Dear Parents and Guardians,

It’s been an eventful few weeks at our school! We celebrated Book Week with a delightful Book Week Parade. It was fabulous to see so many fathers, grandfathers and family

members onsite to celebrate Father’s Day. We had a wonderful assembly, presented by MLA 2, celebrating the Great Dad gameshow, fun games together and a sausage sizzle to end the day. There was a buzz in the school and l am sure that all our visitors enjoyed the opportunity to play alongside their children outside in the afternoon.

P & F Father's Day Stall and Raffle

A very big thank you to our P & F members, who organised a wonderful stall and raffle for the students to celebrate Father's Day. This was a lovely opportunity for the children to purchase gifts for their loved ones, as well as being a profitable fundraising event. Thank you to everyone who donated a raffle prize, helped on the stall, wrapped gifts, folded raffle tickets and all the other many 'behind the scenes' activities, which go into making these events so great for our children.

Working together

Recently, we welcomed Nathan Lambert, State Member for Preston, to our school to discuss opportunities for securing additional funding for future building projects. Nathan is a strong supporter of our school, and we greatly appreciate his ongoing advocacy on our behalf.

The meeting focused on highlighting our current and future infrastructure needs and seeking Nathan's support in advocating for further investment in our facilities. Following his visit, Nathan met with the Education Minister, Gabby Williams, to discuss the possibility of additional funding for our school.

Members of our School Advisory Executive joined me in meeting with Nathan. Special thanks to Vanessa and Jed for generously giving up their time to support our pursuit of additional funding for our building project. Their commitment and advocacy for our school are greatly appreciated.

We now await the outcome of these discussions and are grateful for Nathan's commitment to supporting our school community and helping us pursue these important improvements. This support provides a valuable opportunity to continue enhancing our learning environment for current and future students.

Building Update

After two years of planning, consultation, and design work, we are pleased to be moving to the tender stage for our new administration building. During the holidays, I will be meeting with prospective builders and look forward to sharing the updated plans with our community early next term.

This is an exciting milestone for our school. The new building is an important investment in our future and will replace our current administration block, which is ageing, outdated, and increasingly affected by ground movement due to our proximity to the creek. I look forward to keeping the community informed as the project progresses.

Child Safe Standard 9: Safe Environments for Children and Young People

Child Safe Standard 9 focuses on Physical and online environments to promote safety and wellbeing of our students while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed.

Children's safety is influenced not only by the actions of adults, but also by the environments they experience every day, including classrooms, playgrounds, excursions, camps, and online spaces.

The Royal Commission found that harm is more likely to occur when risks in physical or digital environments are not identified, managed, or appropriately supervised. Child Safe Standard 9 focuses on prevention by ensuring organisations actively identify and reduce risks while supporting children's rights to privacy, learning, participation, and connection.

Creating safe environments helps children and young people learn, grow, and thrive with confidence.

MACSSIS Family School Improvement Survey

Each year we ask families, students and staff to share their perceptions about how our school is going. At St Joseph the Worker, we believe it is important that families have a voice and contribute to the shaping of improvement in our school. Parent feedback is invaluable to our progress as a strong school community.

Families have been invited to participate in our annual online Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools – School Improvement Surveys (MACSSIS). Families will have received an email with the details of how to complete the survey. We encourage families to participate in the survey however, it is not compulsory. The survey will close later today.

Art Show

A big thank you to our wonderful Art Teacher, Maryanne Fenech-Gatt for her hard work and preparation of the 'Light' art show which we enjoyed last Wednesday evening and Thursday. Congratulations to our students, who produced some amazing artwork! Please see a gallery of photos from this event on the Art Show page.

R U OK Day? Thursday 11th September

This year R U Ok was held last Thursday, 10th September. R U OK? is calling on everyone to Ask R U OK? On any Day because life happens every day.

This National Day of Action reminds us that every day is the day to ask, ‘are you OK?’ and start a meaningful conversation whenever we observe that someone we care about may be struggling with life.

As a school we take mental health very seriously. Supporting our community to continue to have important conversations is crucial especially if you have noticed changes in a family member, your child, a friend or a colleague. Don't underestimate the difference each of us can make to others by simply asking R U OK?

School Fees

Thank you to the families who have paid their fees in full. We still have a very high number of outstanding fees and remind families that the final instalment of fees is due October 31st (unless you are paying by direct debit).

It is important that all school fees are paid in full and on time to enable the school to meet its financial obligations. Families with students in Year 6 are asked to finalise their accounts as soon as possible. Do not hesitate to contact Marisa if you would like to discuss your account, set up a direct debit payment plan or discuss support.

May St Joseph the Worker bless you and watch over you and your family at this time.

Kind regards,

Maria Barnes

Principal

Child Safety Standard 9