Welcome

Welcome to Bree Saddington (F7) and Ella Grundy (C3) who are both employed for term 4 in these classrooms.

We also welcome little Dottie Mary-Clare Dunn to the world.  Both Laura and Dottie are home and going very well.

Enterprise Agreement 

I hope that everyone received an email on Monday from VCEA outlining the EB25 offer. I encourage everyone to read and discuss this with your friends, family and colleagues. 

There will be a deal of information coming out as the process moves forward.  We will all be asked to complete a survey in about 2 weeks time to indicate whether we want to proceed with this process. In the meantime please make yourself aware of the details and ask questions for clarity please find more information at https://eb.catholic.edu.au/ In particular, I draw your attention to the FAQs tab at the top of the page. 

DOBCEL Visit:

Fr John Fitzgerald and Terry Harney are visiting St Joes on Tuesday (11 -11:30am) as a part of their DOBCEL Board routine.  I have been impressed that the board visits every school each year and that they move their meetings around the diocese. Next week they are meeting in Port Fairy Claire Nailon (SAC Chair) and I will have a meal with the board in Port Fairy on Tuesday night. 

FINAL REPORT

We have been commended on our school review and the final report has been endorsed by Tom Sexton (Executive Director).  Congratulations and thanks to everyone for their contributions. The final report is here for your perusal.

Final Report

2026 Positions of Leadership

The 2026 POL and Assistant Principal positions will be advertised after this weeks Consultative Committee meeting when our structure for next year will be finalised.  Sorry for the delay in this process.

A request for staff wishing to use their TIL. 

During this term there is a significant amount of testing and planning days reducing the availability of days for TIL to be acquitted. In particular, weeks 5- have no availability to accommodate a Friday. With weeks 5-7 heavy with LLLL testing and Dibels testing the likelihood there is slim Fridays from week 5 to week 9 are out with team planning days. If you are intending to acquit any of your TIL, please come and see me so we can look together in front of the calendar/spreadsheet to examine the possibilities. Any TIL not taken will be paid out in the pay dated 26th December.

All classes have been updated to remove students no longer here, new students added and tests for Yrs 2-6 have been set up for PAT R & PAT M.

Term 4 Assessments
Please ensure you look at the ‘Quick View Calendar for assessments that need to be completed this term (They are in this yellow). You’ll notice the South Australian Spelling Test. Please check your assessments folders that I have you at the start of the year for these resources.  Very important >PAT Assessments - please ensure you display the correct slowslide to your classroom - here is the link PAT Adminstration Slides

Classroom Placements
Teachers please look at what stage we are up to with classroom placements. Please ensure you follow the Working Partners WORD FOR WORD when explaining it in Week 2.
Class Groupings
IMPORTANT - please note I have moved the ‘F-6 - Reading, Writing & Numeracy Judgements’ into this end of Week 2 too. The reason for this is because I would like teams to have this information in, for Week 3 when we look at the classes. 

Transition Days
Please note the changes to the time with the second transition, on the calendars. 

Cognitive Load Check In: That time of year again. Reminder that we should be doing number 1 & 2. Number 3 will be a focus for more so next year. 

IMPORTANT Reminders about whole school implementation of;
- Whole School Attention Grabbers  Link
- 5 Ls is no longer and we have ‘Focused Listening’
- All classrooms to have lining up procedures, and for this to be printed near your classroom doors for specialists to see.
None of this information is new. The ‘why’ has been explained to us a number of times through the FLARE Professional Development, spoken about at team levels and then developed through the GC Meetings. 

Joanne Van De Voorte visiting

There will be no whole school assemblies at the moment due to the hall not being available

Please read in conjunction with the Upcoming events list.

Week 2:

Monday 13th October:  Year 3 swimming commences

Tuesday 14th October:  Foundation excursion; Catholic Super Rep visit

Wednesday 15th OCtober: LSO ARM's; Catholic Super Rep visit; Leadership Meeting

Thursday 16th October: LSO ARM's; Consultative Committee Meeting

Friday 17th October: 2026 Teacher interviews

Week 3:

Monday 20th October:  Year 3 swimming continues

Tuesday 21st:  LSO ARM's

Thursday 23rd:  Grandparents Day; District Cricket

Friday 24th: Regional BAsketabll (Ballarat)

Professional learning opportunities:

Orange Door Information Session: Monday 13/10 3.30-5.00 pm Register here   Orange Door Flyer 

Be You Webinar: Creating calmer schools with Trauma-Informed Practice Wednesday 15/10 3.30- 4.30pm 

Register here 

Thankyou to everyone for a terrific week of settling students back into their school routine. 

Gabe is back in Wellbeing this week.

2026 Potential ALA & HoL Students. Please discuss at your next PLT students who would benefit from participating in these programs in 2026 and list names on the following documents: 2026 Potential ALA Students   2026 Potential HoL Students. If this could be done by the end of Week 4, that would be appreciated.

Optimistic October! In times of uncertainty, optimism becomes even more important. We can’t control what happens, but we can choose to stay hopeful and take positive action. Display the Optimistic October Calendar in your classroom and encourage students to participate in the daily activities.

REAP - As you may have seen in the DOBCEL newsletter it is highly unlikely that a new cohort for this program will run until 2027. However it is important to note that these  courses (that can be done online) will also give you your Catholic Accreditation.  Sponsorship through DOBCEL is available. It would be great if we had a couple of people working through this together.   

ACU Graduate Certificate in Religious Education (GCRE)  online engagement   ( ideally 2 yr commitment) 

CTC/YTU Graduate Certificate in Teaching Religious Education (GCTRE)  online engagement (ideally 2 yr commitment) 

Grandparents Day:  

This is happening on Thursday 23rd October (week 3), please keep an eye out for more detailed information to come.  Some of this will depend on the availability of the hall.

LSO's for excursions etc

As we head in to this final term and there will be many excursions and end of year activites taking place.  If you have an extensive funded child in your room, you will be given an LSO to support you in this, but other than this it will be dependant on who is available so please do not count on the LSO support in your planning.

Please keep in mind to ask parents for help when you can and if do need LSO or trainee support please email me well in advance so we can let you know exactly what we can and cannot do.

In light of both our Libraries being used as Yr 5 Classrooms for the first couple of weeks, we are just asking you to be mindful about your students and their book borrowing times.  The following classes will be able to still have their scheduled lesson in the Library as those Yr 5 classes will be at a Specialist Class:

• D7 & D6 - Mondays session 3 & 4
• B7 - Thursdays session 2.

Year 5 (Classes F5 & F6) LRC lessons will remain in the Senior Library E4 on Wednesday mornings in session 1 & 2. Japanese classes will occur in the main LRC for these 2 sessions ONLY.

SENIOR LRC (E4)  Is available for extra senior book borrowing only on MONDAYS in session 4 and Thursdays during session 3 & 4. All other times - students can still use the Laptop for scanning books OUTSIDE of the E4 classroom to prevent major disruption to Lewis and F6.

ALL OTHER LRC CLASSES will have to be taken in the classrooms - if classroom teachers need an office to work in during these lessons, please use our library office.  We will also need to utilise LSOs/Trainees to potentially supervise small groups of students into the Library for their actual Book Borrowing time.

A huge thanks for Maddy being so accommodating for students to come into the Library while she is teaching F5.  We are so grateful and I am sure she will appreciate classroom teachers reminding their students to be extra quiet when accessing the Library during these times.

Yr 6 Library Leaders will continue to scan any returned books off the trolleys from 3pm each day. Thanks everyone for your flexibility during this time! 

Update on Building Program:

Unfortunately the rain Gods are in full swing and providing heaps of rain which is not helpful when we need the ovals to dry out os the portable classrooms can be relocated.  This hold up has had a massive impact on our school operations and I am extremely sorry for that, and also extremely grateful for everyones patience.

NEW Online Maintenance & OHS Management system: As a part of our partnership with Danihers we have now introduced their online Maintenance & OHS Management system.  This will replace the use for our maintenance@ and ohs@ emails that all staff currently use.

Please bookmark this link on your computer or phone to access the new system.  I am happy to do some run throughs of this in the staff room at lunch times if that would help.

Essentially you will need to enter your name and email address (both of which should pre-populate if you use the same device), select the room or area of the school the issue relates to (you can start to type a room number e.g. B1 and it will narrow the list for you) and then enter a summary of the issue in the description field.  Under the priority drop down you will be selecting a timeline or urgency of the task.

OHS (urgent attention required) would only be used for serious items e.g. water is pouring in through the roof, you have found a live wire some where, a window and has left broken glass exposed etc

If a child has vomited or had a toileting accident please still call the office.

DFMS (Maintenance & OHS Management system)

This will allow us to monitor more closely if the same issue keeps arising, or if it is in the same area of the school.

For all Staff Reimbursements, please use this link:  Staff Reimbursement Form

Refer to the newsletter or PAM for further details on all these events.

Week 2

Year 3 Swimming Commences: Monday 13th October

Year 6 Group Photo: 9:00am, Wednesday 15th October

No Whole School Assembly (Due to unavailability of School Hall): Friday 17th September 

Week 3

Year 3 Swimming Continues: Monday 20th October

PSA Meeting: 7pm, Tuesday 21st October

Grandparents Day: 9:30am - 11:30am, Thursday 23rd October

Whole School Assembly, Room F5: 2:40pm Friday 24th September (TBC)

Refer to the newsletter or PAM for further details on all these events.

Converge International is a free and confidential support service for staff and their families.   Ph 1300 687 327

• Liz Salathiel - 11th October
• Cathy Duynhoven - 17th October