Newsletter 18 June 2025

Principal's Message

Dear Families, 

A million thank you's to our wonderful families who banded together on our glorious autumn day on Sunday.  Our working bee, although smaller in numbers, absolutely smashed out more jobs and improvements to our school than we had planned.  Added bonus, in less time than anticipated too!

Our Camino Garden, our central Catholic Identity piece was given much love and you can now really picture St James walking with his pilgrims along the path through France and Spain, spreading Jesus’ message of love, inclusion and hope.

The shed was cleaned out and is now fully accessible, uniform shop moved to the hall storage area making access to this resource easier for all, garden beds planted out and topped up with mulch and drain pits cleaned.  The canteen was given a bit of a clean out as were some of the resources which were out of date and no longer fit for purpose.

All in all a great day with kids involved, taking much pride in their school.  THANK YOU to the Fisher, Ruys, Connelly, Overdyke, Winterton and Kennedy families.  Before and after photos are below.

Last week, I attended the Gippsland Catholic Primary Principals Association conference.  We meet twice a term and twice annually in a conference format.  We were fortunate to visit and engage with staff at St Brendan's Lakes Entrance to discuss how they are addressing Child Safe Standard 1 – Organisations establish a culturally safe environment in which the diverse and unique identities and experiences of Aboriginal children and young people are respected and valued.  We then travelled to the Lake Tyres Aboriginal Trust where we again engaged in dialogue with the CEO around hopes and aspirations for true reconciliation.

The following day we discussed cyber/ technology safety (Child Safe Standard 9 – Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed) A few of our biggest learnings were around the changing landscape of AI and the impact this has on our kids in terms of people, with not-so-great intentions, misusing these platforms. I was also under the impression, as most parents would be, that ROBLOCKS is not one singular game; it is in fact a platform for millions of games, and again, not all pure in their intentions.  I encourage parents to check the settings of their children's devices considering these learnings. 

School photos update:  We appreciate that photos have been delayed and we share in your frustrations.  We are in the process of following up and will send a text message when we have sought clarity from the photo company. 

This Friday, our Foundation to Year 3 classes will be celebrating Mass at 9.30am with Fr Avinash.  Families are most welcome to attend and we encourage students to sit with their family. 

Last Friday we had a cuppa and a chat before assembly.  Our students loved learning how to make tea and coffees and offering biscuits to parents.  We are keen to continue this each Friday.  This means the hall will be open to parents from 2.30pm each Friday and you are all welcome to come in and sample the hospitality our students have to offer.

Thank you to our amazing staff for their work on mid-year reports.  These reports are a snapshot of your child's learning to date.  We report to parents in various ways throughout the year:

• Term 1- Student progress meetings, a time for parent share information with teachers
• Term 2- mid year, written report
• Term 3- student progress meetings
• Term 4- end of year reports 

Program Support Group Meetings (PSGs) are run as needed for students with additional learning plans.

While this is our universal way of reporting to parents, you are always welcome to request a time to meet with your child/s teacher/s to discuss their progress. 

Have a great week! Stay warm,  Bec 

Upcoming events

RE News

Sacrament Dates 2025

Sacrament of Reconciliation

Commitment Mass

Parent/Child Workshop

Sacrament of Reconciliation

Wellbeing Leader

Scholastic Book Club

Issue 4 will be coming home with your children this week!

Orders close on June 20 2025 

(Please note: all orders are to be processed through LOOP online)

Important Information

This year St James will be using two main platforms of communication with our families - PAM and Schoolzine.  

To ensure that you keep up to date with what is happening with your children and within the school please ensure that you have access to these platforms and are familiar with their uses.

If you require assistance with accessing or setting up these platforms, please do not hesitate to contact the school office.

From time to time it will also be necessary for emails and text messages to be sent.

Schoolzine App Installation Instructions:

This is an app that you have on your phone and allows for easy reading of the newsletter, as it customises to the screen and translates into many languages if required.
Please click the link below for the instructions on installing the app on your phone.
https://www.schoolzine.com/szapp-installation
As part of the installation, you will be required to enter the following 4 digit passcode -
4011
Please do not hesitate to contact the school office if you have any questions or queries.

Accessing PAM Instructions:

Please use the below link to access your PAM account. 

https://pam.stjamesnng.catholic.edu.au

The user name is the email you have provided to the school and if you have not logged on previously, you will be able to set a password.

If you require your password to be reset, please contact the school office.

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