Dear Parents,

Welcome back to the start of the 2025 school year.

I am very excited to be starting my journey at St Christopher’s and I look forward to spending this year with you all. All members of staff have been busy preparing for the beginning of the school year to ensure a smooth transition for all of our students and their families and I thank them for their efforts. We are eagerly anticipating the Years 1-4 students joining their new classes on Monday and it was a real pleasure to welcome 25 excited Foundation and 30 Year 5/6 students today.

Thankyou to all families for participating in the new beginning of year schedule to accommodate our testing. The testing sessions will provide invaluable data for teachers to better target their teaching and provide baseline information to track student learning and progress.

It was lovely to meet many of you over the last few days and I am looking forward to meeting other parents at our assemblies, school gatherings, sacramental celebrations and other events throughout the year so please come and introduce yourselves to me.

I look forward to working with you all during the year.

Assemblies

There will be a brief assembly to welcome everyone back for the start of the school year after drop off on Monday morning.

All parents, carers and other family members are very welcome to stay and join us for a cup of tea or coffee afterwards in the Hall.

We will have our regular weekly assembly on Friday at 3.00pm.

Changes to learning times

To accommodate our new learning times for specialist classes we have altered the usual recess and lunch times for each day. Specialist classes will be for one hour, an increase from 45 minutes from 2024.

Recess 11.00-11.30am
Lunch 1.40-2.30pm

Learning blocks

9am -11am
11.30am-1.30pm
2.30pm-3.30pm

Chinese Mandarin

This year students will be learning Mandarin as a subject to replace Italian. We are looking forward to this new program beginning in 2025 and welcome Laura Wang to the team as our new Chinese Mandarin teacher.

Swimming

Please note the change to our swimming program for 2025. Swimming will be run on consecutive days rather than weekly, beginning Monday 24th March each day until Thursday 3rd April. Permission slips and further information will be sent home soon.

Hats and water bottles

A reminder that for Term 1 students are required to wear a hat when outside. We also encourage the students to bring a water bottle to school each day. Please ensure your child’s name is on these items.

PARENT TEACHER MEETINGS Monday 10th February

Parent Teacher Meetings for all students will take place on Monday 10th February. The purpose of these meetings is to inform your child's teacher of anything that you feel they may need to know to make their 2025 year at school a successful one and to hear how they have settled in to the new year.

STUDENTS WILL FINISH SCHOOL AT 1.30PM ON THIS DAY. Camp Australia (OSHC) will be available from 1.30 to 6pm - please book your children in via the App.

Meetings will be for 10 minutes only. Please wait outside your child's classroom and the teacher will call you in when they are ready.

To book a meeting time, please go to your PAM or see the attached flyer.

Medication at school

If your child has anaphylaxis or asthma, it is very important that we have an up to date action plan and an epipen or ventolin to be kept here at school.

If your child requires any other medication, please complete the attached medication administer form and bring it to the office where it will be kept securely until neeed.

If you have any concerns about medication, please see the attached policy or contact the school office.

A copy of all school policies are available on our school website.

If you have any concerns regarding your children, please do not hesitate to speak with their teacher or to me directly.

Patrick Green

Principal

PARENT HANDBOOK 2025