Principal Congratulations

A huge congratulations to Mr Steele Anderson who has just been appointed as the new Principal of St Mary's, Hampton. Steele has been at St Finbar's for 11 years and has held a variety of roles in that time including classroom teacher, ELearning, Religious Education Leader and of course Deputy Principal. The time is now right for him to take the next step in his leadership journey and the St Mary's community will benefit from his leadership skill and style. Steele will be greatly missed at St Finbar's but luckily, he'll be just down the road and able to do regular drop-ins.

Protective Behaviours

Once again Cath McCallig is running her sessions on puberty and sex education for St Finbar's families. Cath is an experienced sexuality and Protective Behaviours Educator...and an ex-St Finbar's parent.

The basic details are below but I encourage you to click on the attachment for a more detailed summary of what each session will cover.

St Finbar’s Family Program will be held online on Tuesday November 12th

Session 1: Families, Bodies and Babies 6-7pm

Session 2: Puberty: Growing and Changing 7:15 - 8:15pm

Please use link below to register: https://www.trybooking.com/CWMYT

Once registered, the Zoom Link for the sessions will be sent to registered families within their Confirmation Email from TryBooking

Any questions or queries please forward to cath.mccallig@gmail.com

Traffic Safety

I mention this frequently in the newsletter and yet we continue to see the following behaviours daily. This week's incident in Hawthorn highlights how quickly tragedy can strike and we need to be always vigilant and cautious when dropping off or picking up children. Our children's safety is paramount and is always more important than saving a couple of minutes.

Do not overtake other cars on Wallen St or in Drive-Through (unless directed by a staff member)
Do not try to do a UTurn in Wallen St - drive down to the roundabout and drive back up Wallen St
Do not turn right out of the school onto Centre Rd between 3pm and 4pm. We have had police do spot checks and fine people in past years.

We send our thoughts and prayers to the Auburn South Primary School Community and all who have been impacted by this tragedy.

MACSIS Data Parent Session

Thank you again to the 79 families that completed the recent MACSIS surveys. The data is now in, and we'd like to invite interested parents/carers to come in and view our survey results, and have the opportunity for discussion.

We've arranged two times to come in on Thursday November 14th between 8:45am and 10am, and there will be a second opportunity that same day between 3pm and 4pm. It would be great to share your thoughts on our strengths as a school, and any opportunities for improvement that have merged from this data.

The sessions will be held in the staffroom, there will be a chance to have coffee and refreshments as well.

I'll also share aspects of the MACSIS survey data in future newsletters.

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.

We're looking to involve as many members of our community in this process as possible: students, staff and parents. A key priority is the language that we use, keeping the wording simple and positive. The students have started the process in their classes with a brainstorming session of the values that they believe are important to them. You can see the final list for each class below.

The next steps are for our Year 6 leaders to collate the words and come up with a shortlist. Students, staff and parents will all have the opportunity to give feedback before we consult with the community to make a final decision on our future behavioural expectations.

Around the Classrooms

The Years 3s took their learning outside this week for a lesson on capacity. Some more of our 2025 Preps came in for their first orientation session.

De La Salle visit

Our Year 4 students got to experience a great opportunity this week with a STEM excursion to De La Salle. I'd like to say a very big thankyou to Ash Diamond (Yr 4 parent, SAC member and De La Salle teacher) for facilitating this collaboration between our two schools. The children had a great day and returned to school full of enthusiasm for everything that they had experienced - a squid dissection, viewing insect cells through a microscope and watching a liquid nitrogen reaction.

Volunteers needed

We have a favour to ask...each year the Year 5s take part in a Leadership Day at Caulfield Park. The success of this day relies on having a volunteer at each station. We'll be requesting help from the current Year 5 parents, but teenage brothers and sisters are also perfect for this role. If your teenager is free for a couple of hours on the 2nd December we'd love to hear from you...they may even fondly remember their own Leadership Day and be keen to help out. We can offer them a fish and chip lunch and a small thank you gift.

Take care and God bless,

Michelle Hill

Principal

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