REMINDER: School Closure Day - Monday 4th November (Melbourne Cup)

Dear Parents and Carers,

Carpark Safety

A reminder about the importance of safe practices within our parish and school carparking and pedestrian areas: Please remember the following and report any instances of unsafe practices to the school office.

Gate 2 Entry during school hours is for disabled parking, staff parking and deliveries only
Gate 4 Entry is for access to the carpark and kiss and drop\pick up section
Gate 1 Entry is for parishioners visiting for parish activities. No school families should use entry during school hours.
All vehicle movement in within the school and parish site must at a walking pace or slower.
Obey all public parking and road traffic rules when coming and going from the school site.

As a community, we are all responsible for keeping students, families and visitors to our school safe with driving and pedestrian behaviour. Thank you

Riding and Scooting to School

It is wonderful to see some of our students getting daily exercise by riding or scooting to school. This is often an activity where students meet up with each other on their way to school and travel together, creating a safe and social experience for all.

Upon arrival at school, all riders need to dismount from their bike or scooter and walk into the school grounds. This should happen as you are entering Gate 2 from the footpath.

At dismissal time, all riders must collect their bike or scooter and walk it through the school grounds and out on the footpath. Students should only mount their bikes or scooters away from groups moving during dismissal time.

There should be no riding of bikes or scooters within school grounds at the beginning or end of the school day.

If you have a child who rides to school, please have a conversation to ensure these rules are understood and followed. Thank you anticipation.

St Simon's School Production: "It's a Jungle Out There!"

The impact of our school production, "It's a jungle out there!" is still being felt and experienced by our community.

The video recording of the Wednesday night performance is currently in post-production and, so we expect to be able to share access to the recording shortly.

Again, I would like to acknowledge all the different groups of people involved with bringing our production to the stage. Thank you to our school families for supporting the students in getting ready for tonight and for encouraging them whilst enduring the hours of singing, dancing and chattering about the concert.

Thank you to our production team: Each of member of the production team has been a part of leading or championing all different needs of our production: from making costumes and accessories, building and sourcing props and scenery, backstage hands, make-up and face painting, development of the Show program, the creation of the foyer display and welcome area and running rehearsals. Thank you to Ivana Dabb, Hedy Carvalho, Hiroko Ito-Ryan, Ivonne Lucas, Elise McCleland, Taylah Paull, Monica Rayer, Philomena Solari, Sharon Sanna, Natasha Wallis, Laura Nackashian.

Thank you to the costume team headed up by Philomena, Ivana and Monica and for some amazing talented parents in Stephanie Dawson, Jany Godvita, Elise Logan and Lilian Bermudez who were master sewers and costume producers!

Thank you to Laura Nackashian for being a key driver of our school production this year in her role as Music Teacher and Director of the show. Laura, your ability to work at such a large scale with over 400 students involved is amazing, and admirable. Thank you for the many hours outside of school you have dedicated to this show; we are grateful for your talents and gifts.

Thank you to our school staff for their attention to detail and for getting the job done. You are always ready to give your best for our students, and we thank you.

Thank you to our amazing and hard-working parents association, St Simon’s Parents Association, for providing light snacks and drinks before the show and during the interval. Thank you to Emily Woods and the many PA helpers selling items on both evenings in the foyer.

Finally, congratulations to our students for taking a risk, challenging themselves and sharing their gifts and talents as performers on the stage. I know some of you may have been nervous or worried about what it means to come and perform on the stage; however, with the support of your teachers and classmates, you have now completed your first St Simon’s School production.

Staff Religious Education Faith Formation Day Thursday, 24th February

On Thursday, 24th February, our school staff attended a faith formation day at the Mary Mackillop Heritage Centre in East Melbourne. The day was filled with learning about Mary Mackillop's life, examples of her work and dedication to the poor, and exploring many landmarks and points of interest around East Melbourne that honour and share Mary Mackillop's profile as Australia's first saint. It was a day that assisted in building our staff's understanding of the Australian Catholic Church's impact on our community.

Thank you to Hedy Carvalho, Religious Education Leader for the preparation and organisation of the day.

St Simon's Feast Day - Monday 28th October

As a school community, we celebrated St Simon's Day by gathering for a whole school mass on Monday 28th October. The students then participated in a fun and energetic Dance activity, to which they all responded positively and enthusiastically.

The day was also punctuated with the hospitality from our spectacular parents' association with a sausage sizzle and zooper dooper.

Thank you to Hedy Carvalho for leading and preparing the day's activities and to the classroom teachers for supporting the fun day.

World Teachers' Day 2024

The official day for Australian schools to celebrate World Teachers' Day was last Friday, 25th October; however, with all the other activities happening within our school community, we have decided to celebrate this day on Wednesday, 30th October.

We will be acknowledging our excellent teachers with a scrumptious morning tea as we share some heartfelt reflections from our students about their teachers.

A big thank you to our fantastic St. Simon's Parents' Association for the lovely cookie treats, which will be given to staff as a sign of gratitude for everything our teachers do for the school community.

2025 Class Requests

We will commence working on 2025 class lists later in the term, so any families who have specific requests for student placement for 2025 classes must either email me (principal@ssrowville.catholic.edu.au) or make an appointment to discuss the specific learning or well-being needs of their child\ren by Monday 11th November 4:00 pm sharp. Please, this is not an opportunity to request to be in the same class as a friend nor an opportunity for “teacher shopping”. We know that parents and families understand that class list creation is a complex activity and appreciate the faith and trust you place in the school to make these decisions.

Enrolment for 2025

School organisational planning for 2025 is well underway, assuming all students enrolled in form Prep to Year 5 will return in the 2024 school year. If not, I ask that you contact the school office immediately and notify your intentions, office@ssrowville.catholic.edu.au. This information assists the school leadership immensely with the planning and resourcing for the 2025 school year.

Staffing

I would like to inform the community that Hedy Carvalho, Deputy Principal: Religious Educatio and Student Wellbeing, indicated that she will be leaving St Simon's at the end of the 2024 year and entering into the next stage of life: retirement. Our end-of-year events and celebrations will allow us to acknowledge Hedy's contribution to our St Simon's School Community.

Similarly, Anna Barone (Mautone) has informed me that she will be finishing her role as a classroom teacher at St Simon's at the end of 2024. Anna has been appointed to a classroom teaching role at Peninsula Grammar. We wish Anna all the best with her next step in education, and we will acknowledge her appropriately as part of our End of Year celebrations.

St Simon’s Socials

Check in with Facebook and Instagram channels to see some of the latest activities within our St Simon’s community

Sarah Anderson	Indi Portelli	Connor Nyholm	Charlize Kemp
Kyrie Rajkumar	Boyd Maloney	Karlyne Seehoo	Cohen Valerio
Lauren Anderson	Emma O'Keeffe	Luca Bourmas	Erin Chittuparambil
Clementine Kavanagh	Jacob Cherbakof

Birthdays