there is still no response, and the school feels that the child is in danger, the police will be contacted.
Ongoing unexplained absences or lack of cooperation regarding student attendance will result in a formal conference being organized. Unresolved attendance issues will be referred to D.H.H.S.
This is a legal requirement.
Democratic Principles
The six (6) principles of Australian democracy include:
(a) elected government; and
(b) the rule of law; and
(c) equal rights for all before the law; and
(d) freedom of religion; and
(e) freedom of speech and association; and
(f) the values of openness and tolerance