Principal's News

07/11/22

Major Fundraiser for 2022

Thank you to everyone who attended the Major Fundraiser!  You are all fine pillars of support to the school and to the students who will benefit from your generosity.  It was beautiful to see lots of families and their extended family enjoying the event.  

The students had a great time participating in the activities facilitated by KABOOM. 

 They did an awesome job.  

Well done to the Year 5 and Year 6 students who have shown leadership by assisting with the activities and supporting the younger students.  

We will soon let everyone know how much we have raised not including the cost of KABOOM costs.  

These will be covered by the school as a gift to each child.  

Some of the funds raised will go to purchasing a 3D printer and training for teachers.  

To the PFA, what a spectacular team! 

Thank you for your time, patience and energy.  You work together

 to support each other and hold each accountable to do the best for our students.  

Suzanne has done an outstanding job to lead the team and she meticulously ensured everything ran smoothly from the aspect of communication to hands-on action.  

Well done Suzanne!  Thank you!

We have a generous community and so many companies have donated vouchers and funds.  Special thanks to Transport Direct, Gorman Allard Shelton, Love & Co and Youze Ai and Sisi Huang for their financial support.

Huge thanks to the pizza delivery team!  All were very glad to receive their yummy pizzas.

Suzanne has done a great job putting together a thank you board for all businesses who contributed.  

On behalf of the school I would also like to thank each business and show our appreciation by sending them each a ‘Certificate of Thanks and Appreciation’ for their individual support.

To the St Kevin’s Staff who attended the evening, thank you for giving of your time so generously to support this fun event.  Thank you to Con for being the MC and to Annie for organising the playlist for this event. To Robyn and Eva, thank you  for all the admin work and supporting all the various aspects of this event.  

To Fulvia for touching base with companies and engaging donations.  To all the staff members who took on the challenge to try and collect donated goods and services from different companies and organisations. Thank you! 

The Class artwork was amazing!  We have talented artists on the block and I did not even know it!  Hopefully we can have an Art Show next year to again capture this talent!

Staff News

Sonia Costa has decided to have a change in pace and activity for 2023! She will be retiring from fulltime work for 2023 and take a year of leave.  Sonia will enjoy time travelling and being with her family. In her years at St Kevin’s Sonia has been a wonderful Learning Diversity Leader, faith filled role model and Religious Education Leader and class teacher.  

It is a massive decision and on behalf of everyone I would like to congratulate Sonia on her dedication to ensuring students are learning and engaged in all that they do.  Her genuine continuous care for all is very evident and I have been blessed to work with her this year.  Thank you, well done and God bless!

Welcome to New Staff

We welcome Sienna Montalto to our St Kevin’s school community.  Sienna has accepted a full time position for 2023.  Sienna is a graduate teacher and she will be doing some CRT work with us in the coming weeks.

Eva and I were so impressed with Sienna and I know she will love the team and being part of this amazing community.

We are currently advertising for a full time experienced class teacher with the possibility of Leadership in Teaching & Learning and Numeracy, a Language assistant (Italian) and a Part time PE teacher.

Student Attendance

Class teachers complete the roll twice a day before 9:10am and 2:30pm.  Any time there is unexplained absence that warrants an SMS (direct message) to Parents / Carers.  Parents and Carers are responsible to contact the school each time they receive an unexplained absence SMS. It is a legal requirement and part of the CHILDSAFE REQUIREMENT that we ensure the child is safe.  When parents do not contact the school the next of kin is contacted.  If there is no communication to the school by Parents or Carers we are required to call the local police station and report the incident.

Parish Announcements

Rebecca Sandwell has announced that she will be having a career change and put all her efforts into being a veterinary nurse.  She will be concluding her work at the St Kevin’s Parish in mid November.  I have really enjoyed working with Rebecca this year.  She is a true professional with amazing organisational and spiritual insights and an abundance of positive energy. We thank Rebecca for all her work leading the Sacramental Programs for all stakeholders.  We wish her well in her adventures and may God bless her and keep her safe and well.

Someone told me that Pam nearly retired last year! Well I am so grateful that she gave St Kevin’s another year.  I got to work with her and I have learned so much about the parish and the life of St Kevin’s school.  We are going to miss Pam and her meticulous preparation and phenomenal organisational skills, her friendly, gentle approach and the beautiful way she interacts with everyone.  Pam, thank you for all you have done with Sacramental Programs and all the thousands of hours you have given to St Kevin’s Parish. May God bless you and look after you always!

MACS SIP AND APP Day

On Friday the School Leaders worked with MACS staff to draft the SIP (School Improvement Plan) for the next four years.  This will be shared and reviewed with all staff and the SAC on Tuesday evening.  The Annual Action Plan is currently being developed and will be completed before the end of the term.

Job Opportunity - Pastoral Worker

St Kevin's Parish, Templestowe, has an exciting opportunity for a Pastoral Worker to contribute to the Pastoral needs of the Parish and to assist in leading and delivering the mission, outreach and pastoral care of the parish community. The role is permanent part time, four days a week. There is scope to tailor this role to the incumbent's experience: either for someone who has some of the skills required, would like to learn on the job and do some further study; or for someone with experience who would like to undertake the role on a more senior and extensive level.  For more information, please call Tiziana D'Costa on 09 9850 5983 or visit our website https://www.stkevinsparish.org.au/

Parent / Grandparents helpers 

Just a short reminder that you are all welcome to join us for a short session or longer snippet of time during the week.  After talking to teachers it was noted that we do not have many parent or grandparent helpers at St Kevin’s  and we would love to have you help us with the learning.  There are a wide variety of activities that might interest you from listening to students read to playing numeracy and literacy games. Please contact Eva via the office or email her -  etomazos@sktemplestowelr.catholic.edu.au if you can help.

Swimming 2022  

The swimming program commences  Week 8  Monday 21st November and ends on Friday 2nd December of Week 9.  It will be a 9 day intensive swimming program. 

Swimming Times will be

12.00pm - 12.45pm 

12.45pm - 1.30pm

1.30pm - 2.15pm 

More information to follow

Processes to dismiss the students safely

1. Junior Students sit on the deck approx 3:25pm (Please ensure every child is there with you)
2. Middle and senior walk  down to the deck promptly.
3. All students are sitting and looking out for their parents.  This does assist teachers and CRTs. 
4. Teacher to begin escorting student to the cars (promptly) as soon as parents arrive
5. Teachers, please do not have a conversation about learning at this time instead schedule a time for a phone call or ask the parent to park the car and then continue.
6. Teachers need to move the cars right to the yellow line so as many cars as possible are in the school grounds
7. This process works well when we work together and support each other.

Date and Assembly  2022

Assembly will take place on Wednesday Morning in Week 7 and a special assembly on Thursday morning in Week 8 for the Special Visitors from the Philipinos.

There will be an assembly on the 9th of December for the last day in level for 2022 at 2:40pm and there will be a special assembly for 14th of December on the last day for students at 12:30pm.

GRADUATION Support  13/12/22   7pm - 9pm

Thank you supportive Year 5 parents! Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to support this very important event.  I will need to have a brief check in with you all to ensure all parents have Working with Children documentation and to discuss jobs for the evening.  I am so grateful to you all!

It is going to be a wonderful event.

The Leaders and Administration Staff participated in Compass training.  We will be going live on the 5th of December.  All parents will receive a Compass Parent Guide and access information. 

This year we will be using the Communication Module and next year we will be launching Attendance and Chronicle (Wellbeing Module).

LANGUAGES AT ST KEVIN’S

Mr Con and Ms Fitzgerald attended a Professional Learning Day at St Richard’s in Kilsyth. 

What is TCL (Teachers as Co-Learners)?

Using this approach to language teaching, classroom teachers across the school (non-language specialists) lead short, language-focused sessions every day throughout the week. All teachers and students are co-learners of the school's target language and time is allocated every day (usually 15 minutes) to ensure maximum exposure to, and interaction in the language. This can be in forms of fun activities and hands on resources that students can learn and practise the Italian language. It was amazing to see the varied array of resources teachers had in their classrooms at St Richard’s Primary School where we attended the PL.  

In this model, the classroom teacher is responsible for collecting evidence of student progression in the target language and for accurately reporting against the achievement standards as stated in the Victorian Curriculum. Don’t worry there's support on the TCL website to help teachers assess their students. ‘Speak Up’ is a program that students use with a computer to record words and sentences they can recount or construct in Italian and this program shows the student’s or teacher’s growth too. You can set up a competition with students and teachers to see who is making the most progress through this website, which can make it exciting to use and promote learning Italian. It was amazing how after four years the amount of proficiency both students and teachers were using the Italian language. 

The TCL approach also benefits from regular access to a proficient speaker of the language (e.g. Language Assistant) who supports the learning journey of both teachers and students. Access to structured language resources that are scaffolded and easy for classroom teachers to use is also critical to the successful implementation of TCL. This might be an employment opportunity to reach out to the local Catholic Schools for Year 12 Students that are studying Italian to come to the school and guide the Italian language, as Marcus Gill the principal has done at St Richard’s Primary School. It was actually a brilliant idea Annie and I thought. Marcus said,

“ it was difficult to get Italian teachers to support the program”.

Both Annie and I enjoyed the day and got a lot out of the P.L experience - the program seems to work well as witnessed at St Richard’s Primary School.

Regards, Annie and Con

Transition 2022 to 2023

This year we will have a few transition sessions for students in November and December. There will also be a HEAD START program where children will spend 2 ½ days in their new 2023 classroom. 

Many high schools implement this practice and over the past few years primary schools have also taken on this practice.  It is a wonderful way for students to settle into their new class and get to know their teacher and class members.  It helps alleviate stress and anxiety.

Who is reading the newsletter?

Thank you to all parents who do complete the survey. 

Well done to Year 3/4  parents!

Which level will be the champions for Term 4?    

DATA COLLECTION  -  LINK I have read the newsletter 07/11/22 

All God’s blessings,

Gabee Leone