Principal's Report

Please keep an eye on the calendar as we have so many events coming up, and we don't want anyone to miss anything. Our Preps are off on their very first excursion to IMAX tomorrow, and our Years 5/6 team are also heading to IMAX on Monday. Our whole school swimming carnival is next Friday, make sure to read the Sports News page and Operoo for a full rundown of what to expect on this day. The weather forecast is looking great for our carnival as well ...31 degrees at this stage. 

Italian Day

Our Carnevale themed Italian Day last Friday was simply "magnifica". It had everything - costumes, colour, a surprise visit from Mr Oopy, an arancini making demonstration and human Foosball. Molte grazie to Lena Sirianni for organising such a wonderful day for our community. Please enjoy the below video that Mr Oopy has created especially for us. 

Christmas Carols 

We are very excited about our annual St Finbar's Christmas Carols event happening Wednesday December 4th.  We also have our matinee performance at 12pm that day which may appeal to grandparents or other family members so feel free to let them know about it.  Our Performing Arts teacher Susan Williams has been hard at work with each class preparing and rehearsing for the evening and it promises to be a fun, joyous evening. Let's just keep fingers crossed for good weather. 

NForma - New Parent Portal

It is almost time for our reports to come out. NForma has decomissioned their old Parent Portal and each parent will be required to update the link that they use the Portal and/or download the Parent Portal App. 

There is the possibility that we will be using more of NForma's features in the near future so it is well worth the effort to download the App. There are full instructions in the link below. This will also be emailed to you at report time. 

MACSIS Data

Last week I shared some of the Family results from our MACSIS data, this week I will spend some time discussing our Student results. We had 127 students from Years 4 to 6 complete the survey. 

Our results in the School Belonging domain were very strong showing that students feel connected to the school, 73% of students indicated that their peers are kind and helpful, and 79% feel well supported by the adults at school. 

Students see themselves as learners, with 86% stating that they are good at learning, and 81% of our students feeling that their teachers have high expectation of them. 

Whilst our girls results showed a high level of engagement, our boys responded less positively. This is something for us as a staff to be aware of and something that we will work towards to improving when we develop our Annual Action Plan. 

As a staff we have already discussed what actions we can take as a school based on this student data. Some of these include:

• Incorporating more student led/high interest tasks into our learning programs
• Using the Ripple data collected in class (Years 2 to 5) to check-in with students and have meaningful conversation with them
• Using our morning circle times to build relationships with students and chat with them about their life outside school

St Finbar's Recipe Book

You can still purchase copies of our St Finbar's Community Cookbook from the school office for $10 a copy. It really does look great, and there are so many delicious recipes to try at home, all contributed by our families. 

BayCISS Christmas Toy Drive

You may be interested in supporting the following Toy Drive for vulnerable young people in the Bayside area. Donations of balls (only new ones please) and drink bottles can be left at the office. 

Take care and God bless,

Michelle Hill 

Principal