Dear Families,

As you are aware, this is a very busy time of the year. A reminder that we have a school closure day tomorrow, Friday 15th November. More information on the staff professional learning, below.

World Teachers' Day -Thank You

The St Leonard's staff thank you for the many cards with kind words and gifts for our World Teachers' Day. I thank Alessia, Nicolas, Lori and Luka, our school captains for making a beautiful video of appreciation, featuring 2 students from each class. The school captains showed the staff at morning tea and the response of laughter and gratitude was terrific to witness. At the morning tea we also congratulated our fabulous Library and Digital Technologies Leader, Kaye Gregory on the occasion of her 30 year anniversary of working at St Leonard's.

Thank you SAC and PFA

It was lovely to see some members of the SAC and the PFA at the end of year dinner at the Notting Hill Hotel, last night. I thank all involved in these groups for actively representing and for contributing to the school and parish communities in 2024.

The SAC president, Ruwan and the SAC members, consisting of Father John, Aimee Gale, Rehan, Verina and Tina, carried our their duties to a high standard. We also thank Leanne for her contributions in the first half of the year.

The SAC will meet to plan the Welcome to School BBQ on 4 February 2025. We expect the BBQ to be held on 28 Feb on the oval, subject to the weather. To celebrate and share our unique multicultural community and following our Lion Dance this year, the SAC members would welcome expressions of interest from any community groups wishing to perform a dance or song at our BBQ in 2025. Please email me at principal@leonardsgwav.catholic.edu if you would like to discuss this further. Our AGM will be held on March 11 2025.

The PFA have been working with new and exciting ways to build community and raise money for the school. At our dinner, I thanked Christina for her outstanding work as a passionate President. Along with the executive team of Erica (Vice- president), Steph & Melanie (Co- Secretaries) and Iggy (Treasurer), the Classroom Representatives and the General Members have contributed a great deal of time and energy towards a highly successful year.

Thank you Class Reps 2024

Prep A Sia Roussos & Terri Abeysekera

Prep B Sarah Koh

1 / 2 C Janina Pereira Mok

1 / 2 D Lisa Alizzi

1 / 2 E Joanne Saulys

3 / 4 F Verina Pang

3 / 4 G Erica Madgin & Julie Moretti

3 / 4 H Lara Akinsanya

5 / 6 I Setareh Jafari

5 / 6 J Mandy Hjorth

5 / 6 L Manj Senn & Silvia Miracola

Thank you General Members 2024: Helen Paone, Lina Sano, Aneta Stefanidis, Connie Pascuzzi, Katherine Lukic, David Ting, Michelle Fernando, Jennifer Marrero De Ramirez, Shihan Dias

We are very grateful to the PFA for raising money to install netball goals so that the basketball rings can be changed to netball when needed, for an interactive television for the Performing Arts room and ongoing oval maintenance.

If you would like to join the team, the AGM for the PFA is on February 12th 2025.

School Fees & Levies 2025

When considering fees and levies for 2025 we are trying to keep these reasonable whilst balancing the increase in fees and charges that are passed on to our school. The following is a schedule of the fees and levies for 2025.

St Leonard's Primary School
School Fees and Levies - 2025

	2025	2024
Family Fee (per family)	$ 2,540.00	$2440.00
Capital and Building Fee (per family)	$ 380.00	$ 360.00

School Levies (per child)

Prep to Year 2
School Levy	$ 331.00	$ 285.00
See Saw subscription	$ 6.00	$ 6.00
Wushka subscription	$ 23.00	$ 23.00
Digital Technology Levy	$ 70.00	$ 53.00
	$ 430.00	$ 374.00
Year 3 to 4
School Levy	$ 331.00	$ 285.00
See Saw subscription	$ 6.00	$ 6.00
Manga High Maths	$ 18.00	$ 18.00
Elastik Assessment Subscription	Unsubscribed	$ 20.00
Digital Technology Levy	$ 110.00	$ 105.00
	$ 465.00	$ 441.00

Year 5
School Levy	$ 331.00	$ 285.00
See Saw subscription	$ 6.00	$ 6.00
Mathspace	$ 23.00	$ 23.00
We Video	$ 10.00	$ 15.00
Elastik - Assessment Subscription	Unsubscribed	$ 20.00
Digital Technology Levy	$ 110.00	$ 105.00
	$ 480.00	$ 461.00

Year 6
School Levy	$ 371.00	$ 285.00
See Saw subscription	$ 6.00	$ 6.00
Mathspace	$ 23.00	$ 23.00
We Video	$ 10.00	$ 15.00
Elastik - Assessment Subscription	Unsubscribed	$ 20.00
Digital Technology Levy	$ 110.00	$ 105.00
	$ 520.00	$ 461.00

Excursion Levy (Prep to Year 6)	$ 105.00	$ 100.00
Swimming Levy (Prep to Year 6)	$ 100.00	$ 95.00
Camp Levy (Year 5 and 6) Estimate	$ 465.00	$ 440.00
Sport Levy (Year 5 and 6)	$ 90.00	$ 80.00
St Leonard's has a number of loans:
Current school loan repayments	Repayments per annum	Final repayment
School Building	$ 56,667.00	30th September 2025
Library/Admin building	$ 40,000.00	31st March 2026

School Closure Day- Friday 15th November

Our school closure day will be run by Sherry Balcombe: Olkola/Djabugay, with a focus on cross cultural education. As you may know from previous newsletters, I have a strong interest in Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander history and a desire to ensure that the students and staff and wider community know more as well. The topics interwoven with this history and our present and future can be difficult for teachers to approach, so our professional learning will assist with this.

The first of the 7 AITSL Standards https://www.aitsl.edu.au/standards is about knowing students and how they learn.

One part of this standard is to upskill the knowledge of the staff about strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Our school closure day should support this standard.

The topics included in the professional learning include:

Acknowledgment to Country (Deep Inner Listening)–Followed by Land Fire & Water Ceremony
Debunking myths
Australia’s True history 60,000 years plus – who are we, what does it mean to be Aboriginal and what are the gifts of our culture for all Australians
Join the journey seeing things through First Nations eyes
Exploring First Nations Spirituality, what do we believe how do we connect our Catholic faith with that of our First peoples.
Knowing home – Eco Spirituality (Understanding Aboriginal Spirituality & connections to Catholicism)
Fire Carriers program
Information session discussions / debriefing reflection of the day.
Final Blessing Prayer of the 4 directions

Briefly

Swimming is continuing on every day of the coming week. The children's positive behaviour and particularly their listening and cooperation have been commented on by the swimming instructors. Well done to all students.
We are proud of our former student Shevin, Rovyn's brother, who is currently a student at Mazenod College. At the recent State 800m Under 16 final, he clocked a time of 1.58.76 placing third and achieving a personal best by 3 seconds. Shevin also achieved a new Mazenod record. With this timing he qualified for next year’s Junior Nationals to be held in Perth. We wish Shevin every success.
Alysha Cliff is one of our Learning Support staff members. I am delighted to let the community know that she has given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy, Blake Oliver on 8 November. Our best wishes to Alysha and her family.

To enhance their learning about the Australian electoral system and parliament, our Year 5 & 6 students heard a presentation from The Hon. Carina Garland and Senator Jenny McAllister. Carina has served as a Labor MP for Chisholm since the 2022 Australian federal election, being a member of the Australian House of Representatives. Jenny is a prominent Australian politician and member of the Australian Labor Party . She has represented NSW in the Australian Senate since 2015.

I encourage you to read the "'What's happening in Italian" page of this newsletter to see the wonderful work of Signora Di Petta.
Nude Food Day on 25th of November has been planned by the Guardians of St Leonard's as a result of the recent waste audit they conducted. I encourage you to read the Guardians' page of this newsletter to see the results of the audit and to read more about Nude Food Day.

My best wishes for a wonderful week ahead.

Robert Horwood

Principal

OSHC