Principal's News

Important Notices for Next Week

1. Tuesday - ABC Music Student concert @ 2:30pm. All Welcome
2. Wednesday - Playgroup 9-10:30
3. Friday - Assembly

Prayer: Peace in the Middle East

Lord Jesus Christ,

The Holy Land is once again struck by violence, hatred, and death.

Lord, look with mercy upon the land that was your earthly home.

Receive the deceased into your presence. Comfort those who mourn, are wounded, or forced to flee.

Be close to all who are full of fear and despair.

You are our peace and the light of the nations, put an end to the spiral of terror and suffering in the Holy Land and in the whole Middle East!

Let peace and justice flourish at the holy sites. You are our refuge. 

Let the people be safe in your Love. 

Have mercy on us and on our time.

Amen.

Dear Families and Friends,

Thank you all for another wonderful week at Trinity. We started off with a special Remembrance Day reflection on Monday led by Mr Ru and our senior students. 

At this time in particular, it is important for all of us to reflect on the sadness that war brings, especially with the current conflict in the Middle East. Once again in our world, too many lives will be lost because countries are unable to resolve important issues in a peaceful way.  In the prayer I have included this week we ask for peace in our world. 

Prep 2024

Yesterday we completed our fourth Transition Morning for our 2024 Prep group. Special thanks to all those staff involved in providing this invaluable experience for our new families. It is an exciting time for the children and enabling them to get to know each other and their teachers will certainly help alleviate some of the nerves when starting school next year. 

As we have now finalized staffing for our Prep classes I am pleased to announce that Mrs Foley and Mrs Plackett will be sharing a Prep class next year and we have employed a new teacher, Ms Shari Virgona who will be teaching the other Prep Class. 

MACSSIS Data

As a staff we have begun to unpack the School Survey Data we collected earlier this year. All staff, all students in Year 4 to 6 and approximately 30% of our parents completed the surveys. This information will help to guide our thinking next year as we complete our School Improvement Plan for 2025-2029.  Our early observations of the data highlight many great areas for celebration showing positive growth compared to previous years and when compared to similar MACS Schools. Student voice and engagement in learning will be important areas for us to focus on going forward as these are areas we know we can improve to have positive impact on student learning and wellbeing. 

NForma Parent Communication Portal

We are pleased to let you know that we will soon be releasing a link to our Parent Communication Portal. The portal has been developed by NForma who provide services to hundreds of schools across Victoria. The communication platform is being developed in partnership with these schools to ensure it meets the ever growing needs of schools who require efficient and timely engagement of families. At this stage we will just release a link which can be accessed via phone or other devices. Next year we will roll out the phone app which families can download to their phones. Users will be asked to create a new password initially and then this login will allow users to acess the information we share with families. The new app will mean that all our school communication will be provided through one platform. The portal will include notifications, our school newsletter, permission forms, absenteeism notifications and much more. We will look forward to a much more efiicient and accurate form of communication between home and school. We will continue to use SeeSaw to engage families in chidren's learning. 

100 Years School Celebration 

We are very excited that next Year, Trinity Catholic School  (Formerly St James Primary School) will celebrate its 100th year. From our research we believe that on March 1st 1924 St James opened its doors as a school for the first time. This is a great milestone in our school's history and will be an ocassion to celebrate in many ways. Following the great success of our school fete earlier this year, our Parents & Friends have jumped at the opportunity to hold another event to celebrate our 100th Year. So now we need you all to save the date - Saturday 23rd of March. We are looking for everyone's support to make this a truly memorable occassion. Jenny, our P&F President has already been busy with much pre planning and will communicate through the newsletter in the lead up to this big day. 

2024 Staffing & Enrolments:

As communicated, next year we will be increasing student numbers and going from 8 class groups to 10. This is great for our school and a positive sign that we are held in high regard in the community.  As we have now finalized our Preps for 2024 we have been able to introduce our Prep teachers for next year to our new families. 

Prep AK: Ms Kate Foley & Ms Anna Plackett                   Prep SV: Ms Shari Virgona

Once we have finalized our Year 1 to Year 6 classes we will introduce children to their class teachers for 2024 at our Meet the Teacher morning on the 12th December. 

As Mrs Plackett and Mrs Foley will be moving back into the classroom we have had to employ a new Art teacher and Science teacher. We have been very fortunate to find two excellent replacements for these specialist positions. Next year we will welcome Ms Laoise O'Toole a highly experienced Art teacher who is very excited to be joining our team at Trinity and Ms Colleen Marriot, a secondary trained Science teacher with experience in both primary and secondary schools.  Ms Colleen Marriot is also extremely excited to be joining us next year and looks forward to continuing the great science program we have established at Trinity. 

Child Safety:

As part of our school review process next year we will be required to review all our school policies and importantly this means all policies relating to Trinity's approach to child safety.  We know from parent feedback this year that it is important for us to improve how we share this information with families so that parents are aware of all the great child safety practices we have implemented at Trinity and our classroom approaches to ensuring our children also have the opportunities to develop confidence in themselves and the processes that are in place to ensure they are safe at all times. 

Community Calendar HERE - Keep up with our important dates!

Kind Regards

Nigel Rodrigues

Principal