Principal's Message

Dear St Philomena’s Community,

It has been a busy few weeks here at St Philomena’s School. We have had many opportunities to celebrate student learning, sports, and cultural activities. A personal highlight for me was seeing so many of our school community join us to celebrate our Indigenous Literacy Day Assembly. Seeing our students read, recall experiences and retell stories at Wii Gaay and Warramaylaya, and seeing our K-2 and 3-10 dance group perform was exceptional.

Over the last two weeks, three different groups have visited St Philomena’s to complete learning walks. These groups were from the University of New England in Armidale, St Joseph’s School in Barraba and St Joseph’s School in Warialda. The feedback from these groups was fantastic. They all mentioned the positive learning they were seeing in the classrooms, the friendliness of our students, and how welcome they felt walking through St Philomena’s. It was wonderful to hear from Regina Menz, Director of Schools in Armidale Catholic Schools, about the Learning Intentions and Success Criteria being present on all classroom walls from Kindergarten to Year 10. Having the learning visible and accessible to students is a big part of our system’s work within our diocese.

As we get closer to the end of the school term, so much is happening within our school community. This weekend we have our Spring Fair. This is an important event in our school’s calendar, as it is the major fundraiser for our school’s Parents & Friends Association.

All students from St Philomena’s benefit from our P&F’s fundraising activities.

This year alone, our P&F has helped all students by paying for filtered and chilled water refillers around our school. Every student has access to them, and they're essential as we get closer to the summer months. Our P&F also subsidises 20% of our school excursions. Schools around Australia are reviewing excursions and making changes, as they are becoming increasingly expensive to run. All of our students, from K-10, have opportunities to learn outside of the classroom. This could be through local excursions, or students heading to Canberra or other parts of NSW. At school, I have chosen to fund most, if not all, travel to sporting events or day excursions. This helps support our families and ensures all students have the best opportunities for learning. However, for these concessions to be sustainable, or to continue outright, we all have an obligation to help out. Our P&F have put a lot of time and effort into running our Spring Fair, and to make it successful on Sunday, we need volunteers. We are not asking people to help all day; we are asking for smaller blocks of time. You could volunteer to help at a stall, take money for the jumping castle, serve food at the Fair’s canteen, or help set up or pack up the event. We all need to help make this event a success and help promote our school community. Consequently, if we cannot secure volunteers for this event, we might not be able to hold it. This affects all families, as it gives us an opportunity to come together for a great celebration and brings members of our parish community, as well as our wider Moree community, together. Please, if you can help out and spare some time, click on the link here and add your name to help. If we can all get behind this, we can all benefit from its success.

Next week is also a wonderful week of celebration for our school, and an opportunity to show off our dance moves. Our primary students and some secondary students have been working tirelessly to choreograph, practise, and finesse a range of stage dances for us all to enjoy. It will be great to see so many families coming together to see the culmination of our students' efforts. In Week 10, we also have our Primary Public Speaking Finals on Monday, Grandparents’ Day on Thursday, and, additionally, on Thursday, we celebrate Founder’s Day, a day when we celebrate the rich charism that makes up St Philomena’s. Week 10 will be jam-packed with activities and learning. It is the perfect way to end Term 3 and head into the upcoming school holidays.

Road Safety:

Just a reminder to families that park on the road opposite St Philomena’s on the Gwydir Highway, we have two mandated pedestrian crossings. The crossing to the western side (nearest Edward Street) is manned by a crossing supervisor each morning and afternoon, while the other is a signposted crossing, but it is not manned. With the amount of trucks and vehicles that utilise the Gwydir Highway, it is not safe to cross directly from your car to the bus bay entrance. With the upcoming harvest season, this road will become even busier. Ensure that you are being safe and role modelling for other young people observing by utilising the pedestrian crossings.

NSW Anti-Bullying Framework:

You have probably heard that the NSW Anti-Bullying Framework is mandated for introduction in all NSW schools from the start of 2027. The Framework sets out a consistent, evidence-based approach to reducing harm from bullying in NSW schools.

This Framework aligns very closely with our ACS Living Well, Learning Well Student Support Framework, which has been in place in Diocesan schools since 2021. At (insert School Name) we are introducing elements of the NSW Anti-Bullying Framework this year, rather than waiting for 2027, so that we are already familiar with the key components and responsibilities.

The NSW Anti-Bullying Framework consists of four components: Implementing, Preventing, Responding and Partnering.

Because of the strong alignment with our Living Well, Learning Well Framework for the Implementing, Preventing and Partnering components, our first focus will be on reporting behaviours and the Responding Component.

This document, NSW Anti-Bullying Update, tells you all you need to know and has links to supporting documents for those who are interested in further reading. It outlines how bullying is defined (and why we shouldn’t jump immediately to the term ‘bullying’ for all unkind and unsafe behaviours), what to report, how to report, and how school staff will respond.

Please take the five minutes or so it will take to read this flyer so you are ready to help us with early implementation of the NSW Anti-Bullying Framework.

Social Media Changes:

You will see changes on our school social media, including Facebook and Instagram, and the posting of student photos and names. This is in direct response to the rise of generative AI and our commitment to the safety of our young people.

The rapid growth of accessible generative AI tools has introduced new risks with regard to how photos and videos may be harvested, stored and altered online. AI-enabled photo and video manipulation is increasingly realistic and more accessible. Using photos posted by schools to public locations such as social media, this technology is being used to create nonconsensual and sexualised images of students and staff.

We must consider these risks in the context of our duty of care for all our people - our students, our staff and our families. These changes serve to ensure our people are ‘safe, valued, respected and cared for’.

Following the recent advice from the e-Safety Commissioner about increasing AI risks and the misuse of images, our school and the wider Armidale Catholic Schools system are following guidelines to move to a safer digital environment. We will regularly review our practices as the landscape changes to ensure processes are up to date.

To adapt to these emerging risks while continuing to celebrate student success, we are making the following updates to our digital communications:

Focusing on Group & Contextual Photos: We will use wider-angle shots, group activities, and photos that showcase student learning, work, and participation from behind or at angles where faces are not fully identifiable.
Reducing High-Resolution Photos: We will avoid posting close-up, high-definition photos of individual students on public platforms.
Removing First & Last Name Combinations: Student names will not be published alongside their images on public social media.
Using Internal Channels: High-resolution photos, individual achievements, and identifiable images will be reserved for secure, password-protected internal platforms (such as Compass) rather than public social channels.

We know how much our community values seeing the daily life of our school, and we remain committed to sharing the wonderful achievements of our students. However, protecting their privacy and long-term digital footprint must come first.

Thank you for your ongoing partnership, understanding, and support as we take these proactive steps to keep our students safe in an evolving digital landscape.

God Bless

Alistair Stewart

Principal