Principal's Report

Everything is ready for our School Swimming carnival tomorrow at MSAC. This is a big day for us here at St Finbar's, with the logistics involved in transporting the whole school to MSAC. Please take some time to read through your Operoo communications carefully to ensure that you are familiar with what your child needs to bring along. Thank you once again to Tania Thompson who has put in an enormous amount of work coordinating the schedule for both Junior and Senior carnivals, and coordinating the many, many volunteers for the day.  Thanks as well to those of you who are volunteering, we literally couldn't run this day without you all. 

Christmas Carols 

We are very excited about our annual St Finbar's Christmas Carols event happening Wednesday December 4th at 5pm.  As per the email that was sent out yesterday, you are welcome to start arriving from 3:30pm for a 5pm start. The P & F will be selling sausages in bread between 4pm and 5pm, and Anna is taking pre-orders for charcuterie boxes and gelato.  We also have our matinee performance at 12pm that day which may appeal to grandparents or other family members so feel free to let them know about it.  Our Performing Arts teacher Susan Williams has been hard at work with each class preparing and rehearsing for the evening and it promises to be a fun, joyous evening. Let's just keep fingers crossed for good weather. 

School Behavioural Expectations 

As a staff we believe the time is right to review our school values and behavioural expectations. Our current rules and consequences haven't had a serious review in over 15 years.   Students and staff have now had the opportunity to identify the key values that they believe should form the basis of our new school wide behavioural expectations.

We now invite parents to also have their say. Please take the time to complete the one-minute survey that you can find here.

PSGs

A huge thank you needs to go to our Learning DIversity Leader Peggy McDonald for her work coordinating and leading our PSG meetings this past week. Thank you as well to the families that came in to meet with Peggy, classroom teachers and other support staff to ensure that we are all working together to best support your children.  

School Fees 2025

On Monday you should have received a letter via email outlining our fees and levies for 2025. If you haven't already, please complete the payment option form (attached below) and return directly to Libby Thomas at lthomas@sfbrightoneast.catholic.edu.au

Peter Pan auditions

There was much excitement today as the casting for our 2025 production of Peter Pan was announced. As to be expected, there were some big emotions as each role was announced.  We spoke to the children beforehand about the need for resilience in this process, and we ask you to support this at home as well. We acknowledged that it is okay to be disappointed or sad if we didn't receive the role that we were hoping for, but it is a good opportunity to reframe our thinking and embrace the role that has been given. All children who auditioned have received a role. 

It was also wonderful to see the genuine excitement that the children showed for their peers as each role was announced. I'm not going to announce the cast in this newsletter, as we need some time for the dust to settle but we will publicly announce the cast very shortly. 

Story Dogs

Our Story Dogs program has been running at St Finbar's for two years now.  This volunteer run organisation gives children the opportunity to read regularly to a dog in a non-judgemental setting. The accepting, loving nature of dogs helps children relax, open up, try harder and have fun while reading to a friendly, calm dog. 

Story Dogs does ask us for an annual donation to continue their great work in schools. Thank you to the families that contributed to this worthy cause today, we will now make our donation to Story Dogs.

You can watch this video if you are interested in learning more about Story Dogs. 

Year 6 Teacher Buddy Afternoon tea

Yesterday the Year 6 students and staff enjoyed another afternoon tea together. It was great to have another catch up with our Buddies, asking them about their transition to secondary school and reminiscing on their time at St Finbar's. We very much appreciated students' homemade goodies as well...delicious!  

NForma - New Parent Portal

It is almost time for our reports to come out. NForma has decomissioned their old Parent Portal and each parent will be required to update the link that they use the Portal and/or download the Parent Portal App. 

There is the possibility that we will be using more of NForma's features in the near future so it is well worth the effort to download the App. There are full instructions in the link below. This will also be emailed to you at report time. 

BayCISS Christmas Toy Drive

You may be interested in supporting the following Toy Drive for vulnerable young people in the Bayside area. Donations of balls (only new ones please) and drink bottles can be left at the office. 

Take care and God bless,

Michelle Hill 

Principal