A message from Emily

Dear parents and carers,

This week I would like to celebrate and thank Tanya Nikolic fo her contributions, passion, kindness and care for the children in One Hub. Tanya began her leave this week as she prepares for the arrival of her second child in the coming weeks. I would also like to welcome Erin Breheny who will replace Tanya for the remainder of the year on Mondays and Tuesdays. Erin has been a regular at St John's over the last two years and is very excited to be joining the One Hub team.

Last week I was lucky enough to see Liam and Pearl compete at the Regional finals for Western Metropolitan Region Athletics. Liam was competing in the high jump and Pearl the 800m and long jump events.  I was proud to see both children represent St John's with fantastic sportsmanship and effort. Congratulations to both Liam and Pearl.

Families will be emailed the fees and levies structures for 2024 next week. I would like to advise families that we have made a few changes to help support with the rising cost of living we are all experiencing at the moment. We have made the decision that 3/4 camp will be a day experience rather than an overnight stay. We will continue to have a 5/6 Hub two-night camp. We have also planned an alternative swimming program that will run on a two year cycle. Next year will be a water awareness program and 2025 will be an intensive swimming program similar to this year. These two decisions have allowed us to reduce costs in some areas of our fees to accomodate for the increases in others. Last year I informed the community that there was a significant gap between our school fees and what was deemed to be the community's capacity to contribute. This has meant that there has been a gap between the funds we receive from State and Federal Government and funds we collect through fees. To close this gap, we decided to space the increase in fees over a few years rather than all at once, so you will notice a slight increase in fees for 2024. More information about this will be provided in a letter from me next week and will also be updated on our school website and next newsletter. I continue to invite any family who is experiencing financial hardship to please come and meet with me as we want to support all families as best we can.

This weekend the Holy Family Parish are celebrating a Handover Mass to thank and farewell Fr. Rene Ramirez for his commitment and leadership as our Parish Priest over the past eight years. They will also officially congratulate and welcome Fr. Gerald Binegas as our new Parish Priest. This Mass will be on Saturday 28 October at 5pm in Our Lady's Church. We wish Fr Rene all the very best as he takes on an exciting challenge of establishing a Community of Rogationists Priests in the Diocese of Sandhurst at St Mel's Parish, Shepparton South, and St Malachy's Parish Nagambie.  I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Fr Rene for his support of not only myself, but the whole St John's community. I have enjoyed working with Fr Rene in strengthening the relationship between the Parish and the school over the last two years. I look forward to continuing this work with Fr Gerald.

This week, we share an important message about how to support the wellbeing and resilience of our children from our Digital Safety partners, Inform and Empower. Currently, social media platforms are sharing posts and live stream vision of conflict zones around the world making it difficult for families to screen and monitor the content that their children are seeing or hearing about.  Please refer to our "The Resilience Project" page for more information and support regarding these issues.

A reminder that sunsmart hats are compulsory for students September through to April.  All students will be required to wear their hats whilst outside.  Our school hats are available for purchase from the office.  Please see Mel or Leonie for assistance.

This coming Monday we are celebrating Grandparents Day. We are looking forward to welcoming grandparents to this special event. Please see the Family Engagement page for more information.

Warms wishes

Emily