Principal's Report
Christmas Carols
What a wonderful Christmas-y celebration we enjoyed last night. It also happened to be Mrs Williams' St Finbar's swansong as she leaves us at the end of this year. We are so grateful to Susan for all of her dedication and commitment to St Finbar's over the past 5 years. Susan produced our 2021 production of Madagascar and the 2023 production of Alice in Wonderland . Susan has also delivered joyful Christmas Carols performances each year, with last night being no exception. She manages to in numerous choir visits to aged-care homes, which are always well received by the residents there. She will be very much missed at St Finbar's. Please see the gallery of Carols photos below.
Special mention must go to our BBQ helpers last night, Kate and Jason Blake, Kellie Anderson, Callum Mills and Steele Anderson, and to Anna and her team for ensuring we were all well fed before the carols.
In other news, our swimming carnival last Friday was a resounding success. This is another day that literally couldn't happen without parent volunteers so thank you to each and every one of you that helped out. We are very grateful. And of course, a very big thank you must go to Tania Thompson who puts in hours of work behind the scenes working out the logistics for both the Junior and Senior swimming carnivals.
Congratulations to our Senior All Star Girls HoopTime team who won on Tuesday.
We look forward to celebrating these girls properly at our assembly tomorrow morning, and unveiling our newest trophy. Please see the Sports News page for a full rundown of all our basketball news from this week.
Our Year 5s are having a busy end to their year. On Monday they participated in their Year 5 Leadership Day. This is always a great day with teams racing against the clock to complete a series of ten challenges. On Friday the Year 5s will have their interviews for their leadership roles next year. And then next week they head down to Waratah Bay in South Gippsland for their three-day camp.
Reports
Reports will be available in the Parent Portal after 1pm on Friday 13th December.
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. This will also be emailed to you at report time.
Car safety
It has come to our attention that some families are dropping children off in the morning near the church steps rather than going through our Drive-Through system. We ask that you use the supervised Drive-Through system, mainly for the children's safety, but also to ensure that the whole process runs efficiently.
Congratulations to Jordan
We always love hearing about student achievements here at St Finbar's. Jordan has been practising Taekwondo for the last 5 years and earned his first Pum Black belt earlier this year. He was recently presented with his internationally recognised certification from Kukkiwon South Korea. Well done Jordan!
School Advisory Council AGM
Last Tuesday evening we had our School Advisory Council AGM for 2024. A special thank you goes to our outgoing chairperson James Davies and SAC members Ash Diamond and Laura Salim whose time and contributions over the past three years are greatly appreciated. I'm very pleased to inform you that Paul Clarke has been elected SAC president for next year.
Library Club
Our new sign will make it more obvious when our library is open at lunch and snack times. At this stage the library is open every Monday at Snack but we hope to have a few more sessions each week. Thank you to Autumn for your beautiful artwork.
Take care and God bless,
Michelle Hill
Principal