Principal's Post
Dear Families,
This will be a busy and exciting week for our students and families with our Thanksgiving Mass on Tuesday here at St James at 7pm, our Year 6 Graduation on Thursday evening and Friday's Year Prep/One nativity prayer service at 2.30pm.
In reflecting on the 2024 school year a number of highlights and special moments come to mind.
- One of the most notable is the introduction of our whole school term values and the way all students embraced this.
- Book Week Dress up Parade
- Yr 5 and 6 Camps
- Our Art Show "The World We See"
- Twilight Sports and the introduction of the House Dance
- Sacraments of First Eucharist, Confirmation and First Reconciliation
- Preps 100 Days of School
- The progress of our new building
- The recent Swimming program
Another highlight was the incredible support our wonderful parents have provided our school community throughout the year in so many ways. Here are a few examples; classroom helpers, excursion helpers, sports day umpires and managers, raffle ticket coordinators, P & F roles including treasurer, food day coordinators, uniform shop coordinators, the many event coordinators and supporters, ..... the list could go on forever. We are forever grateful for your support and today's afternoon tea was a small token of our appreciation.
Farewell Staff
This year we farewell Nicole Addison who has been an excellent staff member and Year 2 teacher for the past two years here at St James.
We also farewell Lily Murphy who joined us this year as a Learning Support Officer mainly working in Year 6.
Molly Masters who has been on Parental Leave has taken up a position at St Bernadette's The Basin to commence in 2025. In her time at St James, Molly has held the leadership position of Religious Education Leader and been a classroom teacher in Year 1, Year 5 and Year 6 as well as our Visual Arts teacher.
We wish these three staff all the best as they move on to new experiences next year.
We also farewell Jasna, Jake and the other Camp Australia staff as we move to MACSEYE as our service provider. Jasna, in particular has been a big influence on our students as the Coordinator of the program for the past few years.
Flooded Classrooms Update
The restoration of our 5 classrooms is underway with a restoration team descending on our school to investigate, evaluate, assess, clear, remove, relocate, store, clean and plan for a rebuild of our classrooms over the Summer break.
We are hopeful that classes will resume in these rooms at the commencement of the new school year.
MACSEYE Out of Hours School Care
Please register your children for this service which will operate from Day One next year.
MACSEYE informed me that there was a glitch in their sign up method which should be rectified later this week and apologises for any inconvenience caused by this.
I have negotiated for them to run a care program on our Assessment Days, Wed 29 and Thurs 30 January next year. They have guaranteed not to cancel regardless of the number of enrolments.
Click here to register
If you have any questions you can email MACSEYE
directly at enrolments@macseye.vic.edu.au
Student Spotlight
We currently have our very own superstar student gracing the stage at Melbourne's Princess Theatre. Talitha of 5C has been rehearsing and performing in her professional debut in the Tina Turner Musical playing the role of young Alline. Such an incredible achievement to be performing in such a huge scale production - Well done Talitha!!
Another student who achieved recent success is Amelia (5S) who entered a competition through the LEGO Group to design a sleigh to help Santa make his way around Australia and NZ.
Her design was one of eight chosen across Australia and New Zealand to appear in a children's digital and audiobook, Santa's Summer Sleigh, written by Australian author Sophie Beer. She also won a trip to the LEGO store in Sydney to attend the unveiling of six sleighs made out of LEGO bricks by Ryan "Brickman" McNaught, including her design - Santa's Surfboard Sleigh.
Amelia's sleigh used 4856 bricks and took Brickman 98.25 hours to make!
I've attached a picture of Amelia with her sleigh at the event in Sydney.
2025 Classes, Assessment Day Bookings and Requirements
Assessment Day booking information, Classlists and requirements to be brought from home for 2025 will be shared will all families on Friday afternoon following our "Move Up Morning"
School Shoes and Runners
As our uniform policy states all students are to wear black school shoes with the general school uniform and runners with the Sports Uniform (Phys Ed and Interschool Sports Days).
Our St James interpretation of the terminology is as follows:
Leather or Synthetic Leather constitute shoes
Mesh or material constitute runners
Therefore mesh covered footwear are classified as runners.
Please be aware of this when purchasing footwear for next year.
Fete Fundraising Success
Please see below letter from Brendan Mills, Chair of the Fete Committee.
St John’s Parish Community Fete 2024.
Everyone came and celebrated! THANK YOU.
Great occasions like our 70th Fete on Saturday the 16th do not just happen. If you attended and had a great time, if you assisted with setup, were a stallholder or volunteered for any of the great array of stalls including, BBQ,Bookshop, Bric a Brac, Cakes, Coffee, Colouring Competition, Crafts, JJ’s Café,Donuts, Drinks, Face Painting, Hot Chips, JJ’s Bar, Lob a Choc, Plants, Pluck-a-Duck, Pop Corn, Fairy Floss, Preloved Clothes , Preloved Toys, Raffle, Ridesales, Sweets, Snow Cones, Showbags, Indian food, Silent Auction, assisted with safeguarding, all who contributed to the entertainment from the Mainstage, our Mezzo Soprano, our eMC; AV gurus, helped with counting, or assisted with pack-up,
THANK YOU!
It couldn’t have been done without you all. See you all in 2025.
A special mention must be made of the untold contribution made by fifteen Year 11 students from Whitefriars College. The parish connection with Whitefriars is a long one but without their tireless assistance on Friday we would not have been ready to celebrate on Saturday.
THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
To the Fete Committee for its months of committed planning and organising a huge
THANK YOU!
To Fr Dispin for the weather. No pressure for 2025 (but maybe reduce the effort to one knee, 34c was too hot.)
THANK YOU from Brendan.
For us at St James because of the fantastic time and effort from our volunteer parents, the contribution from the parish is over $7 000.
Our St James profit from raffle ticket sales was over $3 000
This $10 000 totals a highest revenue to our St James community from the fete!
Parents & Friends 2025 News and Updates
Cinema Night is booked for Friday 21 March - save the date
Jason Barrie has put his hand up to be one of the P & F Leaders and is looking for two others to join him and share the leadership load.
So far we have had a few parents sign up to the various roles and are looking for many more to be filled by Friday. Please see attached position descriptions.
So ... please have a chat to your friends and sign up together!
Santa Letters
Santa's North Pole Mailbox is in the admin area. If your child would like to post a letter to Santa, they can bring them in up until December 17th.
Uniform Shop
St James uniform is available from Spartan School World shop at U12/100 New St, Ringwood or via the website. Please note the change in address.
Please see below the details of Spartan Uniform Shop Christmas/Back to School delivery schedule
Please note there will be no uniform delivery in the last week of Term 4. This is a busy week for both schools and couriers and if the delivery is not made prior to school finishing then there is a risk that orders are lost at the courier depot over the holidays.
- Final Uniform Delivery 2024 – Week 10 2024 - 9th - 13th December 2024
- First Uniform Delivery 2025 – Week 1 2025 - 28th– 31st January 2025
- Orders placed during the break for Delivery to School will be held and sent when school reopens on 28th January.
- Orders for delivery to home will continue to be processed and sent via Australia Post. (Except during our Christmas Closure period from 20th December to 6th January)
- All stores will close at 5.00 pm on Friday 20th December and reopen at 9.00 am Wednesday 8th January. Please check the website for each store’s hours.
- All stores will be open on Australia Day Public Holiday 27th January 2025
- For information and assistance please email OnlineOrders@spartass.com.au
Our Goats and Chooks need you!
We are still looking for families to help with the farm over the school holiday. If you are not going away and are available to help here are the dates that are still available.
Fri 27th , Sat 28th, Sun 29th & Mon 30th Dec
Wed 8th, Thur 9th, Fri 10th & Sat 11th Jan
Sun 12th, Mon 13th, Tues 14th & Wed 15th Jan
Please email Jo on
joanne.magnik@sjvermont.catholic.edu.au
Just a reminder of important dates:
- Monday 9th - Thank you Parent Helpers Afternoon Tea 2:40pm
- Tuesday 10th - St James Thanksgiving Mass 7pm Reynolds Community Centre
- Thursday 12th - Year 6 Graduation Evening
- Friday 13th - Prep & Year 1 Nativity Prayer Service 2:25pm
- Monday 16th - Whole School Moving on Assembly (2 - 3.15pm) and Yr 6 Final Day
- Tuesday 17th - Last day of term for students Yrs P - 5 (3.20 dismissal)
Last day for Christmas raffle tickets is Friday, please remember to send back to school.
Have a great week,
Dave