News & Events

Term 2, Week 4 Bulletin

 

Dear Parents & Guardians

I was going to start this newsletter reflecting on our wonderful Mother’s Day celebration last week, but I think it is only appropriate that we take time to stop, reflect and offer our thoughts and prayers to the Exford Primary School Community after the traumatic event that occurred Wednesday afternoon. As a parent, I cannot comprehend how the affected parents must have felt to get the call that their child had experienced such horrific injuries simply coming home from school. Nothing in life is more precious than the safety of your child.

As I indicated in the letter I sent home yesterday, if this has caused anxiety for you or your child, please let us know so that we can do what we can to assist you.

It does bring home that the safety of the children must always be our primary concern. We must strive to ensure we are doing whatever we can to keep our children safe.

As a school leader, I recognise that though we plan very carefully for activities such as excursions and camps, no amount of planning and or procedures can always prevent such an unforeseen event occurring. My thoughts and prayers also go out to the Principal of Exford Primary School, Lisa Campo and her staff. They did what all great educators do in such situations – they dropped everything to put the needs and the care of the students first, just as I know our staff would do in a similar situation.

 

MOTHER’S DAY

Thank you to all our amazing mothers, grandmothers and special friends who were able to come to our Mother’s day celebration last week. I hope that you all had a wonderful time, not just on Friday but also that you were spoilt by your children on Sunday.

It was fantastic to see so many of our mothers attend and this gives us a really good platform on which to build for Mother’s Day celebrations in future years. We have built our school around engagement with our community and events such as these will be the foundations of the St Lawrence of Brindisi School community. My particular thanks to the support of the staff for organising this event, in particular, Kay Mackinnon, Julie Atanasovski, Kristy Valle and Emma Daniels and also some of our parents, notably, Bianca Baker from our School Advisory Council. This, literally, would not have happened without their ideas and organisational skills.

 

 

KISS N’ GO AND PARKING

The event that occurred this week near Exford Primary School only reinforce our efforts to make sure that the children in our school are getting to and leaving school safely. Our Kiss n’ Go was designed to reduce the parking around the school and make the collection of students safer. I don’t know if any of you have seen the congestion and the challenges at the end of the school day near St Anthony’s Primary School in Melton South, but watching this was enough to put shivers down my back!

Sadly, there are still too many parents and guardians who are not following some basic expectations when dropping their children off in the morning and collecting them at the end of the day. I appreciate that parents are sometimes in a hurry, but this should not come at the expense of the safety of our children.

Our two crossing guards have noted that despite the opening of the Kiss n’ Go, the number of parents double-parking has actually increased. Clearly, this is not safe. Parents and guardians must not, under any circumstances, double park when they are collecting or dropping their children off.

We have also noticed that some parents are parking on Waterway Boulevard again to avoid having to a do a loop of the school block to enter the Kiss n’ Go. An extra minute of time is not worth the safety of one of our children, so I urge parents to please use the Kiss n’ Go as this is safest way to drop off or collect your children and also reduces the traffic around school, making this area safer for all other road users and most importantly, our children.

 

SCHOOL PHOTOS

As some of you will be aware, due to circumstances beyond our control, the school photo day that had been scheduled earlier in the year had to be postponed. This date has now been rearranged for Tuesday, June 6.  It would be wonderful if we could get as many children as possible involved so, please avoid making other commitments on this day.

 

SCHOOL REPORTS & THREE-WAY LEARNING CONFERENCES (STUDENT-PARENT-TEACHER MEETINGS)

The reports for Semester One 2023 (barring an unforeseen technical issues) should be sent home on Friday, June 16.

The three-way conferences, will take place on Tuesday, June 20 and Wednesday, June 21 from 12.30pm, excluding Curiosity 3 (Rachel Wilson’s class) as Rachel will be absent for a medical procedure at that time. Her classes meeting will be rescheduled for the beginning of Term Three.

Please note that school will finish early on those days to accommodate these meetings. Parents and guardians requiring supervision for their children can contact Kelly Club. These details can be provided by the school administration office staff.

It is an expectation of our St Lawrence of Brindisi that all parents and guardians make an appointment to meet their child’s teacher. If there is a reason that you cannot make one of the scheduled times, it is important that you make another time to meet with your child’s teacher, ideally this term.

 

ST LAWRENCE OF BRINDISI SCHOOL COMMUNITY TEAM

Just a reminder that we are holding the first of our School Community Team meetings next Wednesday, May 24 @ 3.30pm in the Stage 1 building. We understand that parents and guardians might need to bring their children along for this first meeting. The more parents and guardians we have involved the more effective this committee will be.

As I indicated last week, this committee will be led by the School Advisory Council and in particular by Samone Dawson, one of our fantastic SAC team members. I hope we see lots of you there!!

 

TERM OVERVIEWS

The term overviews will be sent home today. This will give parents and guardians an overview of the learning that will take place this term in each of our Learning Communities and in our specialist learning areas of Visual Arts, Sport and Science.

If you have any questions about these, please see me or email the relevant teacher (though please note that they will not be answering any emails after work hours):

 

Exploration Learning Community

Exploration 1: Helen Saunders: helen.saunders@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

Exploration 2: Annabelle Zekic: annabelle.toro@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

Exploration 3: Renee Clapton: renee.clapton@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

 

Discovery Learning Community

Discovery 1: Grace Barrowcliffe: grace.barrowcliffe@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

Discovery 2: Kandi Barrowcliffe: kandi.barrowcliffe@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

Discovery 3: Courtney Daly: courtney.daly@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

Discovery 4: Sarah Pace/ Skylah Ball: sarah.pace@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

skylah.ball@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

Discovery 5: Kaye Mackinnon: kaye.mackinnon@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

 

Curiosity Learning Community

Curiosity 1: Jamien Russell: jamien.russell@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

Curiosity 2: Natalie Bruzzese: natalie.bruzzese@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

Curiosity 3: Rachel Wilson: rachel.wilson@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

 

 

Challenge Learning Community:

Challenge 1: Thomas Punzalan: thomas.punzalan@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

Challenge 2: Jessie Minniti:  jessie.minniti@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

 

Specialist Learning Community:

Visual Arts: Shannon Nolan: shannon.nolan@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

Science: Jo Gianino: joanne.gianino@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

Sport: Steve Neal/ Alessio Mantello: steve.neal@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

alessio.mantello@slweiriviews.catholic.edu.au

 

God bless,

Bill Hill.

PRINCIPAL

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