New playground

On behalf of the Saint Anthony's school community, we would like to thank our amazing families and all of the wonderful people who came along to our fete in 2023 to raise funds to help build this spectacular playground.

A very special thanks to our 2023 P&F and School Board, Maree and the wonderful helpers in our school canteen, our OOSCA service and our school who have also contributed funds to make this happen.

STA 2024 Community Council are looking forward to sharing our next project with you. Our students are so excited to officially declare our STA adventure playground open!

Year 6 camp

In Week 6, our Year 6 students travelled to Berry for their Year 6 camp. The two-night camp was full of excellent activities such as kayaking, swimming, archery-tag, night games and bush walking. I commend students for their behaviour whilst away. A huge thank you to Mr McDevitt, Miss Hall, Miss Eglinton, Mr McGrath, Mr Van Meurs and Mr Wigg for accompanying Year 6 on their camp to Berry. The feedback from students and parents has been overwhelmingly positive. The time away from home required for the camp to happen is not always easy but is very much appreciated by all.

Optional Parent-Teacher interviews

Week 9 will be an opportunity for parents/carers to meet with their child's classroom teacher to touch base on where their child is at and any information that the parent/carer may wish to share about their child to support their learning and development at school.

These meetings are a brief 10 minutes and are not planned to be long reporting interviews. Reporting Interviews have been scheduled for term 2 and term 4.

Many families have already met with their classroom teacher and may not need to meet again in week 9. These meetings are optional. Please contact your child's classroom teacher directly via email if you would like to make a time to meet with them.

Swimming carnival

An enormous thanks to Mr Simon Van Meurs and our wonderful staff and our family volunteers for an exceptional swimming carnival. How wonderful it is to have these events and provide opportunities for our students to shine. So much colour, joy and enthusiasm shared by everyone.

Fundraising

Thank you to all the wonderful helpers and school staff who graciously gave up their time to assist with our school disco and working bee on Friday. The disco raised just over $2800. A special thank you to our Year 6 students who DJ’d the disco too – the feedback on their playlists and crowd participation for each disco has been very positive.

Our working bee made progress with our kitchen garden and the community garden area looks fresh and welcoming for our community and our school open day coming up this weekend.

Thank you to our amazingly generous community for your well-presented, delicious baking that was sold at the Bunnings bake stall over the weekend. We raised just over $1100 dollars and sold $350 worth of raffle tickets for our school fete.

Our community council are currently developing a strategic plan for fundraising and ways this money can be used to support our school and its improvements. Specific details will be published when this information is finalised.

The School Community Council

The Council is a crucial point of connection between the Principal, school leaders and members of the School community. While the Council does not have governance responsibility or decision-making authority in relation to the School, the Council provides a means for members of the community to share their skills and talents for the common good, and a forum for the Principal and school leadership to draw on the collective wisdom and insights of the parent cohort.

The Council operates in accordance with the School Community Council Charter, and the Council Executive provides leadership to the broader Council.

Under the terms of the Charter, the role of the Council is, according to local priorities, to:

• support the Principal and Parish Priest to develop and promote the Catholic identity, ethos and mission of the School;
• support the Principal to make strategic decisions relating to the School as part of the consultative process outlined at 3.4 of this Charter;
• promote the School in the local community;
• support the Principal and the School to raise funds for the School through community led fundraising activities that are consistent with Catholic teachings and a Catholic world view, with Council Working Groups operating to co-ordinate the delivery of these activities;
• provide support to the Principal and the School to foster relationships and connections within the School community by developing and delivering community building activities; and
• provide support to the Principal to foster Parish-school connections.

The Principal will consult with the Council on:

• the annual improvement plan;
• the school master plan;
• the school strategic plan;
• school expenditure priorities particularly as they relate to funds raised through Council led fundraising activities;
• any substantial changes to school policies, uniforms, school enterprises (such as school age care, canteen, uniform pools) and
• other matters identified as relevant to the Council as determined by the Principal or Parish Priest.

Last Tuesday evening our School Community Council met for their first 2024 meeting.

Our community council is made up of members of staff, parent body and Parish Priest.

Community Council Executive

I can confirm the following members of our Community Council executive along with the school principal- Erin Marmont and Parish Priest- Father Tom Thornton are:

In addition to the community council executive, we have developed Working Groups that will assist in driving the work of the school community.

Each of these working groups are led by a working group lead. Further working groups will be developed on a needs basis. Megan Doherty is the working group lead of our school fete in 2024. Sharon Sheather is also currently a working group lead of our school kitchen garden.

Any enquires for the school fete can be directed to Megan at stanthonyfete@gmail.com

The community council meet once per term and an Open community council meeting (where all members of the STA community are welcome) are hosted each Semester.

Our next Open community council meeting (all STA community welcome) will be at 6.00pm in the school library Tuesday 11 June, 2024 (week 7).

If members of the STA community would like to raise anything or contribute to the life of the school, this can be done at any time through our community council email TBA.

Annual Improvement Plan 2024

Our school's annual improvement plan for 2024 outlines three goals:

• Living out the school mission and values in all that we do at St Anthony's.
• V9 curriculum is visible across all learning areas and HITP practices used to drive and support teaching and learning
• Rigorous data analysis and moderation processes to inform teaching and learning

If you have any comments or suggestions around our AIP in 2024, your feedback is greatly received. Please email me directly at erin.marmont@cg.catholic.edu.au

Second rite of reconciliation

Tomorrow night from 7pm at the St Anthony’s Church, Father Tom will be leading the second Rite of Reconciliation for all parishioners. You are warmly welcome to attend alongside many of our staff from STA and the community.

School photos

Our school photos will take place on Thursday 11 April. Students need to wear their full summer uniform. Families should have or will shortly receive an email via Compass with information on how to order. There is also a link on the Compass dashboard to order photos.

Please remind your child that they are having their photos taken, if they are having a sibling photo, all siblings will need to be ready for their photos at the allocated time set by the school. Sibling photos will be in the school hall between 8am and 9am. Orders for sibling photos need to be submitted before the photo day. MSP will not be accepting sibling photo orders on the day.

Enrolment Period

Over the weeks ahead schools are opening the enrolment period. This includes for high school.

I note that for high school enrolments- the system now requires evidence of student being enrolled in their primary school for the past three years. To access this information, please log on to your child's compass profile and access their school reports.

Administration fees apply for search access and printing if NAPLAN and school reports are required from the school.

St Anthony's ELC and primary will have their first open day on Saturday morning from 10.00am-12pm. Please spread the word around the community and share all of the wonderful things our school has to offer.

Important dates: 

Week 8

• Friday 22 March – National Ride2School Day and 1A prayer focus assembly at 12pm in the school hall
• Saturday 23 March – School and ELC open day 10am-12pm | fete shed open for donations 10am-12pm
• Saturday 23 March- Clothing Shop is open from 9.00-11.00am.

Week 9

• Optional parent teacher interviews
• Wednesday 27 March – athletics carnival
• Friday 29 March – Good Friday (public holiday)

Week 10

• Monday 1 April – Easter Monday (public holiday)
• Thursday 4 April - Year 4 Excursion to Questacon
• Thursday 4 April – ACT girls chess championship
• Friday 5 April – 2L prayer focus assembly at 12pm in the school hall

Week 11

• Thursday 11 April – school photos. Students wear regular summer uniform
• Friday 12 April - Plain clothes day for students (students bring in a chocolate donation for the school fete)

Have a happy week,

Erin 

St Anthony’s Primary School are excited to be celebrating National Ride2School Day on Friday 22^nd March (Week 8).

In the spirit of embracing a healthy and happy start to the day, we encourage all students and their families to leave the car at home and give riding, walking, scooting or skating to school a go.

National Ride2School Day is the perfect opportunity to kick-start new healthy habits and promote the many benefits of active transport for our community.

We would love it if you could join us at any of our four meeting points. We will leave at around 8.30am to either walk, scoot or ride to school.

• Near Kidstart (Mini Wanniassa Shops)
• Near the playground at the Wanniassa Main Shopping Centre
• Kambah (Meet on the Kambah side of Athlon Drive underpass near the School)
• Bonython/Greenway (meet under the Drakeford Drive underpass near the School).

If you can’t actively travel the whole way, consider parking the car nearby and riding or walking the rest of the way.

It’s going to be a wheelie good day and we hope to see you there!

Registrations are open now for the 2024 Winter Netball season. 

It is not necessary to have played netball before joining a team. We welcome all levels of experience or inexperience and skill. All games are played at the Calwell Netball Courts, run by Tuggeranong Netball Association (TNA) each Saturday morning and have set times.

If you are unsure about netball and would just like more information, please feel free to contact St Anthony’s Parish Primary Netball Coordinator, Jenni Drew and she will be able to help you. 

Students interested in playing need to see Mrs Beissner for a copy of the new St Anthony's netball handbook prior to registering. Registrations close on Friday 5 April 2024.

Registration link: