Welcome back to Term 2 

I trust you all had a safe and restful break and would like to welcome the new families to St Catherine’s 

We enjoyed having our students back.

The beginning of term marked a significant time in the Catholic Calendar.  Not only was it the death and resurrection of Jesus but also the death of Pope Francis. New process of the election of the new Pope provides an insight into some of the traditions and working of the inner sanctum of the Vatican. This will be explored at school and children may come home with questions. Please reach out if there is any information you want or you want covered in the classroom. We place our faith in the cardinals gathering for the Papal Conclave. We pray for their guidance with the election of a Pope, one of which will continue the inclusive and welcoming attitude rich in human warmth and place God of Mercy at the centre of all decisions emphasising God’s endless forgiveness.  

As most parents would be aware there is a shortage of teachers in Australian schools at present. 

We at St Catherine’s have felt the impact of the current teacher shortages, however we have been fortunate that we have maintained a strong base of Casual Relief Teachers (CRT’S) that enjoy working in the St Catherine’s learning community.

Casual Relief Teachers (CRT’s) are qualified teachers who choose to work on selected days based on their capacity and lifestyle. Unlike full time or part time classroom teachers, CRT’s work for a daily rate, do not have outside of hours teacher responsibilities such as parent teacher interviews, planning, meetings etc. They also forgo holiday pay, sick leave and holiday loading.

An important side note is that the St Catherine’s staff make themselves available to cover replacement of teachers and education support staff. For Rian Prestwich, as Deputy Principal in charge of staff absences and teacher replacements and Victoria Donlan and Rebecca Cox tasked with Educational Support Officer timetabling, the school day actually begins before 6.00 am. It can take up to two hours to fill and timetable and ensure suitable supervision for all aspects of the school day. If we cannot source teachers, we have no option but to split classes and or close down a specialist class for the day. At times, it may mean that teachers cannot attend Professional Learning or school events. 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.

Our new mobile phone and smartwatch process and policy was sent out earlier this week on the SIMON platform . This policy states that permission for these to be used must be provided to the classroom teacher of each student via the form attached to the bottom of the policy. 

Our Uniform Policy will be sent out this afternoon in our communications.

Warm regards 

Anna