This Week's Updates
Dear Families,
It's been a great start to the 2025 school year. We are still settling into our new building while the restorations of our Prep to Year Two classrooms is moving along well. We have a few rooms that are currently able to be used for Auslan and performing Arts. We are hopeful of moving 1E back into their classroom temporarily this week.
When the restorations are complete and we have the certificate of occupancy it will be a massive job moving, unpacking and putting away every resource for every classroom. The restoration company packed every single resource into containers or bags which number well over 150. While some of these are labelled, we will need to sort through many bags prior to placing the resources into cupboards and onto shelves. Doing this in one hit rather than over the course of a few weeks is both preferable for organisation and promoting student learning. Consequently, I am going to call a day in the near future where we will ask parents to keep their children at home, because of exceptional circumstances, if at all possible. This will enable us to have teams of approximately 6 or 7 staff allocated to each classroom and hopefully get this huge task done with only one day's disruption. Of course, for families who simply cannot keep their children away from school, we will organise some care at school by staff on the day. Please stay tuned for further information regarding this day. It will depend on the restoration company and unfortunately, may well be short notice.
Year Six Camp - Phillip Island
I had the pleasure of spending some time on School Camp with our wonderful Year 6 cohort. It was extremely satisfying seeing them display such teamwork, camaraderie, respect and kindness throughout the time. A whole lot of fun paddle-boarding in glorious sunshine was one activity which ensured the camp was a great success.
Swimming Trials
District Swimming team trials will be run at AQUANATION Ringwood, on Wednesday 12th February (this week) from 7.30am until 830am. If your child would like to attend the trials, please specify here. Having this information before the day, makes this short session run smoothly.
These are for year 3 to 6 students. Students MUST be turning 9 by December 31 in 2025 to qualify for trials. The races will be timed and the teams will be selected based on these times. The student MUST be able to swim the entire distance on their own safely and comfortably.
Parent Information Evening - Wednesday 12 February
Our Parent Information Evening will take place on Wednesday evening, in your child's classroom across two sessions - 5:45pm & 6:45pm so you have a choice of which time to attend or manage multiple children. We look forward to seeing all families represented on the evening.
Parent Helper Course
At St James we embrace our community and part of this is done by engaging you as Parents to help in your child's classroom.
Parents do need to complete a Parent Helper Course prior to participating and we are pleased to let you know that Louise Matthews and Josh Crowe will be holding a Parent Helper Training Session on March 19th. There will be a morning and an evening session held. Further details and a booking link will be shared in the coming weeks.
Parents and Friends Including Movie Night
Save the date for our Movie Night on the oval - Friday 21 March
2025 Cinema Night - (Cinema Under the Stars/Welcome Picnic)
A date has been decided for the Schools’ Annual Cinema Night – Friday 21st March. Be sure to put this one into your diaries folks! This is the Grade 4 Champions night to shine, so we are looking for Grade 4 Parents to put their hand up and volunteer to assist with organising and running the night this year.
If you can help coordinate this night please contact Jason at pandf@sjvermont.catholic.edu.au and sign up here at
P & F Volunteers Still Needed for 2025
We are still in need of Volunteers for the P & F this year. This is our small way of fundraising for the School, so that we can improve the facilities for our children.
P&F Meetings are run in an organised but informal way and are a great way to meet fellow parents and contribute to the wellbeing of the school and one will be held very soon to seek more volunteers for key positions. Some of the roles involved are not too time consuming, and as with all things, the more people involved, the easier it is for everyone involved.
If you are at all interested, please email pandf@sjvermont.catholic.edu.au or sign up on our "2025 P&F Roles & Event Teams" page
Finally, As a follow up to last year's leave day I took on December 16, I will be having a minor medical procedure conducted tomorrow. Unfortunately, the recovery time for this is approximately four weeks. Anita Dell'Orso will lead the community as Acting Principal and Joshua Crowe will be our Acting Deputy Principal during this time.
I am grateful to Anita and Josh for taking on these roles during my absence and am also grateful that our school photos were today!
Have a great week,
Dave