Opening School Mass - 10am tomorrow at St Patrick's Cathedral - all welcome!

Dear Families,

Thank you to all families for preparing your children so well for the start of the 2024 year. Upon visiting all over the last couple of days, I've been blown away by how ready to learn the students are. No doubt we have all had some mixed feelings and emotions in the lead up to the start, but I can assure you, the students are so very settled and we've had the best start we could have asked for. A special thanks to the staff too, for preparing and planning for the year ahead.

We extend a heartfelt welcome to all the new students and their families joining our St Patrick's community this year. Your presence enriches our school, and we look forward to getting to know each and every one of you. To the returning students, welcome back! We missed your smiles, laughter, and energy over the break, and we're thrilled to continue this educational adventure with you.

This term we're trialing a new rhythm to our communication – the St Patrick's Primary School Newsletter will now be published fortnightly, every Thursday. We believe this change will keep continue to keep you well-informed about the happenings at school, upcoming events, and exciting achievements of our students. As with any change, we'll review this at the end of the term and see how we progress beyond this time. Your feedback is most welcome.

Upcoming Events

Please check in with our school calendar for upcoming events such as scheduled Healthy Living Days for your child's class/es.

If you can make it, we'd love to see you at the Welcome Picnic at Vic Park next week. Please see here for more info.

The Family Connections interviews are now available on PAM to schedule a time with your child/ren's teacher.

Meet our 2024 staff team

There have been so many great suggestions offered by our parents to enhance all aspects of our school. One of the recommendations was to revise the use of communication diaries for 2024. Based upon this feedback, we have collectively opted to remove communication diaries in preference of a direct timely line of communication. The transparency and timeliness of communication with our team (both ways) is essential to providing the best educational experience and support for our students. Please see the below email addresses for our staff. Feel free to reach out to us and you will hear from us within regular business hours.

Administration Team
Administration Officer	Julia Geue	jgeue@spballarat.catholic.edu.au
Business Manager	Michelle Cushing	mcushing@spballarat.catholic.edu.au

General enquiries	(03) 53 32 7680	info@spballarat.catholic.edu.au

Leadership Structure
Principal	Ben Shields	principal@spballarat.catholic.edu.au
Deputy Principal	Thea Hubble	thubble@spballarat.catholic.edu.au
Religious Education Leader	Kerin Johnson	kjohnson@spballarat.catholic.edu.au
Learning Diversity Leader	Nicole Reynolds	nreynolds@spballarat.catholic.edu.au
Learning Design Leader	Ben Stott	bstott@spballarat.catholic.edu.au
Leader of Innovation	Marney O'Brien	mobrien@spballarat.catholic.edu.au
Cultural Awareness Leader	Emma Ferguson	eferguson@spballarat.catholic.edu.au

Building Project Update

Today has been a momentous day towards the completion of the building works at St Patrick's. At about 12pm we received occupancy for the new Madden Hall. This has been an intricate build with lots of challenges for us to work through together. However, the space that we have gained for our community is well worth the wait.

There is very little remaining of the project now. The final classrooms are rapidly nearing completion with an estimated completion of approximately two weeks. The pictures below show the progress in the awaited classrooms. Beyond the classroom works, there are final rectification works scheduled for the remediation of the artificial turf and installation of external handrails....and then we're done!

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we've navigated the challenges of building over the past year. Well now have fresh learning spaces for students to thrive in for years to come.

Before and After School Care

There has been an amazing uptake with the Before and After School Care program this week. I'd like to express my thanks to Tracey and Kyle from Extend for their flexibility in setting up the program in the library temporarily. The Madden Hall will now be used.

2025 Foundation Enrolments

If you are seeking a Foundation enrolment for a child commencing school in 2025, please see the below flyer. I encourage all families to book in for a tour prior to the close of the expressions on interest period listed. Please note that the DOBCEL link within the flyer will be active from February 12th.

Tours for Current Families

We're excited to be partnering again with family engagement expert, Tony Dalton, in 2024. In the weeks ahead please keep your eye out for opportunities to participate in Learning Walks at St Patrick's. There will continue to be further family engagement sessions similar to our Community Conversations throughout the year. If there are particular ideas you have to enhance our parent engagement I'd love to have a conversation with you.

Thank you for making the first week back for 2024 so special. We have so much to look forward to as the year progresses.

Have a happy and safe week ahead.

Kind regards,

Ben Shields

School Calendar 2024