Staffing News
It is with sadness today that we farewell one of our brilliant teachers, Hayden Williams. He has taught in a variety of roles here since 2015, most recently, the 4/5/6 class with Nat Stock. His comedic and positive nature has been adored by all who he has taught and his hardworking attitude and caring outlook has been a joy for our staff to work alongside. We wish him all the best in his future venture. We're so happy to welcome Kristie Gatanios onto our staff for the duration of the year. She will be working with Nat and myself in the 4/5/6 room. We're really excited for her to join the team and share her expertise with us all.
Next term the students will start learning their new language, Japanese, with our new teacher Kerry. Kerry's coming over to us from Mernda P-12 and we're really excited for her to join the team as well!
Felicity will be absent for the first three weeks of Term Three as she will be away on medical leave. A full time relief teacher will teach in the Prep/1 classroom in her absence. We thank Sarah Padbury for working in our school with staff, parents and students over the past term. She has been an absolute blessing to have with us, has offered great insight and supported our whole community. We wish her all the bast on her travels and with her move. I am currently looking for a visiting psychologist to take her place and I will communicate this to the community as soon as I have found someone.
School Council
Our School Council has had a very busy week, completing Governance Training at Arthurs Creek on Wednesday night and meeting on Thursday. Some of the key discussion points from our meeting were around:
- School Policy Updates
- Upcoming Working Bee and Jobs
- Big Night Out planning and preparation
- Term 3 Staffing updates
We have a newly vacant position on our school council. If you are passionate about the well being of our school and students, and have time to meet after school twice a term, please come and have a chat with myself or Mel Bartlett.
Swimming
We've had some last minute developments over the last two days and it looks like we're going to be able to invite the entire 2-6 students to join us for swimming this year. While we don't have final details available quite yet, the swimming will occur in a week block and we hope the cost will be about $50 per student. As swimming is a compulsory component of the curriculum, we are very excited to be able to provide it to so many of our students, and access a grant to reduce the cost. For parents who have already paid, reimbursements will be made once payments are finalised.
CFA Cup
It was a proud moment for the community of STAPS last Saturday as we watched our students run on to Panton Hill Footy Oval for the Annual CFA Cup. Whilst we had a significantly younger and shorter team, noone could doubt the effort, energy and tenacity that was seen from our side. I was so proud to be there to cheer you on and I thank Mel Bartlett and Mark Pallini greatly for their efforts with organising and coaching.
OSHC
As you may be aware, Liv, our amazing Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) Teacher will be finishing up soon and we're on the hunt to find someone brilliant to take her place. We're currently advertising online. If you know of anyone who may be suitable and interested, please encourage them to apply through Recruitment Online.
Lastly, just a few thank you's to end my spiel. A huge thank you to everyone who put in time and effort to keep our beautiful school safe, positive and running each day. From our fantastic staff, school council to our brilliant classroom helpers, I cannot thank you enough for the time and effort that you all put in! We could do it without you!
