PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Dear Parents and Carers,

After school on Friday 16th June from 3.30-5.00pm, we will be celebrating a significant event in the life of our school and community: the Grand Opening of our refurbished classroom spaces. All parents, grandparents and friends of St Agnes’ are invited and encouraged to attend! In consultation with the parents of our School Advisory Council, this event has been planned to occur after school to maximise the opportunity for current and past families to be present.

We will be celebrating with the whole school community, parishioners, former students, staff and parents, as well as a number of special guests. The Regional Auxillary Bishop Tony Ireland will lead us through a Paraliturgy in the church and he will also bless our new spaces. The Executive Director of Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools, Dr Edward Simons will also be in attendance and will ‘cut the ribbon’ to open officially open the new spaces! The event will unfold in the following manner:

3.25pm - End of school day - Students move to the church

3.30pm - Grand Opening Paraliturgy commences in the church

4.00pm - Ribbon cutting and blessing of classrooms - outside Year 1 and 2 entrance

4.10pm - Walk through, light refreshments served in the classrooms

5.00pm - Event concludes

There will be a sausage sizzle provided for the children on the playground following the cutting of the ribbon, and staff will be present for the duration of the event. During the walkthrough of the classrooms, light refreshments will be provided for the adults. We are asking that all students are present for the Paraliturgy and cutting of the ribbon please. If this is not possible, please email your child’s classroom teacher. The normal Friday afternoon P&F sausage sizzle will not be happening as the sausages will be turning after the paraliturgy. We look forward to celebrating this special occasion with everyone!

Inform and Empower - Raising Kids in a Digital World

We know that our children are growing up in a digital world - one that is very different to the world in which most of us as parents were raised. Now our children have access to digital platforms every day and there are some wonderful things about this, but there are many challenges too. We place a high value on educating our students, but also supporting our parents to be proactive in managing this and to do this well, so current information is key. We are pleased to welcome back Marty and Carley McGauran from Inform and Empower for a 90 minute parent workshop on Wednesday 14th June at 6.30pm. Marty and Carley are highly regarded in the digital safety and wellbeing area and will cover social media, cyberbullying, online gaming, family communication, managing screen time and its impacts. We ask that at least one parent from each family in Year 3-6 be present at school for this very important evening please. There are currently only 11 families registered of the 52 families from Year 3-6 at our school. Register here: bit.ly/stagneshighett

South Central Principal’s Network Conference - Darwin

As many of you are aware, recently I was very fortunate to travel with the 15 other Principals from our Catholic Primary Schools Network to Darwin. It was difficult to leave the grey skies of Melbourne behind for sunny, 32-degree days in the top end, but I struggled on. This sponsored professional learning and networking opportunity was an incredible experience to be part of and I feel very lucky. The purpose of the trip was to connect with community members and leaders, as well as educational staff from the Northern Territory. The highlights included a trip to cultural sites in Kakadu National Park and also the day we spent in the Tiwi Islands learning more about the history, traditions and culture of the Aboriginal people in this area. Another great highlight was the time we spent with staff from Catholic Education NT. We participated in a cultural immersion experience similar to the one provided for new teachers in NT schools. During this workshop, we learnt more about day-to-day life in remote communities and the nuances in family relationships. We also explored the impact of the Stolen Generations on their culture and story telling, as well as National Sorry Day. It was pertinent that we were presented with all of this learning just two days before National Sorry Day and prior to National Reconciliation Week. This conference was undertaken in the context of promoting cultural safety in schools, especially for Aboriginal and Torres Stait Islander children. It really was a terrific week and I thank Louisa Di Pietro and our other staff for stepping up, down and sideways to cover my absence from school. I am pleased to share some photos below and all photos are shared with permission.

Semester One Reports

Your child’s written Semester One Report will be sent home as a hard copy and will also be made available online on Friday 16th June. This will be followed by Parent/Teacher Interviews, where you have the opportunity to discuss the written report with your child’s teacher(s). The teaching staff at St Agnes’ put a significant amount of work into assessing and writing the reports to ensure they are personalised and accurate. The children have undertaken a suite of assessments over the past few weeks; our staff use a range of testing data and teacher judgment to arrive at decisions regarding your child’s achievements. It is important to note that on your child’s report, their achievements are measured against the Victorian Curriculum Standards. Your child is not measured against other individual children or the class. 

The written report has a number of features to look out for. Achievement Indicators or ‘dots’, indicate the achievement against the curriculum and display whether your child is above, at or below the expected curriculum standard for this time of year in English, Mathematics, Religion and other areas. Work habits indicators display teacher judgements regarding effort, behaviour, work habits and organisation, exhibited by your child in the classroom this semester. Finally and most importantly, are the teacher comments. All aspects of the report should be viewed in conjunction with the teacher comments. There will be an Achievement comment and an Areas for Improvement comment. As a staff, we are proud of the achievements of the children and as parents, you should be too. There will be some though that are challenged by what you see and read, as your child has areas that they need to work on. This might be academic, social, emotional or behavioural. It is important to view the areas for improvement with a growth mindset, because it is unrealistic to expect that our children are perfect. We all have things we are working on and we aim to instill a mindset of lifelong learning with the children. I would like to take the opportunity to thank our staff for the countless hours they have put into these reports. With assessments, report writing and parent teacher interviews, this is a very busy and, at times stressful time for our staff. As always though, they haven gone about it in a very professional manner. 

Parent/Teacher Interviews

Parent/Teacher Interviews will take place on Tuesday 20th June. Parents will have the opportunity to either attend in person or to have their appointment online via Google Meet. Our preference is to meet with parents face to face. The interviews will run from from 1:30 pm until 9:00pm and school will conclude at 1:00pm on this day. Parents will need to book interviews online. All parents are expected to attend an interview for your child, as it is a great chance to discuss your child’s report. The link for the interviews is schoolinterviews.com.auand the school booking code is y5uaq. The link below can be used to book an interview time.

Parent Teacher Interviews for Year 4L will held on Tuesday 18th and Wednesday 19th July. Please use the above link and the code tuycs to secure a time for meetings with Mrs Law.

Cross Country stars

Congratulations to Callan Duddy, Ava Coates and Eleanor Forbes for their efforts at the Beachside Division Cross Country last week. The competition is much harder than the District level, but the three students competed hard and represented their school well. Congratulations to Callan, who finished 3rd and will go on to represent the school at the Southern Metro Region event on Wednesday 14th June.

Netball and Football Lightning Premierships

This week, our senior school students will go to represent the school in netball and football at the Holt District Lightning Premierships. Our Netballers play on Wednesday at the Thomas Street Netball Courts in Hampton. Our Footballers play on Thursday at Percy Treyvaud Park in Malvern East. Parents are of course welcome to attend.

End of Term Class Liturgies and Year 3/4 Parish Mass

In Term Two and Term Three, we celebrate the learning in Religious Education with an end of term liturgy, held in the classroom. The teachers and children are busily planning these events and parents are invited to come along. The dates and times will be communicated with parents, but they are usually at the start or end of the school day (9am or 3pm) and will happen in the last two weeks of the term.

On Friday 16th June at 9am, our Year 3 and 4 students will be participating in morning Mass with our weekday mass-goers. All parents are welcome to attend this Mass. For our Year 3 and 4 students/families, this will be in place of the end of term liturgy in the classroom.

Staff on Leave

A friendly reminder that Tracey Law is taking leave in the last week of this term to travel with her family - Monday 19th - Friday 23rd June (inclusive). Ambre Bourneman will be taking Year 4 for this week. Louisa Di Pietro is also on leave from Monday 19th to Friday 28th June (inclusive). Louisa’s duties will be split between Josie Miller and Amanda Baker while Louisa is away. Josie will look after Learning Diversity and chair PSG meetings, while Amanda will take care of our staffing organisation. There will be little impact on our Year 5/6 and Prep classrooms during this time. 

Shine the Light - Social Justice Day - Friday 24th June

On the last day of Term Two, our school has a focus on social justice and promoting empathy amongst our students.

Assembly

Assemblies are in the Hall on Wednesday afternoons. Parents are welcome to attend. At assembly, there will be presentations from classes, student awards, birthday acknowledgements and special announcements.

Wednesday, 7 June - Year 3

Wednesday, 17 June - Year 6 Leadership Update

Wednesday, 21 June - Music Showcase

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Kind regards,

Lachie