Exciting Changes for 2025!

The beginning of 2025 has brought some exciting changes to our school timetable. We have new specialist teachers and have introduced science classes from pre-primary to year six, taught by two specialist teachers. Additionally, health has been introduced as a special subject for years 2 to 6.

By introducing these special subjects across all year levels, we aim to develop a consistent approach to teaching. This will help students build their skills, knowledge, and understanding year after year in a cohesive manner.

To accommodate these changes, we have removed the extra PE period from the specialist timetable. This time will now be used by classroom teachers for activities such as outdoor exercise and daily games spread across the week.

We've also made slight adjustments to the timetable to ensure that learning areas are taught in complete blocks. Previously, subjects like Music and Indonesian were often split into 30-minute sessions before and after lunch, which was disruptive for students. With lunch now starting at 1:05 PM, all learning areas can be taught in uninterrupted blocks, making better use of learning time, especially in the mornings.

Additionally, we have introduced a daily Christian meditation period right after lunch, led by our school leaders. We hope this provides a central focus time for students to reset after lunch ready for a productive afternoon session.

We are thrilled to welcome new staff members to our school community:

• Laura Colavecchio has rejoined us as a Kindergarten Aide in Kindy Maroon and Kindy White after having previously worked in our ELC.
• Rosanna (Rosy) Paynter has joined us in 5 White for 2025.
• Daniel Walsh has moved into 6 Blue after completing his teaching degree whilst working for the past several years at SSP as an Education Assistant in the Catherine Centre.
• Bethany Would is replacing Natalie Templeton, who is on sick leave for the term and will be the new Science teacher for Years 2-6.

Note that Mr. Pettit has now taken on the role of Phys Ed and Health teacher for Years 2-6.

We also welcome:

• Mariantonia (Chris) Zaccaria will be on the reworked school administration team as the part-time Accounts Receivable officer.

The admin team has had two other significant changes.

• Helen Florschutz as the Enrolment Officer for schools and care services.
• Eileen Crowley now working offsite in her new role as the Social Media Officer.

All other administration staff will continue in their designated positions from 2024.

Holiday Break Upgrades

During the holiday break, we made several upgrades to the school:

• The entire network backbone was replaced to accommodate new CEWA network protocols, providing improved internet filtering and redundancy.
• A new fence was installed in the Pre-Primary area.
• Soft fall was installed under the junior equipment in the Year 1/2 play area.
• Brick-paved games were added in the Quad.
• New aluminium lunch benches were placed throughout the Quad thanks to the financial support of the FSSP Wish List funds from 2024.
• New water fountains were installed for the Senior block.

Thank you to Mr. Prout and Mr. Capriotti for their amazing work ethic and skills in making these improvements happen so quickly!

We look forward to what the remainder of 2025 holds for our school. 

Peter Cutrona
Principal