Wow! Two weeks to go!

I am reading a lot of student reports at present. It is always such a joy. They will be sent home next Friday.

This week is the beginning of Advent. We have decorated our Front Office and have a beautiful painting by Mrs MacDonald as a focus for our students to reflect on during this time. 

I particularly love Pope Francis' statement 'that it is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.'

Staffing 2019

Parents and students are keen to hear who the teachers are for each year level next year. This has only just been finalised. With a number of new staff beginning at St John the Apostle, this has been a more complex process. 

In addition, for personal reasons, Mrs Lyn Griffiths will not be teaching full-time or on a specific class next year. This has meant that a new position on a class has become vacant and a recruitment process is underway. We expect to appoint that person early next week. It would then be my intention to announce class teachers in next week's Newsletter and students will be told of their teacher on the same day.

School Fees

After our Director, Mr Ross Fox, fought for 18 months to save Catholic schools from funding cuts totalling hundreds of millions of dollars, Catholic education welcomed the Morrison government’s commitment to largely restore the funding to Catholic schools.

There is still uncertainty around exactly how much government funding our ACT  Catholic schools will receive however we are now in a position to advise you of the school fees for 2019. We are pleased to inform you that we have been able to maintain only a small percentage increase overall, as is usually expected every year.

Catholic Education has opted to increase the Tuition Fee per student that is standard to all ACT Catholic Primary schools to help keep pace with rising salary and school costs. Our school has also budgeted carefully to ensure that the school-determined Student Resource Levy and School Levy will not increase. The Catholic Education determined Building Fund will increase by $5 per term.

The bottom line increase for fees next year is a maximum of $3 a week for one student.

What happens with the fees I pay?

• Much of the funding we receive from ACT and Federal Governments addresses many of our costs. Hence we are a low fee-paying system.
• The Catholic Education Tuition Fee contributes to paying staffing costs and funds additional projects that help us to implement quality teaching projects in the school.
• The Student Resource Levy contributes significantly to the costs of the consumables in classrooms and the office, excursions and ICT maintenance and replacement. This means we don't need to ask families to buy stationery or continuously pay for excursions.
• The School Levy includes our cleaning, maintenance and utility costs (we saved a lot this year on electricity thanks to our investment in reverse cycle air conditioning).

What are our priorities for 2019?

I outlined last week some of our curriculum development plans for 2019 which will be supported in our school budget. We will also:

• Use some increased funds for meeting the diverse needs of students to increase support for teachers in classrooms, provide additional resources (including technological) that increase student engagement and participation in the curriculum and regularly access expertise such as a psychologist. We will also develop our own expertise in catering for gifted students.
• Implement 30 new Chrome books purchased this year for the senior end of the school.
• Allocate funds to the purchase and use of additional resources for our Digital Technologies curriculum, particularly robotics.
• Allocate significant funds towards getting started with our Outdoor Learning Environment Masterplan.
• Re-paint the corridor and break out spaces to give them an exciting fresh new look (this is only thanks to the Building Fund contributions of families). We hope to begin repainting of classrooms at the end of next year.

The budget was discussed at the Community Council on Wednesday evening. It was agreed that at the beginning of next year the Community Council would make a contribution to the development of our playground as well, giving us a great start to achieving our long-term goals.

As always, if fees create financial concern for you, I would encourage you to make an appointment with me to discuss how we can help. It is a policy in the Archdiocese that no student should be refused enrolment, excluded or disadvantaged because their family is unable to afford fees. Any discussion on fees would be strictly confidential.

If you have any questions regarding school feed for 2019 contact me or Debbie Milne, Finance Officer.

Wear Yellow for Annabelle

Next Wednesday evening is our annual Christmas Concert. Students have been practising for weeks. It will be a lot of fun, just like every year. Children need to be dropped off at 'the hub' at 5.30pm for a 6.00pm start.

We are also having a special focus for the day and evening for our school community.

Some of you will have heard of young Annabelle Potts through various news and

social media avenues. Annabelle is a very young girl in our Canberra community who has DIPG, a highly aggressive and difficult to treat brain tumour that most frequently affects children under 12. Annabelle is in preschool. For two years she and her family have been working hard to find a cure for Annabelle. There have been many highs and lows. What you may not have known is that Annabelle is the beloved granddaughter of one of our teachers, Mrs Lyn Griffiths (Year 5 Blue). Lyn has been quietly walking alongside and supporting her family throughout this time.

Lyn's family has received much support from the Canberra community for which they are very thankful. They now want to raise awareness of the need to support research into DIPG and finding a cure through supporting the Isabella and Marcus Foundation. They are doing this by asking every school to participate in Wear Yellow for Annabelle day and participating in the Lemon Face Challenge. 

Next Wednesday, 12 December, we are holding our own Wear Yellow for Annabelle day. During the day children can wear yellow to school and provide a gold coin donation. It can be an item of clothing or something to pin on. In the evening, at the Christmas Concert, we are asking as many parents and visitors in our audience to Wear Yellow for Annabelle and provide a gold coin donation on entry. It would be wonderful to have a sea of yellow in our audience during the evening. All funds raised during the day and evening will go directly to the Isabella and Marcus Foundation to support research into DIPG and finding a cure.

If you'd like to learn a little about Annabelle Pots and family, the Isabella and Marcus Foundation and see our own Director of Catholic Education, Mrs Ross Fox, take the Lemon Face Challenge please visit the Love for Annabelle Facebook Page.

We hope that you will join us in wearing yellow next Wednesday evening and help our Christmas gathering make a difference for children with DIPG, like Annabelle Potts.

Active Streets Program

The Active Streets for Schools program that is expanding to include an additional 52 schools over the next four years.

Suzanne Orr MLA, representing the Minister for Transport Meegan Fitzharris and

Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development Yvette Berry, announced that our school is one of the schools that will benefit from the program.

Active Streets is an infrastructure and education program for schools. The program improves infrastructure around schools to support walking or riding to school. Improvements include new or upgraded footpaths, better crossing facilities and traffic calming measures.

To support the infrastructure, educational resources are provided to students, including a map highlighting safe routes to school.

Transport Canberra and City Services will work closely with the school community from the beginning of 2019 to deliver the program and identify potential infrastructure improvements you would like around the school.

More information is available on the Transport Canberra website.

See you all next Wednesday evening wearing yellow!

Have a lovely weekend.

Matthew Garton (Principal)