Message from the Principal

Welcome to week 6 and 7

Dear Parents,

I hope that your long weekend was filled with great activities with your family and friends. I know that some days off for our staff were very welcomed in yet another busy term. Our teaching staff are immersed in report writing at present and are putting in lots of extra hours to ensure that the formal reporting requirements are met for the end of semester 2.  We thank everyone for the efforts of Walktober and joining us for breakfast on Friday morning.

We welcomed our new Preps on Wednesday. The Prep space was alive with wonder and everyone was brimming with excitement. I loved being in the space to meet everyone and welcome them to our beautiful school. As you can see Xavier, Steveland and Scarlett were all smiles and busy as bees.

At this time there is a lot of work going into ensuring adequate staffing for 2020. As our enrolments continue to decrease each year, this has an impact on funding and staffing. Thankfully we have 38 Preps enrolled for 2020 which is the same number of Preps we welcomed for 2019. With 56 Year 6's leaving this means we drop down again.

We will always continue to ensure the best teacher to student ratios and expert educators. As far as we can tell, the decrease in enrolments in the area is due to the changing demographics of Noble Park and surrounding areas, growth in house prices and affordability of a new home with many families taking the opportunity to build and move out to growth corridors such as Cranbourne, Clyde and Narre Warren.  This of course means that schools in those areas are growing and schools in areas such as Noble Park are shrinking. Catholic Education Melbourne are working with all schools to try and implement measures to ensure enrolments are maintained.

I would like to take this opportunity to farewell several staff members who will not be returning in 2020 and many who will be taking up new opportunities. We farewell Miss Ellen Fitzgerald who has been on extended leave this year.  Ellen is travelling and living abroad and will continue to do so in 2020. We farewell and thank Miss Marnie Newbound, who has been with us for the past 18 months and has been an important part of the 5/6 learning spaces. Marnie  takes up another teaching role at Holy Family Doveton and we know she will be a great asset as she nurtures relationships with her learners so beautifully.  To Sue Brown, our Home and School Liaison who has forged significant partnerships and opportunities over the past 9 years in collaboration with our SMAG schools and become a very valued and respected member of staff at St Anthony's, St Gerard's and St Mary's. Sue cannot be replaced and Sue's passion and expertise in the area of family engagement has enriched our school community and enabled many opportunities for staff, families and students in multiple ways.  We wish Sue all the very best and we will miss her greatly. Mrs Kirsty Platon begins her Maternity leave at the end of the year and for the duration of 2020. We hope to see Kirsty again in 2021. We wish all of these wonderful people much happiness in their future endeavors and thank them for being an important part of the St Anthony's community.

Enjoy the next couple of weeks and we journey closer to Advent. Please go gently as the end of year can bring anxiety and worry with the transition to new schools, levels and new challenges. It is a time to look after each other more carefully and mindfully. 

As always if you have any feedback, ideas or you need any assistance at all, you are always most welcome to see me, Mr James Gow, Mrs Glennis Kerr or any member of the wider school leadership team. 

God Bless,

Patrika Rowley

School Fee Structures 2020

In 2020 the fee structure at St Anthony's will undergo some changes that will bring us into line with the Catholic Education Melbourne Diocesan Policy and allow us to meet the financial demands of the growing needs of the school . St Anthony's fee structure has remained unchanged for 10 years and can no longer sustain the increase in the cost of providing adequate resources and opportunities.

It is compulsory for Catholic Schools to supplement Commonwealth and State Grants as part of the General Recurrent cost incurred in the running of the school. Hence it is necessary to have school fees and student fees as well as fund-raising efforts to raise money on the local level. 

It is important to mention that no student will be excluded because of an inability to pay fees. In these cases a suitable fee structure will be negotiated with the Principal.

However, it is the expectation that all families make every effort to meet their financial commitments. It is a matter of justice to all students and families that the financial burden is equally distributed.

Overall a significant increase is in the process of being approved for 2020 in the form of a capital levy to ensure that we can continue to meet the requirements of running our school, improving the physical environment and resourcing it properly for our students. 

In order to grow and improve our school we need to introduce a Capital Levy which will help maintain and grow a school with excellent resources, facilities and infrastructure. All services have increased such as electricity, water, phone, cleaning expenses, staff salaries etc..  2020 will see the introduction of a capital levy/fee to enable us to provide the best educational opportunities for our students and improve facilities. 

The family/tuition fee remains the same. This goes towards payment of tuition and covering the cost of everyday costs of running a school. We generally spend significantly more in these areas than we collect in fees. 

The student levy/fee will remain the same. The majority of the student levy/fee goes to supplying our classrooms (students) with materials for them to work with on a daily basis, (including books, pencils, stationary, paper etc…). The student fee is also used to resource curriculum areas such as RE, Numeracy, Literacy, Art and Craft, Science, Japanese, PE, Library and to subsidise excursions. All money collected through the student levy/fee directly provides for the students in the classroom. In fact we generally spend significantly more on the children in these areas than we collect in fees. 

The Capital levy/fee will be a new fee. This assists in meeting loan repayments for building works, equipment purchases that we have to borrow money for and leasing of up to date technology for all students. As we know technology has a limited time that it remains current and our learners today need access to current technology.

The school Advisory Group will meet again on the 18th before our annual AGM to finalise and ratify these changes. The Advisory Group have already been a significant voice in this process and I thank them for their advice and advocating for all families.

Patrika Rowley