Laura Jane's Message

Dear Families,

I am honoured and excited to write to you this week having been appointed Principal of St Gabriel’s Primary School.  

I want to express my sincere gratitude to Gemma Goodyear for her passion and dedication to our school.  We stand on a firm foundation due to her leadership.  

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to lead our strong and diverse community.   I am committed to ensuring that all children have the best opportunity to learn and thrive at school and to be prepared to lead a fulfilling life. We are blessed to have such committed educators.  I look forward to continuing to build strong relationships with our families as we focus on the growth and flourishing of every child in our school.  

Learning and Teaching 

As part of our ongoing work to improve our evidence based practice at St Gabriel’s, we have been implementing strategies of checking for understanding of children’s learning throughout reading, writing and maths lessons.  We have been specifically using the strategies of show me boards and turn and talk with a partner.  Both strategies increase the opportunity for every child to engage with the thinking and learning of the lesson and share this, either by writing it down or talking to a partner about it.  We will continue to focus on enhancing our teacher practice to ensure best possible learning outcomes for all children.  

School Fees and Levies 2026

In 2026, there will be an increase in some areas of our school fees and levies.  We are acutely aware of the financial pressure that families are experiencing, and we have taken care to ensure that we have made only the necessary increases to our fee structure.  I take this opportunity to remind you to reach out to myself or Louise Verna if you are experiencing financial hardship so that we can support you.  For further information please see the office section of the newsletter.

I would like to draw your attention to the introduction of the Building Levy.  The building levy is dedicated to ensuring that St Gabriel's continues to maintain and upgrade our buildings as required.

The leadership team is working in a strategic and focused manner to prepare for an engaging and rich 2026.  This is a time of great excitement and hope, as we centre our efforts entirely on the children of St Gabriel's. We're drawing vital guidance from both the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) Vision for Instruction and the Vision for Engagement to shape a fun and inspiring year next year. 

We have many special events in term 4 and we will be sharing information about these through the School Stream app.  We encourage you to check the app frequently to ensure that you don’t miss any important event information or updates and make sure you have your notifications switched on.

We wish all the children and our families a joyful term 4!