Term 1 Week 1 Newsletter- Friday January 31

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the traditional owners, the Gunditjmara people, on whose land we learn, work and play. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their elders- past, present and emerging believing that we can walk together for a better future.

Principal's Message

Welcome to the 2025 school year!

It has been wonderful to see how well our students have started the school year. The returning students have slipped back into their new classes seamlessly, like they had never been away. After some nerves this morning our new students began their time at All Saints smoothly. The sound of children playing, laughing and learning soon filled our school. Everyone seemed to have a great day.

We would like to extend a very warm welcome to all of our new students and their families for the 2025 school year. Welcome to the All Saints Parish School community. We have 49 new students beginning with us this year. 41 new Foundation students begin their educational journey at All Saints and 8 students have joined us in other levels across the school. We hope they enjoy their time at All Saints, make some new friends, embrace challenges and learn lots of interesting things. We also welcome two new staff members to our school community this year. Andrea Jennings joins us and will be teaching in the 5/6 team. Hannah Croft joins our 3/4 team as an LSO. We will learn more about them in our upcoming newsletters.

This newsletter will contain some information about our procedures and expectations at school, plus some highlights of our first week. After this our newsletters will be distributed on a Monday in the odd weeks of term. So our next newsletter will be  Monday February 10.

Our staff had a very productive day on Wednesday working with Anne Ruddell from Catholic Education Ballarat. Anne came to work with us on the next steps in our SWPBS (School Wide Positive Behaviour Supports) journey, which we began last year. All staff were very keen and excited to start implementing our work across the school. We will have regular updates in our newsletters around our SWPBS work in the school.

I would like to wish all our staff, students, families and friends all the best for the year ahead. I hope it is a year full of learning, challenges, fun and friendship.  A year where we can work together as partners in a school community to pursue fullness of life for all.

We are Respectful! We are Responsible! We are Safe! We are Nurturing!

(All Saints Parish School SWPBS expectations)

Regards

Jamie  

All Saints Parish School Vision

Catholic School Culture

School Information

Assembly Timetable

Assemblies commence at 2:30pm every second Friday afternoon.

Assemblies for Term 1

Week 2: Mr. Walsh 

Week 4: 1/2ID

Week 6: School Leaders

Week 8: 3/4DL

Before School Supervision

Teachers are only on duty each morning from 8:30am. Breakfast Club begins at 8:15am. Children are not permitted to be at school before 8:15am. Children must remain in the courtyard until the teachers are on yard duty at 8:30am.

Assemblies

Our first assembly will be next Friday afternoon February 7 at 2:30pm. Mr. Walsh and the School Leaders will be in charge of the first assembly. Families are more than welcome to join us for these assemblies.

After that assemblies will take place fortnightly (Week 4, 6, 8, 10). Each class will be responsible for hosting an assembly throughout the year. We will notify families who is hosting the assembly in the preceding newsletter.

Newsletters

Newsletters are distributed fortnightly on Monday afternoon. They will come out in Week 3, 5, 7 & 9 of each term.

Our newsletters are sent out digitally via email or can be accessed via the Schoolzine app or on the homepage of our website.

School Canteen

Our school canteen operates every Thursday (unless otherwise notified). Orders need to be placed by Wednesday night in preparation for Thursday.

Orders are placed through CDF Pay which can be accessed via the Schoolzine app, on the homepage of our website or on the web at asportland.cdfpay.org.au . Our canteen menu can also be found at these sites.

School Fees

The annual school fee statement has been emailed out to families this week.  We would like to remind families to please check their Junk Mail folders if they cannot find this account.  The statement has the school BSB and account number located on it for those families who prefer to pay directly into the school account.

The fee statement will have billed families for all costs associated with their child(ren) for 2025, and can be paid via direct debit, directly into the school bank account or at the front office by EFTPOS or cash.  Fees paid in full by 31st March will receive a discount.

Families who have opted to have the school direct debit their fees will have had their January payments already deducted.  If you would like the school to set up a direct debit you can collect a form from the front office. 

Health Care/Pension Cards

Reminder to all families who hold a valid Health Care or Pension Card to ensure the school has a copy of your card.  If this is your first year using your HHC or PC at the school you will also need to complete the CSEF Form required by the government - this allows you to receive a payment towards camps and excursions/sports activities.

Please contact the office if you have any questions.

Student Medical Information Updates Required

A reminder that we require all families to login to PAM and update their child's medical information if any details have changed or if you are a new family to All Saints School.   Please ensure that this is completed as soon as possible.

To update a medical profile for your child/children please follow these instructions:

1. Click on the link to PAM (found on SZ App or on the All Saints School website)
2. Click on student. (Remember that each child has their own medical profile)
3. Click on Medical Profile (blue writing to the left of screen)
4. Check all questions and select Edit Details for updates to be made.
5. Once you get to the end of the questions please confirm by clicking on the Green “Update Details” box found at the bottom right of screen.

As a parent/guardian you are able to access your child/ren's medical profile on PAM at any time to update as needed.

If you have any queries or require your PAM login details, please do not hesitate to contact the office. 

Communication Between Teachers & Parents- PLEASE READ

Sports Uniform Days

Students are able to wear their sports uniform to school on two days during the week. One of these days is their specialist day and the other one is a day chosen by the teachers. Please see below the sports uniform days for each year level. On the other days students are to wear full school uniform.

FOUNDATION: Tuesday & Friday

1/2: Tuesday & Friday

3/4: Wednesday & Friday

5/6: Thursday & Friday

Welcome Picnic

Thursday February 6- 5:30pm-7:00pm

All families are invited to join us for a casual picnic tea on the school grounds. BYO everything.

Come along and meet our teachers, catch up with families that you know and meet some new families in our school.

Parent Teacher Information Sharing Sessions

On Monday February 10 and Tuesday February 11 we will be holding Parent Teacher Information Sharing sessions for all families.

The purpose of these sessions is to meet with your child's classroom teacher and share information about your child. Your teacher may share some helpful hints or anything they have noticed in the short time that they have had your child. You might have some tips or tricks that you can tell the teacher about your child that might be beneficial to know. 

This information will help us to identify how to best meet the needs of your child as we partner together to provide the best education we can and 'pursue fullness of life for all'.

Booking details will be shared next week.

Important Dates

Term 1 

Week 1

Tuesday January 28 - Staff First Day

Tuesday January 28 - Office opens @ 8:30am

Wednesday January 29 - Student Free Day: Staff Professional Learning- SWPBS

Thursday January 30 - Students return to school

Week 2

Thursday February 6 - Whole School Welcome Picnic (held at school)

Week 3

Monday February 10 - Parent Teacher Information Sharing Sessions

Tuesday February 11 - Parent Teacher Information Sharing Sessions

Tuesday February 11 - PHDSSA Interschool Swimming (for selected students)

Week 5

Monday February 24 - All Saints Athletics Carnival @ Nelson Park

Thursday February 27 - Foundation Speech Screening

Saturday March 1 - Relay for Life

Week 6

Wednesday March 5 - ASH WEDNESDAY: the beginning of Lent

Week 7

Monday March 10 - Labour Day Public Holiday- No school for anyone

Tuesday March 11 - Student Free Day: Staff Professional Learning- Structured Literacy- No school for students

Wednesday March 12 - NAPLAN Testing Window opens

Wednesday March 12- Friday March 14 - Year 4 camp to Dunkeld

Week 8

Monday March 17 - Wednesday March 19 - Year 5/6 camp to Ballarat

Week 9

Thursday March 27 - PHDSSA Interschool Athletics Carnival (for selected students)

Week 10

Friday April 4 - Last day of term 1

Learning & Teaching

Some action shots from our first couple of days.

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School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS)

All staff have been working with Anne Ruddell from Catholic Education Ballarat on School Wide Positive Behaviour Supports which is a framework for school communities from Foundation to Year 12 that helps schools in improving social, emotional, behavioural and academic outcomes for their students.

SWPBS provides evidence-based, positive, and proactive practices that support and respond to students’ social, emotional, and behavioural needs.

SWPBS uses a tiered intervention framework along with robust data-based decision making to provide primary prevention for all staff and students, secondary prevention for students with at-risk behaviour and tertiary prevention for students with high-risk behaviour.

We have developed our school matrix and major and minor behaviours flowchart. These are being introduced to the students this week and will be shared with the school community in the near future. 

We will have regular updates regarding SWPBS in each newsletter and at school assemblies. This is a whole school approach to positive behaviour so we would be grateful for any feedback throughout the year.

Students of the Week

Students of the Week will be awarded at each assembly.

Awards are chosen by classroom teachers and by the teachers in our specialist areas.

These award recipients will be shared with the school community via this newsletter following each assembly.

Leadership & Stewardship

Congratulations to our 2025 School Leaders

I would like to take this opportunity to announce our School Leaders for 2025.

Congratulations to Chloe Holt, Althea Howman, Olivia James and Ilaria Toohey who were voted in as our leaders for this year. We are looking forward to working with you all in your new role.

Our House Leaders will be announced early in 2025.

School Leadership Team

I would like to introduce you to the All Saints Parish School Leadership Team.

Jamie Walsh- Principal

Kerri-Ann O'Keefe- Deputy Principal & Religious Education Leader

Danielle Walsh- Learning & Teaching Leader: Junior

Bonita Silva- Learning & Teaching Leader: Senior

Christine McMahon- Learning Diversity Leader and Mental Health &Wellbeing Leader

Community Engagement

Relay for Life

In 2025 we will again be participating in Relay for Life on March 1. This event begins at 10:00am and runs through until 10:00pm

We are asking all families to join us on this day for a day full of fun and activities, and to raise money for a very special cause. If you would like to join us for part of the day, even if it is only for half an hour we would love to see you there. We will have a dress up theme and games and activities happening throughout the day. More information will be shared in future newsletters.

If you would like to be a part of our team please use the following link to register. If you register with us your registration fee goes towards our fundraising total. 

https://www.relayforlife.org.au/fundraisers/AllSaintsParishSchool6008 

Child Safety & Wellbeing

Webinars for parents and carers

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/webinars 

Join one of our free webinars for parents and carers.

These live webinars give parents and carers the knowledge, skills and tools to support their children to have safe online experiences.

• On this page:

  • Supporting healthy tech use as your child transitions into high school
  • Algorithms and adolescents: the rewards and risks of recommender systems for young people
  • Download and share: Term 1 2025

ownloadExternal linkDownload

Download

CatholicCare- School Counsellor

We are very happy to continue our partnership with CatholicCare. Private counselling referrals are available from the school office on request.

Students who have previously worked with CatholicCare will continue unless we are otherwise advised by parents.

SchoolTV - Wellbeing Platform

Because parenting doesn’t come with a set of instructions, SchoolTV is a wellbeing resource that can support you in the challenges relating to modern-day parenting.

This award-winning resource helps build relationships, foster connections, enable understanding and break down barriers to navigate a pathway towards better mental health and wellbeing for young people. It can assist in starting conversations on topics that are sometimes awkward or difficult to tackle.

Below is a URL link to the All Saints SchoolTV platform. 

All Saints Parish School’s ‘School TV’ can be accessed using the following link: https://asportland.catholic.schooltv.me 

In this edition of SchoolTV - School Transitions

Whether it is starting school for the first time, moving up to a higher grade or embarking on a journey through secondary school, there is no doubt that any school transition is a very exciting time for children and parents. It means your children are growing up!

However, transitioning is an ongoing process. It can continue long after students have entered their new environment and may encounter difficulties at a number of different stages. These stressors may appear as anxiety and frustration and result in negative or disruptive behaviours. Such behaviours can become problematic making the transitioning process even more difficult for children and parents.

In this edition of SchoolTV, parents will learn practical strategies to assist your child during the transition process and reduce stress and anxiety levels.

We hope you take time to reflect on the information offered in this edition of SchoolTV and we always welcome your feedback. If you have any concerns about your child, please contact the school counsellor for further information or seek medical or professional help.

Here is the link to the School Transitions edition of SchoolTV
https://asportland.catholic.schooltv.me/newsletter/school-transitions

Happy Birthday

JANUARY BIRTHDAYS

STUDENTS: Irene J, Ava M, Elspeth D, Harley J, Eleanor T, Skye C, Seth F, Arla H, Ryder M, Sophia B, Hazel B, Lorraine P, Levi J, Bella F, Jordyn V, Zaiden O, Olivia J. 

STAFF:  Bec, Miss Silva

FEBRUARY BIRTHDAYS

STUDENTS: Indianna M, Emmy B, Kaylee J, Kaziah M, Bonnie S, Kaidyn K, Ilaria T, Zoe T, Ari D, Charlie M, Addison B, Pippa B, Ezra N, Gabby D, Willow B, Jake R, Nate L, Harriet H, Ryan C.

STAFF: Miss Wood, Miss Simpson  

Praying With Children

Praying with Children resources offer an insight into the scripture readings from mass on the weekend. It is a wonderful opportunity for families to discuss the Gospel stories and complete some related activities if they wish.

Please click on each of the flyers below to access the activities.

COMMUNITY NEWS

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