Welcome Back

Welcome back to the school year. It was great to see students enthusiastically engage back into school routines.  After a very hot start the weather looks a little more reasonable this week.  When the temperature reaches 35 degrees or above, we enact a hot day program and students are not sent outside to play.

Staff have spent time planning and preparing engaging learning activities this term. Our term one concept across the school is Health and Wellbeing. Teachers will be spending time this term setting expectations, revisiting our school values, building resilience and independence, along with teaching skills to establish and maintain positive relationships. More information regarding the curriculum for each year level will be sent home later this week in the Curriculum Term Outline.

A big welcome to our new Foundation students, new families and new students in other year levels. We are pleased you have you  join our St Catherine’s School community and look forward to the year ahead learning and working with you.

Before and After School Yard Supervision

Students are supervised in the yard before school from 8:40am until the bell goes at 9:00am. Students are only permitted on the asphalt and courtyard areas. There are no big balls eg. basketball allowed before school. Students may use tennis balls in the four squares before school. The adventure climbing playground and oval are out of bounds before school.

The classroom doors open at 8:45am. All students are encouraged to take bags inside, unpack and get organised for the day before they can come back outside to the asphalt or courtyard until the music plays for meditation.

After school Teachers will bring students out to the asphalt area. Students need to remain with a teacher until their parents pick them up. Parents who have organised to pick up their child from the church car park may wait at the gate near the church. Students are supervised after school until 3:50pm. After that time, students will be sent into the school office and we will contact parents. Please call the office and let us know if you are running late or if arrangements for picking up your child have changed. Students may play on the playground after school, only if their parents are present and supervising them. Students are not to play on the oval or courtyard. These areas are out of bounds after school.

Our school does offer before and after school care. You can arrange for your child to attend by calling OSHclub on 0478 033 550.

Tuesdays: Walking

Every Tuesday morning (weather permitting) we ask that all students join staff  as we walk around the oval from 8:40 to 8:55am. As students arrive at school they are asked to place their bags on the asphalt in their class line and begin walking around the oval. Parents, families and friends are encouraged to walk with us. At conclusion of walking students make their way to their class line on the asphalt and our student leaders will lead us in acknowledgment of country and sing the National Anthem. Parents, families and friends are welcome to join us.

Important Dates

Important dates for the school term are located in the newsletter, via the school calendar and the parent engagement platform. Please note in our best attempts to advertise dates in advance on occasions, changes to dates may need to be made. We will ensure we communicate changes of dates as early as possible.

Our school athletics day which was advertised at the end of last term for Tuesday 24 March has now been changed to Thursday 29 October. Our Physical Education Teacher Mrs Pattinson will be taking some leave in first term so we have changed the date to allow plenty of time to prepare for this event.

School Board

Darren Forner, chair of the school board, and Michael Juliff Coordinating Principal will meet with me this week to determine who will be the two new members to our school board. We are in the fortunate position that we have had more parents volunteer to be part of the school board than places available. We will announce all board members in the next school newsletter. May I again thank all parents who volunteered to support our school in this way.

Parents and Friends

We are now calling for a Co-ordinator of the Parents and Friends for 2020. Julie Griffin co-ordinated events for our school last year and has created a comprehensive guide for a coordinator moving forward into 2020. This role encourages parents to be involved in social and fundraising activities that support our school community. Please email Julie Griffin  stcathsparentsandfriends@gmail.com or call her on 0410 485 455 if you would like to know more about the role and how you can support our school.

NEW to St Catherine’s in 2020- PLAYGROUP

We are very excited to be launching our very own school run playgroup. This term playgroup will run on Wednesdays from 9:00-10:30am in the foyer of our school hall. Mrs Kath Barca will lead this initiative and we encourage school families, neighbours, extended families and friends to attend. There is no cost. Tea and coffee will be available. Please bring your own snacks and drinks for children. A big thank you to Karen Glancy who has helped us source a large number of items for pre -schoolers to engage with during these sessions. Dates for playgroup in term one are as follows:

5, 12, 19 & 26 February

11 & 18 March

Year 6 Student Leaders

We are pleased to announce our year 6 student leaders for 2020.

2020 Staffing

Your child’s teacher is your first port of call. St Catherine’s staff access their work emails normally between 8.00 am-6:00 pm and will endeavour to respond to emails within 24-48 hours. However, staff are not expected to respond in this timeframe during weekends, public holidays and term breaks.

This year we have changed new email addresses in preparation for the new administration IT package that will be rolled out to our school later in the year or early 2021.  (The new emails are not case sensitive so you can use all lower case letters or capital letters for the beginning of names).  It is not envisaged that this change will affect parents or the general operation of the school. Please note that the old email addresses for staff still work.

Just reminder to all parents that the care, safety and welfare of all our students is paramount to what we do. All Child Safety Policies and procedures can be found on the Policies page of the Parent Platform along with the Positive Behaviour Policy and other relevant policies.

Lynda O'Donnell

Principal