From the Principal 

Dear Families

Welcome back to Term 3. It is great seeing everyone refreshed, recharged and ready to go. This semester could we please encourage all families to have their children at school by 8:45am. This allows them to unpack, settle into class and prepare for the day ahead. Morning prayer in each class starts at 8:55am and then learning commences at 9:00am. If appointments and sporting activities could be made outside of school hours, it supports our improvement agenda of explicit teaching to ‘grow’ each child. Your support with this would be really appreciated and  benefits all our students.   

You will all agree that our gardening project makes such a difference to the side entrance of our school. We thank our gardening fairies who finished the final part of the garden bed in the first week of the holidays. A great routine of soil being delivered then shovelled into tubs, then distributed in the garden bed, which then enables the plants to be put in, has well and truly been established.  We thank the Fischer and Reeve family both big and little, for finishing this garden bed. 

Mr Speranza has been our project manager and doing the organisation behind the scenes with the soil, plants, planter boxes, seating and lots of research. 

Yesterday we met with Steve May, our maintenance officer for the next stage of our project. We look forward to planter boxes, seating and irrigation systems going in early this term. Each of you should be so proud of your fundraising efforts and working bee contributions which make the plans a reality. Stay tuned for updates.

Whilst NAIDOC week was celebrated in the holidays, please read Around the School to discover what learning has taken place in each year level this week. Each year the resources available to support this important week grow as we endeavour to strengthen our indigenous perspective and understandings as individuals, communities and as a nation. 

Over the holidays I routinely visit all of the child care centres and kinders in our area. This term we are inviting families and educators to an exciting evening on Tuesday 20th August at 5:30-6:30pm. This evening is for prospective families wishing to learn more about a school environment and what starting in Prep looks like. Presentations will be done by myself, Mr Speranza and we will have a Q & A with our Prep teacher Mrs Borgese. We will also be discussing how families can support their children for this transition. Please let any of your family or friends know about the evening. We are excited for our Prep class in 2025 and have many inquiries for Prep 2026 and 2027.  When we conduct the school tours the feedback around the nurturing environment of our school and the warmth and structure of our learning within the classrooms, is what makes our school the special place that it is. 

Please note that we are trialing a new assembly time for this semester. Assembly will now be at 3:00pm on a Friday. Assembly will remain upstairs in the flexispace and families are always welcome. Utilising feedback from staff and students moving assembly to Friday afternoons allows for another block of explicit teaching on Friday mornings. We look forward to Ava and Olive hosting the assembly tomorrow afternoon. 

There is much to look forward to this term. Next Friday we have our Grandparents and Special Friend's Mass, visit to classrooms and cup of tea/coffee afterwards.  This is always a highlight for our community and the children and staff love sharing their school with these special people in their lives and hearing about school in the ‘olden days’! Our SRC leaders for this Semester will have their badges blessed by Father Jerome and presented at the end of Mass.  

We also have a Grande Italian Day on Tuesday 6th August and an Arts Show week from Monday 9th September to Friday 13th September. This week will showcase our artistic talents across the school, in visual, performing arts and languages and will culminate in the major fundraiser on Friday 13th September. Please put this night in your calendar, as our school events are always lots of fun! 

We will also be celebrating Book Week, starting Monday 19th August. Our Year 6 students will be preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation which will be held on Sunday 25th August at 10:30am. Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Tony. We have the upcoming Olympics in Paris to look forward to and all our students will be participating in a swimming program this term. Our Year 3 and 4 students will be travelling to Anglesea for their camp on Monday 26th August to Wednesday 28th August and lots more! 

Today the NAPLAN tests were sent home to families with a child in Years 3 and 5. We look forward to analysing the data from NAPLAN to inform our learning and teaching planning for 2025. If you have any questions please call the office.

Last term our Year 4, 5 and 6 students wrote letters to secondary students in Remexio, Timor Leste, to help develop their English skills. Heather from the Parish of Sacred Heart Sandringham spoke to us at assembly about her work and early this week  collected the letters from our Social Justice leaders; Olivia and Pia. We look forward to their responses and building pen pal relationships to support their writing skills using the English language. Heather and her team visit these schools a few times each year and take much needed resources and work with the students and their families.

We welcome Mrs Bernadette Dowling in Prep, whilst Mrs Borgese has her Long Service Leave to travel overseas and Ms Anastasia Romios in Year 4, allowing Mrs McDonald to celebrate her son’s wedding in Greece. Both families are having an amazing time and we can’t wait to hear all about their time on their return. We are blessed to have Mrs Dowling and Ms Romios, who know our students and our community so well, working with us.  

When celebrating a birthday as a school each child receives a special birthday certificate and sticker at assembly and a rousing rendition of happy birthday is sung. We would really appreciate special treats being saved for family celebrations and not being brought to school. This protocol supports many of our students and staff members who have allergies to certain food groups.

We look forward to our Year 6 student leadership this Semester. Today we had our Curriculum leaders lead the Arts and Crafts Club at lunchtime and tomorrow our Community Leaders are sharing  their first Kahoot Friday with our Year 5 & 6 students.  We look forward to hearing more about this in the next newsletter. 

Take care and wishing God's blessings and peace upon each of you. 

Mrs Cathy Ferrari