Week 8  Term 4 

Dear Parents,

It has been a busy and productive couple of weeks at St Catherine’s. We have been interviewing for staff and will continue to do so.  We are moving in to the final weeks and have the Grade 6 team working hard on Graduation activities and final farewell. The Grade 5 team have been working with their students to assist with their preparation for Student Leadership Roles.

The Prep Team have started orientation sessions for the 2024 prep student's and our enrolments are continuing to flourish for all levels across the school.

Work is being planned for the Christmas break to ensure maintenance and upkeep for the school facilities.

It is our intention to keep working up until the last days of the school year and ask that all Christmas headbands and decorations etc are worn for the last week of term only. This allows for students to focus on the learning that will continue to as close to the last day of school as possible.

The last day of school for students will be Friday 15 December.

The staff will meet for planning on Monday 18 December, First Aid and refresher  training courses will be held on Tuesday 19 December with Wednesday 20 December being a Time in Lieu day for all staff. As I have mentioned previously, it is quite normal for students to feel a little anxious about what the next year will bring. Our children often take their lead from the adults around them, so it is important to reassure your children and talk to them about the positives that come with the next year and the next step of their schooling life.

Staffing News
We have a number of new staff members joining and returning to St Catherine’s in 2024 and also some leaving.

We extend a warm welcome to the St Catherine’s Community:

Mrs Samantha Johnstone
Mr Patrick Pawlukowski
Mrs Stephanie Yates 
Mrs Kristie Copestake

We will welcome back to St Catherine’s:

Ms Laura Thorne
Mrs Mandy Collingwood
Mrs Rachel Long in term 2
Mrs Kirsten Andrews in term 2

At the end of the year we will also say farewell to:

Ms Kat Dullabh
Meg Ichikawa
Mrs Nicola Finch
Mrs Stephanie Jansz
Miss Kathleen O’Leary
Mrs Chee Wan Yuen
Mrs Melissa Junkeer
Mrs Sigrun Hurren
Miss Jessica Ornsby

We wish to thank them for all their contributions to St Catherine’s and wish them  well with their future endeavours.

New specialist subject for 2024
Mrs Yveie Tonks will be taking up our new specialist teaching role. This role has been created to address the requirements of the 2022 DOSCEL Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. The new specialist class will be Science. We are working through the logistics of this but it will be a 40-minute lessons for all students every week.

Christmas Concert
Mrs Culpitt and the students are rehearsing items for the Christmas Picnic Concert. The concert will take place on our oval which allows us to eliminate restrictions to numbers. That being said obviously with over 400 families we need to be mindful of allowing enough space for others to have immediate family members to come and join the event. We ask that all older siblings remain with their families during that time and students are to be seated with families until called up to the stage just prior to their performance. All families are welcome to bring a picnic dinner, along and enjoy the carols. As this event takes place on the school grounds this is an ALCOHOL-FREE event.

Learning Buddies for 2024 classes
Students have been working through the process of choosing their five learning buddies to assist teachers with the 2024 class selections. These have now been entered in to a program called Class Creator as the first part of the process. There are many more details and hours put into this before the program provides staff with drafts of class lists for review. Your child will be guaranteed 1 of the people on their learning buddies list.

Grandparents Morning 10 November 2023 
On Friday 10 November our Grandparents morning dedicated to Grandparents and special others who play a similar role to our students was a huge success and we loved having these special people in the school. Please make these special people aware so they can save the date for next year -  Friday 8 November 2024!

Remembrance Day Service
A Remembrance Day Service, honouring those who fought for us and our country was held on Monday 13 November in the afternoon at 2.50pm in the courtyard. This was led by our student leaders.

Student attendance
We have a number of students coming after the bell most mornings. This impacts the specialist subjects and also leads to missing vital instruction as our teaching starts at 8.50am. Students on scheduled out of classroom intervention programs may miss their sessions which will also impact student learning. Regular late arrivals trigger our attendance/absence processes which means parents and carers will be contacted by classroom teachers at first but may be escalated to other governing bodies.

Car Parking
Due to the restricted car parks, we have had to close off the very end of the driveway to all cars except our contractors, admin and DOSCEL staff. We have regular visits from these people and need to be able to give access to them and if necessary emergency services. To allow this to happen and to keep our children safe, we have put bollards out to restrict access to allow the crossing near the chapel to be a safe zone for children to cross the driveway.
These Bollards will be moved each morning at 8.30am and each afternoon at 3.00pm to allow traffic through when the chapel gates are open.

Student access and child safety
We request all students accessing the administration Office and who may be coming in late do so via the SFX driveway. Students are to walk down the SFX side of driveway on the footpath and cross at the Chapel crossing behind the bollards . We remind parents that the driveways are limited to 5 kilometres an hour for the safety of our students. Staff are on hand to assist until just after the bell. All students who are late should be walked into the office by an adult and be signed in for legal reasons. We also ask that parents and students use the designated crossings when crossing Ridgemont Drive and Meadowlands Way.

Hats and Uniform
Hats need to be worn at all break times and must be worn properly by our students to ensure that we are remaining a Sunsmart school. Summer uniform is to be worn for the remainder of the school year with sports uniform being worn on PE lesson days and SPECIAL sports days as notified by the office.

Athletics carnival will be held on Friday
This event is a monumental task to organise ensuring buses and tight schedules are adhered to. This is different to previous years and we know there will be teething problems, which we will work to address at the time and for future Athletics carnivals. Many of St Catherine’s traditions need to be altered and tweaked somewhat to incorporate the number of students we now have enrolled.

2024 Planning
Thank you to all those parents who have put in separation requests for students in preparation for our 2024 class planning. We are blessed at St Catherine’s to have a very professional and committed staff that plan together to ensure that the same learning opportunities are afforded to the students regardless of what class they are in, so please do not request individual teachers.

Students leaving St Catherine’s for the 2024 school year.
If there are any students leaving St Catherine’s at the end of the 2023 year we ask that you notify the office as soon as possible by emailing enrolments@stcberwick.catholic.edu.au
This assists the school with planning and ensuring that all students are sent home with relevant documentation and belongings.

School Fees
Please see the School Fee schedule 2024 attached to this newsletter.

Out of School Hours Care Program
Please see the brochures attached to this newsletter regarding our new OSHC Program - Bookings are now open!

Warm Regards
Anna