BUILDING OUR SCHOOL CULTURE

Last week I was invited by the Member for Narracan, Wayne Farnham to a meet with Shadow Minister for Education, Jess Wilson and talk about a number of issues currently relating to Education. This meeting gave us the opportunity to talk about topics such as school funding, students and families returning from Covid, children dealing with trauma, inclusive education, teacher shortages, school culture and building respectful school communities.

It also gave me the opportunity to reflect on where St Ita’s is as a school community, as we have worked really hard to build our school culture over the last 5 years with the introduction of our WSAPB (Whole School Approach to Positive Behaviours)

We have spent significant time developing and promoting a positive culture that encourages and celebrates student success, as well as builds high standards of positive student interactions and behaviours.

At St Ita’s we have high expectations for all our students within our learning community. This is a key ingredient of our success as a school. Building an aspirational community, engenders a culture of high expectations and high achievement. We are a learning community that has high expectations of each other.

As a community we respect and admire the commitment of St Ita’s teaching staff and in turn, this creates an environment where all teaching staff feel appreciated, valued and respected. In a culture such as this, there is an expectation amongst staff that all will contribute in a significant way to the accomplishments of the school, and all will share in the pride of the resulting successes of our students.

At St Ita’s we support our students to have high expectations of each other. This essential element is crucial in maintaining an orderly learning environment that is encouraging of high levels of achievement. We have high behaviour expectations for all our students and our school is a place where daily interactions between students, parents and teachers are respectful, inclusive and courteous.

There are some really tough challenges relating to education at the moment, but after last week’s meeting and the conversations that came from it, I felt really proud that we are a positive learning community which provides support, encouragement and growth opportunities for all.

St Ita’s is a learning community that we can all be extremely proud of as we move forward.

HEAD LICE AT SCHOOL

As we come into the warmer months we have had incidences of headlice coming up within different levels at our school.

To stop a severe outbreak of headlice in our school community could please ask all students with hair length over shoulders use a hair tie as outlined in our summer uniform policy and could we ask all students to refrain from sharing hats. Thanks for your support with this.

2024 CLASS STRUCTURES

We have finalised our class structures for 2024 school year, and they will be as follows:

3 x Foundation

3 x Grade 1’s

3 X Grade 2’s

5 x Grade3/4’s

5 x Grade 5/6’s

Over the coming weeks, our staff will be working on sorting children into class groupings. Parents have been given the opportunity to make requests based on the specific needs of children, however any requests relating to placing children in grades based on social acquaintances or friendships will be considered but not guaranteed. Grouping of students into classes is an extremely complex and time-consuming process. We base our decisions on a number of key factors such as:

• Current educational philosophies of the school and education
• Social, emotional and academic needs of the children
• A balance of gender, social, emotional and academics in each grade cohort.

Each year teachers have conversations with children asking them about students who have a positive impact on their learning. We do not group our children by asking them to name their best friend/s as best friends does not always equate to best learning.

It is important that there is a collective understanding by both parents and children that being in the same class with their ‘best friends’ or social acquaintances outside of school is never a given.

Teachers will use their professional judgment on what they see each day within the cohort and, more importantly, the positive or negative impacts that friendships can have on an individual students learning.

STAFFING CHANGES FOR 2024

As the 2023 school year draws to a close, I would like to highlight some staffing changes for the 2024 school year at St Ita’s.

Mrs Kiara Lehman will be taking maternity leave in 2024

Mr Jimmy Ollington will be taking up a leadership role at St Mary’s Newborough in 2024

Mrs Robyn Fogarty will be taking 12 months leave in 2024

Miss Meg Wiedermann will be taking 12 months leave in 2024

Miss Ines Moita taking up a position in the Melbourne Diocese in 2024

Mrs Therese Meggetto will be retiring at the end of the 2023 school year

Miss Meg Osler will be taking up a teaching role with the Education Department in 2024

On behalf of everyone in the school community, I would like to thank all the above staff for their generous contributions and support that they have provided to our learning community. We wish them well on their new journeys in 2024.

IRISH BLESSING

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rains fall soft upon your fields

And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Andrew Osler