Principal's Message

Dear Families,

Our usual newsletter is due out next week, but we just wanted to update you with a few things that are coming up, so hope you don’t mind an extra newsletter!

Good Shepherd Parish Fete

A very special thank you to all of our existing and new families who came along to support our parish fete on the weekend. It was a great day celebrated by all who were there. Special mention to the fete committee for giving up countless hours of their time to plan for this event for our community. We appreciate all the efforts that went into making it such a celebrated day. 

Events for Term 4

Each year we have a big event that we plan for and traditionally it has been Christmas Carols as well as an Art Show or a Production. We have moved it so that we have a three year cycle with only one big event in Term 4. Last year we had the big ARTS CELEBRATION with Visual Arts, Italian and Music ; this year our PRODUCTION is the Living Scripture in classrooms where we will move through each classroom for parts of the Christmas Story and then next year will be our big CHRISTMAS CAROL celebration, hopefully with a family picnic before hand followed by a Christmas Carol concert.  We love celebrating and sharing these events with our families and can’t wait for our first ever Living Scripture at the end of term. 

Christmas Living Scripture Event

We are quickly coming up to that special time of the year when we begin to celebrate the birth of Jesus. To honour our Catholic story, our Christmas event for this year is to give you the opportunity to see the Christmas story come to life in our classrooms. You will be taken on a journey through our rooms where you will be able to feel, hear and live the times of Jesus from the perspective of our students. We can’t wait to share this with you. The Living Scripture will take place in two sessions, so we will be asking families to attend one of these sessions.  More information is available on the Religious Education page

2025 Preps

This week we have welcomed our 2025 Prep students and families. We are so looking forward to our second transition session next week and then welcoming them all back for Step Up Day on the 10th of December where they will meet their Prep teacher for 2025.  At our Prep information night we also launched a brand new uniform item! At the beginning of this year, I had a student in Year 3 come to me with a brilliant idea. He wanted to know if we could sell a sport top that was in our sport house colours for the  students to wear at our Athletics day. We then had a few meetings to discuss what these would look like and eventually we came to the conclusion that we could redesign our current sport polo top so that students could be wearing their house colours each week on their sport lesson days. After a few consultations with Mr P, Top School wear and our Year 3 students, our tops have been finalised, and we couldn’t be happier. Every Prep student will be wearing the new sport top in 2025 and these will be ready for other families to purchase in Term 4, 2025. For now, students in our current prep to Year 5 can continue wearing the original sport polo top. We can’t wait for our new sport Polo tops to be transitioned in. Please note that there is no obligation for our current Year Prep to 5 students to buy the new polo top once it is released, as we will transition the new tops in slowly. 

A big thank you to our Year 3 student for having the courage to come forward with an idea! Student agency and voice at its best!

Class Lists for 2025

Our teachers have been working tirelessly on mapping out class lists for 2025. Traditionally, the students have always been asked to write down five names of friends they would like to be with in the following year, understanding that they may get at least one friend. As we know, being with friends does not necessarily mean that they work well together, therefore this year we have had a big focus on listing other students that they think they work well with. The teachers have all unpacked what this looks like, feels like and sounds like. The students are aware that they will get at least one other person that is on that list in their classroom next year.  This is only one small aspect of what teachers look at when they are placing students in classrooms. They also take into consideration the academic levels in the classroom as well as the students' social and emotional needs. It is an intense process that takes a lot of planning but one that showcases our students' skills and growth. 

To help us finalise our class lists, can you please let us know if you are not returning next year. We understand that families move from the area and therefore need to move schools, so if you could please let us know as soon as you can, we would be extremely grateful. 

Cyber Safety and safeguarding students

A new website, created by Australian Catholic University (ACU) offers practical, research based resources to help educators and families guide young children safely through the digital world.  There is a wealth of resources that can empower us as educators, and you as parents in this digital space. 

https://youngchildrendigitalsociety.com.au/

Messaging between students at home

We have had a few parents coming forward to express concern at the tone, language and intent of messages that have been shared on Discourse, Messenger Kids and Roadblox. I have seen many screenshots and what is being said between students is extremely unkind.  We encourage everyone to please speak to your children about what they are writing when they are talking with their peers online. In a world where we can choose to be anything, let's choose to be  kind and compassionate in what we do, what we say and how we act. 

We hope you all have a wonderful week ahead!

Take care,

Carmela D'Amato