News

Dear Parents 

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all of our students and families to the St Pius X school community. I have no doubt that you will enjoy being part of our wonderful community and I hope that you have already been made to feel welcome. Please know that our staff are always available to support you if you have any questions or concerns. 

Meet the Teacher

It was great to see so many families take the opportunity to come in and meet their child’s class teacher on Wednesday the 25th of January. I know that the teachers found these meetings very useful and I hope that you also found these meetings to be beneficial.

If you did not get the opportunity to meet your child's class teacher and would like to do so, then please do not hesitate to contact them and make a mutually convenient time to meet.

As we move away from the restrictions of COVID, we would like to make our classrooms parent friendly spaces. Parents are welcome to pop into classrooms if they need to see their child’s class teacher. Our teacher’s will also be inviting parents in for an open classroom session once per term this year. We look forward to working in partnership with you again in 2023. 

School and Family communication:

This year the school will be sending many of our communications home to families via our online communication portals SZAPP and Seesaw. The SZAPP will be used to communicate with parents about whole school events and will also be used to send home permission forms for school excursions and other necessary forms. Cassandra Figg has spent a lot of time updating this app in order to make it more user friendly for parents. I would like to thank Cassandra for all of her hard work in this area.

The Seesaw app will be used by teachers to communicate with parents about their children’s learning and class events. If you have not already done so, please sign up to both of these apps. If you need any help or support with these apps, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s class teacher or Cassandra Figg in the front office for assistance.

School start time and gates in the morning:

Just a reminder to parents that the school bell will sound at 8:42am each day and classes commence at 8:45am. The gate on Acton Avenue and the gates near Kiss and Drop on Hilburn Avenue will be locked shortly after at 8:45am for the safety of our children. If parents are still on site after this time then they can leave through the pool gate at the front of the school. This gate will not be locked until about 9am. Children arriving after 8:45am are reminded to sign in at the front office so that their attendance at school can be accurately recorded. Thank you with your cooperation with the above procedures. 

School Board Vacancies:

This year there will be up to three vacancies on our School Board and I am calling on nominations from parents who are willing to join our School Board in 2023. Earlier this week I sent a letter home asking parents to consider nominating for this very important role in our school community. If you are interested in more information about our School Board, then please  contact me to discuss. 

School Developments and Buildings:

You may have seen that a there has been some progress with our new building and much of the steel work and roofing are now complete. This new building will consist of 2 new classrooms for our Reception students and a new Junior Primary toilet block on the bottom level. The top level will have a new Music teaching and performance space, 4 rooms for our instrumental tutors and a disabled toilet. We are expecting the building to be completed and ready for use by the beginning of Term 3.

Whilst this building project is being completed, we are well into the planning of the next stage of our building project. This stage will consist of internal refurbishments of the top level above our Admin area to include the development of a new Library, Italian room, multipurpose meeting and learning space and a new Inclusive Education Centre.

We will also be totally refurbishing our front office space, admin offices, first aid room and will be extending our staff room and admin building on the ground level.

We have also started plans with a landscape architect for the re-development of a new playground space and the court space. The design ideas for this development have been generated from a meeting that the architects had with our children last year. As part of this design we are looking to re-surface our basketball courts and we have plans to include a large shade structure over the court area in order to both provide extra shade for our children and also make this space an all weather facility.

All of the ideas are very exciting and I look forward to sharing further updates with our school community.  

Parents and Friends:

It is that time of the year when we are looking for interested parents and community members to join our P&F group. The P&F group are a very important part of our school and their prime function is to develop a strong sense of community and support the school by organising special events such Mother’s & Father’s day stalls and school discos for our children. The P&F also help to raise funds for some of our school projects. All funds raised directly benefit our children. Joining the P&F can also be a great way to meet new people and also provide a social outlet for parents. This year our P&F group will focus on continuing to re-build our sense of community after a very successful 60th Anniversary year. If you have ideas about the types of events and social gatherings we can run in order to promote a stronger sense of community around our school, then we would love to hear your ideas. Any parent can join the P&F group and you don’t need to commit to assisting at every event. If you are interested in supporting our P&F group then please contact Cassandra Figg in the front office. As the saying goes “many hands make for lighter work”. I encourage you all to consider supporting the work of the P&F in 2023, even if you can only help with one thing.

God bless,
Ashley