Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to Term 3! I hope you and your family found time to rest and relax over the school holiday period. Our students have returned very settled and ready to learn, and I have had the pleasure of observing excellent teaching and learning in classrooms around the school this week.

Next Thursday, we will have our annual visit from Mr Ross Fox, Director of Catholic Education. During this visit, he will also have the opportunity to see the excellent teaching and learning taking place and discuss our progress on our Annual Improvement Plan (AIP). We will also host some local MPs in September ahead of the ACT election. 

NAPLAN

Students and Yrs 3 & 5 received their NAPLAN data this week. The students have worked hard and should be proud of their efforts. Don't hesitate to contact your classroom teacher with any questions regarding these reports. A note that NAPLAN is a snapshot of one day in your child's life and is not the be-all and end-all of educational performance. At SFA, we utilise various assessment processes and procedures to measure academic achievement and growth. These are triangulated and cross-referenced to give a more accurate picture of a student's progress. Please celebrate this report with your child and be proud of their achievements.

We have started the high-level analysis of the NAPLAN reports, which will form a piece of the data set we use to develop our 2025 Annual Improvement Plan (AIP). I will share some of our achievements in the upcoming newsletters.

NAIDOC Week

NAIDOC week nearly always takes place during the school holidays, so we celebrated NAIDOC early in the last week of term 2 with a prayer celebration organised by Mrs Thomas. Today, our Indigenous students attended the Archdiocesan NAIDOC Mass for schools, at St Christopher's Cathedral, Manuka. Sharee Thomas, Kaylee Warren and I attended with the children. 

New Office Manager

Courtney Djerke has been successfully appointed as our Office Manager. Courtney comes to us with years of business and administrative experience and is a current kinder parent in the school. She will be a valuable asset to the school community, and we look forward to welcoming her as a staff member later this term. Courtney will begin with us in Week 6. I thank Ann Parker, who has agreed to continue to support us in the office until Courtney begins.

Ring Road in the morning

This is a reminder to please do not park on the ring road between 8:30 and 9 a.m. We have several parents pulling up outside the BASCA gates to let children out or walk them into the school. This causes traffic chaos outside the school as cars try to pull into the school and then need to merge into one lane. Please respect this arrangement. Members of the leadership team will be out speaking with parents to remind them of these arrangements.

Toilet Renovations

These began over the holidays and have been fully demolished. Please see the progress photos below. This project should be completed by the end of the term.

Enrolments

We still have limited places available for 2025 in some grade levels. If you know of anyone interested in seeing the school and what we have to offer, please encourage them to contact the school sooner rather than later. We do have active waitlists for some grade levels in the school for 2025.

Your School Community Council

As I have previously written, we have a new School Community Council (SCC) model, which has been implemented across all 56 Catholic Schools with the Archdiocese of Canberra & Goulburn. As part of the implementation of this new model, we have appointed the maximum number of parents allowed on the Executive council. The SCC Executive members are:

Megan Steele (Chair), Miranda Westhorp, Cecelia Wykes, Erin Steele, Shaun Haigh, Laura Gladwish, Bronywn Wolthoff, Emma Schmid, Kylie Laverty, James Watson, Jaala Hamilton, Debbi Fluke, Jennifer Botticchio, and Michael Hilton.

We are currently preparing a "Get to Know Your Council" feature to introduce you to these members, which will be shared later this term.

We are fortunate to have such an engaged parent community willing to serve through the Community Council Executive. I extend my gratitude to these members for their dedication and efforts in making SFA the best it can be.

Under the new School Community Council model, all parents are considered community members and are welcome to attend and contribute to Community Council open meetings, held twice yearly. Our next open meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 6th, at 6 PM. At this meeting, we will have 2 guest speakers from Catholic Education to outline the new SCC model, answer questions, and discuss parent and community engagement opportunities. Please indicate attendance by completing this form so we can select the most appropriate location in the school to conduct the open meeting https://forms.office.com/r/xQJjBjSDEQ

We look forward to your participation in this important community event.

Carpark Works

The pothole filling and tree stump removal in the car park have been delayed and should occur by the end of next week.

Blessings and best wishes

Sean Rutledge

Principal