From the Principal

We have a New P&F Committee for 2025

At the P&F AGM On Tuesday 12 November it was heartwarming to see parents step forward to fill the roles for our 2025 P&F executive committee. Congratulations to the following parents who have accepted the following key executive roles.

President - Sabrina Benlian
Vice President - Emily Antic
Treasures - Steph Loader and Louise Franco
Secretaries - Athina Dardon, Anida Jupic and Ramya Rajendran

There were many who also joined as general members. We invite many more parents to also join this group and supporting our 2025 P&F as general members. Let's do it for our children and for ourselves. A strong P&F committee is essential to maintaining the strong community that we have at St Francis de Sales

If you cannot commit to being involved on the committee and attending all our 2025 P&F meetings, you could just commit to organising one event. If several parents did just one event, we can keep our events going, do new things and keep our community thriving and flourishing. We will put out an Operoo next week for parents to sign up for an event. Our new Prep Parents have already done this! It would be sensational and encouraging to see many more parents join this great new team to make 2025 a fantastic year.

A huge thanks to the P&F executive of 2024 for their outstanding achievements and for their support for the school. Parents working in partnership is our X factor. You have been our X factor in 2024. A massive BIG thanks to:

President - Lourdes Iape
Vice President - Elena Senise
Treasurers - Natasha Pizzimento and Kirei Reed
Secretaries - Melissa Turner and Raquel Netto

Your efforts are greatly appreciated by the staff and especially by the children. You have raised an unbelievable amount for the school due to your efforts. We have also had a lot of FUN events that our children have loved. This year we will farewell Lourdes and Elena and thank them for stepping into key P&F roles for several years. Recent fundraising efforts by our P&F have contributed $30000 to the $170000 cost of air-conditioners. This has been an outcome that the entire school can enjoy now and into the future. It was achieved with the efforts have the past few years. The entire school community joins me in thanking you for getting involved and working in partnership for the best outcomes for our school. We are so grateful to each member of the executive, the general members of our P&F and to all those who have done something big or small to make a difference this year.

The stronger the community involvement the more we can leverage the benefits for our school. A flourishing community is vital for any organisation and essential for a school. We have a great foundation to build upon.

Help Needed - We need to fill two key roles.

Garden Coordinator

Brad Jackson has done a beyond brilliant job of being our Garden and Grounds coordinator for the past eight years and many more before that supporting Cameron Easton who took the role on when the school openned in 2010. We have been so fortunate to have Brad take this task on and ensure that our Mowing Group runs smoothly. Brad got nominated for this job by his wife Francesca!! We are so grateful for everything he has done to support our school. This is Brad's last year as his youngest daughter is completing Grade 6. We now need someone to step up or a group of people to join together to be captains of our mowing teams.

The mowing organised by parents is an amazing positive feature of our school. It helps parents get to know each other and it saves the school money that can be directed to other school improvements. It keeps school fees discounted. It makes us a great community.

So let's continue this tradition. If you can be the co-ordinator that would be sensational. Alternatively, if you can captain a mowing team that would be great as well. We could have a group of captains and so we can share the task. A captain needs to:

Liaise with Lorenza in the office prior to you day
ensure equipment is ready to go
Come before others and open up
allocate the tasks on the day
ensure new parents are taught what to do
ensure the tasks are done safely with courtesy to neighboring properties
Pack up and lock up.

Please consider this vital role and please let us know if you can help. We have a P&F team for 2025 and it would be great to have a Garden team as well. Please email cwhite@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au if you can assist or contact Brad.

Scholastic BOOK Club Organiser.

Laura Cole has done this job for us for years but will also be leaving us at the end of this year as Toby moves to Year 7. The Book club earns us rewards that enables us to purchase books for our school library. We really want to continue with Book Club at SFS but we need a new Book Club Organiser

Our school is looking for a new Book Club Organiser.

Scholastic Book Club not only enables us to boost our home and school libraries, but also to improve children’s reading skills and encourage at-home reading.

You can help ensure Book Club continues at St Francis de Sales in 2025! We are looking for a new Book Club Organiser to manage Book Club. You can keep the reading momentum rolling at our school by helping provide children with more access to self-selected independent reading material all year long.

Plus, when you run Book Club, everyone benefits—every Book Club order earns 15% in Scholastic Rewards to help purchase additional learning and literacy resources for our school!

Book Club helps feed the reader.

There are eight issues of Book Club each year. You should consider offering them all in your school to keep the reading momentum rolling.

When the catalogues arrive at our school, the Book Club Organiser distributes the catalogues to students and advises them of the date that orders are due.

As a Book Club Organiser, placing your orders is simple online. When the orders are placed by class, the books arrive back at the school pre-sorted, which makes your job of distributing the books easy!

Interested in making a difference at our school?

• Provide continuous access to the best books at the best prices for families!

• Help to feed readers with regular access to independent reading material.

• Earn free books for the school!

If you are interested in becoming the next Book Club Organiser, please contact cwhite@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au

WINNERS, WINNERS

Congratulations to Jeremy from AO and Francis from IH who won the School Advisory Council Quiz at the STEM Family Night. The awards were presented b Tristan and Courtney from the School Advisory Council.

Class Placements for 2025

Our teachers have already commenced the complex tasks of deciding class placement of students for 2025.

Teachers consider a number of factors when developing preliminary Learning Space and Home Group lists. They consider academic ability; special skills, needs and talents; social competencies; students who work well together and students who may not work well together. Skills needed for building new relationships are also an important part of our educative process. Our children have been asked to name three friends and we will consider their requests and place them with at least one friend in their learning space.

Parent input based strictly on student learning needs, is also considered. Parents with specific concerns about their child's learning needs for 2025, were invited to provide written information via email to the principal by 3pm Friday 25th October 2024. It is now too late to email a request.

Please be aware that parent request for particular teachers will not be accepted.

A request is taken into consideration with other factors but is not guaranteed.

The ultimate responsibility for student teacher allocation rests with the Principal. Our school processes are most comprehensive and professional with decisions always made in the best interest of our students.

If you child is not returning to SFS in 2025, please email principal@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au to inform us of your plans without further delay. It is better to know this vital information before your child is allocated to a home group with their friend. Last minute changes are extremely difficult.

Parents will be informed about their child's Home Group Teacher in the Semester two report in December. Students will meet their Home Group teacher for 2025 on Monday 16 December at our whole school orientation morning.

Enjoy the weekend and the first of long summer days.

Christine White

Principal