Dear Families,

Holidays often bring about times to catch up with friends and family. The Easter season certainly provides time for rest, relaxation and a time to pause the busyness of our lives. Hopefully, as parents you were able to pause and reflect on your family and the impact our catholic values and beliefs have in our daily lives. While we celebrate, reflect upon and pray during the events of Holy Week here at school with the students, I hope all families were able to find some time to do this as a family.

We had some maintenance work done over the holidays including; replacing the laser light in the pergola over our Year Five Outdoor Learning Space, fixing the wobbly railing on the Art Room/After School Care Room landing area, creating soccer goals on the oval at each end where the AFL goal posts are and replacing some facia boards near the sports shed. Adrian, our maintenance worker's next task is to fix up some of the decking boards in the quadrangle.

We also had our Solar panels on the Quadrangle Roof replaced so that we can make better use of this environmentally friendly resource. This was paid for via the combination of a grant and Parents and Friends funds. All students will have a learning focus on Sustainability this term and some classes will be more deeply involved in these solar resources and the benefits for St James and for the environment.

Holy Week and Easter Prayer Services

Today we celebrated the Resurrection in a lovely prayer service led by our Year Four students. During the final week of Term two we celebrated Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

As a Catholic parish Primary school, its is important that we maintain our focus on the basis for our faith; Jesus way of life and in particular, his rising from the dead.

Mothers Day Celebrations

To celebrate the Mothers and Mother figures in our lives, we will be celebrating this on Friday 10th May. Further details about this event will be shared via Operoo, so please look out for this.

School Cross Country this Friday

All students will be participating in this event on this Friday, 19th April. Students will compete for House Colour Points in their grade levels. While all students are encouraged to run, some will need to walk part of the course which is here at St James. Students are encouraged to wear their sports uniform and a top with their house colour.

Parents are welcome to come along and view their children competing.

The distance and approximate start times are as follows:

Preps 500m start 1pm

Year 1/2 1km start 1.20pm

Years 3/4 2 km start 1.40pm

Years 5/6 3km start 2.00pm

Learning Conferences

Thank you for your support of the partnership we share in educating your children. Thank you so much for your incredible support in our shared partnership to educate your children. It's truly heartening to see that St. James families truly grasp and appreciate the significance of our partnership. Our Learning Conferences were attended by close to 100 percent of our families. Your children pick up on the value they see you, as parents, placing on their education.

Parent Education Session Highly Recommended

We are excited to shared with you that Psychologist Maria Ruberto, who presented to our staff and some of our parents last year, will be holding a Parent Workshop: Understanding Resilience. Please refer to the link to her website for the dates and other information regarding the outline of the two hour session and booking details.

https://www.salutegenics.com.au/product/parent-workshop-13th-may-2024/

There may be an opportunity for some parents to car-pool given this valuable parent workshop is on the other side of town.

Australia’s Best Teachers Campaign

The Australia’s Best Teachers campaign is your chance to celebrate that special teacher that made the greatest impact on your life. Students, parents and colleagues are encouraged to get involved by nominating the teacher that has had the greatest impact on their learning and school community. This year’s campaign will engage an even bigger national audience, with coverage in News Corp’s metropolitan mastheads, Kidspot, The Weekly Times, Kids News and news.com.au

For more information or to nominate a teacher, visit the Best Teachers campaign page on the Herald Sun website.

Prep 2025 Enrolments

We have 34 enrolment forms handed in already and have had good numbers interested at our tours so far. To ensure our current family's siblings do not miss out on a place, please submit your enrolment form by ANZAC Day.

https://sjvermont.catholic.edu.au/enrol-now/

Uniforms

In Term Two students have the first couple of weeks to transition in to their winter uniform. Some students may choose to wear their summer uniform if the weather is warm. Please make contact with Nicole Spezza at our second hand uniform shop or Spartan should your child require any winter school uniform items for next term.

Winter Uniform includes the following items:

Winter Tunic or Gabardine Pants or Shorts
Polo Shirt - long sleeve or short sleeve
Zip Bomber Jacket or Yr 6 Rugby Top
Optional Polar Fleece Vest
Plain Navy Socks or Tights
Black Shoes

Winter Sports Uniform:

Track Pants or Rugby Shorts or Skort
School Sports Polo - available from our second hand uniform shop (Preps continue to wear their house coloured T-Shirt
White sports socks - no logos
Runners

Coats, beanies and gloves are optional extras which may be worn to and from school but are not required in classrooms

Catholic Secondary College Enrolments

Students must be enrolled when in Year Five. Enrollments close on Friday 16 August.

St James is a direct feeder school to Emmaus College, Aquinas College, Our Lady of Sion College and Whitefriars College. This means that St James catholic students receive direct entry and St James non catholic students receive greater consideration of entry into these secondary colleges.

Students currently in Year Five must have enrolled by Friday 16 August.

Help with Mulch Moving

Are you able to donate 30 minutes of your time on either Tuesday or Wednesday next week between the hours of 2:30pm - 5:30pm to move mulch from the upper playground to the lower playground in advance of the building works starting in May? Please call or email the office to let us know when you are available.

ANZAC Day

ANZAC DAY Dawn service will be held at Halliday Park at 5:45am if any students wish to attend. Our School Leaders will be doing a reading and laying a wreath.

On Wednesday 24th April, we will be gathering in the quadrangle for our whole school ANZAC Day commemoration. Students are invited to bring along a flower from their garden to lay at our flagpole.

Beginning of Term Reminders

Saturday 20 April at 6pm OR Sunday 21 April at 9:45 am or 11:15 am: First Eucharist commitment mass

Thursday 25 April: ANZAC Day holiday

Friday 26 April: School Closure Day - paying staff back Time in Lieu

Saturday 15 June: Major Social Event - St James Trivia Night see P&F page to get your tickets

School Hats

In line with our Sun Smart Policy, school hats are required to be worn between September and April. Students must wear their hats outdoors this week and next.

Did You Know?

Some of our year 1's played at Marvel stadium at a half-time AFL match over the holidays.

At the end of last term many of our students performed exceptionally well in a tournament and finals with our St James Netball Club. Well done teams! We are very proud of you.

Enjoy a great week ahead!

Dave

Community Information

Eastmont Pre-School Fundraiser