Dear St Philomena’s School Community,

Wow, Week 6 of Term 3 is complete! What a fantastic week it has been.

This week we celebrated Book Week at St Philomena’s. The 2025 Children’s Book Week theme in Australia was “Book an Adventure!” — a celebration of 80 years of Book Week that encouraged students to explore new worlds and embark on literary journeys through stories and imagination. The week culminated today with our Book Character Parade, and it was wonderful to see such a strong turnout from our school community. The students embraced the spirit of Book Week with creative costumes and enthusiasm, and even the staff enjoyed dressing up and sharing in the fun.

Next Friday, 5 September, we will be celebrating Footy Colours Day at school. Students are encouraged to come dressed in the colours of their favourite teams. It has been fantastic to see so much passion for our local football teams, with Moree proudly represented in finals across the next two weekends.

This weekend, a number of our secondary students will be playing for the Moree Boomerangs as they travel to Inverell for their finals. Next weekend, the Moree Boars and the Moree Bulls will also be playing their finals here at home in Moree. We are proud that our community is so strongly represented across different codes of sport. Please know that as a school, we support all of our local teams, and we encourage every student to wear their colours with pride next Friday.

Last week, we also came together to celebrate a Memorial Mass for Rapunzel Hikaru.

I want to acknowledge how proud I am of our school community for supporting one another through this tragedy. The Hikaru family has expressed deep gratitude for the love and support shown by our school. While the Mass was an emotional time, it was also an opportunity to celebrate Rapunzel’s life and cherish the memories we hold of her.

Please continue to keep the Hikaru family in your prayers.

Within our classrooms, we have been working with both staff and students on implementing a Living Well Learning Well Flowchart. This tool helps students understand how we live out the diocese-wide Three Rules for Living:

I am Safe
I am Valued, Respected and Cared For
I am a Learner

As staff, we are working together to create a consistent approach to help students replace unsafe or unproductive behaviours. The Rules for Living Flowchart provides a clear framework that ensures predictability, reflection, redirection, and re-engagement with learning. This process reinforces our shared belief:

“People have a better day because I am here as part of the school team!”

This week we also welcomed some of our new Kindergarten students for 2026. It was a joy to meet families, sit with the children, and show them around our classrooms. These interviews will continue over the next fortnight. In the coming weeks, we will also begin meeting our new Year 7 students for 2026, and we look forward to welcoming them into the St Philomena’s community.

It is not too late to put in an application for Kindergarten or Year 7 in 2026. Please click the following link to download a copy of our enrolment form: St Philomena’s Enrolment Application Form

Finally, we are now only 16 days away from our St Philomena’s Spring Fair! Please keep an eye out for updates as our Parents & Friends Association put the finishing touches on this wonderful community event. Funds raised this year will go towards helping students attend excursions and towards new chilled water fountains for the school — a very welcome addition as we head into the warmer months.

Kindest regards, Alistair Stewart Principal

Alistair Stewart

Principal

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