Dear Families,

This will be the last Newsletter for Term 2 

The last couple of weeks have been particularly challenging for the school in terms of a number of incidents involving a number of students and parents whilst travelling to and from school. I would like to thank all those who have made contact with information and would like to reassure all families that these matters have been dealt with promptly. All relevant authorities have been contacted as a matter of urgency and I can only reassure you that our emergency procedures and process have been enacted at all times. 

We will be releasing reports and Portfolios next week The portfolios are accessible via the Simon/ Pam/Simon everywhere app. A hard copy of work samples will come home along with a self reflection. These work samples are purely that and are NOT the portfolio as the portfolio has the task and the rubric each task is marked against. 

As already communicated, this semester’s reports will be reporting against the Mathematics 2.0 in the Victorian Curriculum. The language in the curriculum has changed and the standards have raised, meaning that your child’s mathematics report may look like there has been no growth but they have in fact made some progress. This will be addressed in Term 3 Family Learning Conversations(FLCs), but if this is of concern to you please reach out to your child’s classroom for clarity. The mathematics score is also now only one score which is an amalgamation of the Mathematics curriculum areas and scored in revelation to the achievement standards for each level.   This will also be explained in more detail during FLCs. There will also be a letter coming out at the time of reports to assist with this clarification. 

We continue to ask that any student presenting with any symptoms, be kept home to assist with reducing the risk of infection to other students and staff. We have had a number of staff and levels affected, leading to staff absences.  We acknowledge that this can be disruptive and is not our preferred option, as well as increasing the workload of teachers who are onsite working, we will always ensure appropriate student supervision and a duty of care to all our students.

The process for students who are heard swearing or speaking disrespectfully are being required to spend 5 minutes of their playtime reflecting on these interactions whilst walking with a yard duty teacher. This will continue and will be embedded into the school’s processes.  Children will be asked to walk with staff members to think about how their behaviour affects others and how they can turn this behaviour around when resuming play.

At St Catherine’s we are promoting Respect, Safety and Resilience as part of our Whole School Approach to Positive Behaviour (WSAPB). This latest initiative was implemented to assist with the promotion of respect and psychological safety. 

The whole school took part in the program “KIds Roar”. This program covers off the protective behaviours and social and emotional safety which is part of our curriculum.  

We also had Camp quality come out as an incursion for Grades 3-6 and the feedback was very positive. 

Patrick Pawlokowski took Grade 6’s to represent the school at the District Lightning Premiership day and our girls soccer team was successful in moving through to the next level . Well done girls!

The last day of term is a closure day where staff will be working together analysing data for the whole school. 

The first day of term is also a closure day where staff will be working on our school review documents to finalise these ready for our 4 yearly School Review which happens in August. 

Congratulations to Stephanie Yates on the announcement that she is expecting her first Baby which is due in November.  We wish her and her husband all the best on this wonderful journey. We will be advertising in Term 3 for her position to be covered.  

I want to take this opportunity to thank the staff for all their efforts across the first semester. It has been a very busy time and I wish to also thank the school community for your support.

Warm regards 

Anna