All Saints Parish School Portland eNewsletter

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the traditional owners, the Gunditjmara people, on whose land we learn, work and play. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their elders- past, present and emerging believing that we can walk together for a better future.

All Saints Parish School Vision

All Saints Parish School Community is centered in Christ and as partners in Catholic education; we pursue fullness of life for all.

Principal's Message

What a busy start to the year we have had. Everyone has settled into our routines beautifully, especially our new Foundation students. they did an amazing job of sitting through their first assembly on Friday afternoon.

Our teachers are looking forward to chatting with parents at our conversations tonight and tomorrow night. If you have not yet booked a time please do so as soon as possible. These short chats are extremely important in setting up a positive plan for your child and their learning in 2025. Please remember that children are not required at these meetings.

Our children are starting to prepare for our athletics carnival on Monday February 24 with some team meetings and practicing for the afternoon games and relays. Remember to pop the aths day on your calendar, this is a great day day for our school community.

In week 4 of every term I will be attending the Diocesan Leadership Gatherings with all other Primary School Principals from the Ballarat Diocese (and some Secondary Principals). These gatherings are facilitated by DOBCEL, our governing body, and take place in Horsham. Our days for term 1 are February 20 & 21 (Thursday & Friday). Miss O'Keefe will be Acting Principal on these days.

Thank you to those students and families who have been supporting us by wearing the correct uniform to school. A couple of quick and easy reminders are that shoes must be all black for the regular school uniform; shorts and tracksuit pants for the sports uniform must be plain black and short bike pants and leggings are not acceptable options for our sports uniform. Thank you for your support and understanding in this matter.

I would like to wish our swimming team all the best as they participate on Tuesday in the PHDSSA Swimming Carnival.

We are Respectful! We are Responsible! We are Safe! We are Nurturing!

(All Saints Parish School SWPBS expectations)

Regards

Jamie

Catholic School Culture

School Information

Assembly Timetable

Assemblies commence at 2:30pm every second Friday afternoon.

Assemblies for Term 1

Week 4: 1/2ID

Week 6: School Leaders

Week 8: 3/4DL

Monday 17^th February – Special Food Day- Banana Smoothies & Fruit Kebabs

We will be holding a special food day on Monday 17^th February. We will be selling Banana Smoothies and Fruit Kebabs for $2 per item. To place your order and make a payment please use CDF Pay. All orders and payment must be placed by Thursday 13^th February at 4pm. When placing the order, please make note of any dietary requirements that need to be catered for.

Before School Supervision

Teachers are only on duty each morning from 8:30am. Breakfast Club begins at 8:15am. Children are not permitted to be at school before 8:15am. Children must remain in the courtyard until the teachers are on yard duty at 8:30am.

Working With Children Checks

It is a legal requirement that any person wishing to volunteer in our school must have a valid WWCC. This includes volunteering in the canteen, helping in classrooms, assisting with garden club and going on school camps or excursions. You can obtain a WWCC by visiting the following website:

https://www.vic.gov.au/working-with-children-check

All you require is a 'volunteer' WWCC which is free.

Once you have received your confirmation and your WWCC card please bring it to the office so that we can take a copy and add it to our records.

We would love to see you involved in our school community.

Student Attendance

It is a legal requirement for schools to contact families if students are absent from school without an explanation. As a result, our office staff are required to contact you from 10:00am if your child is absent from school and you have not let us know. Please phone, email or add Parent Notified absences through PAM. Thanks!

School Fees

The annual school fee statement has been emailed out to families. We would like to remind families to please check their Junk Mail folders if they cannot find this account. The statement has the school BSB and account number located on it for those families who prefer to pay directly into the school account.

The fee statement will have billed families for all costs associated with their child(ren) for 2025, and can be paid via direct debit, directly into the school bank account or at the front office by EFTPOS or cash. Fees paid in full by 31st March will receive a discount.

Families who have opted to have the school direct debit their fees will have had their January payments already deducted. If you would like the school to set up a direct debit you can collect a form from the front office.

Health Care/Pension Cards

Reminder to all families who hold a valid Health Care or Pension Card to ensure the school has a copy of your card. If this is your first year using your HHC or PC at the school you will also need to complete the CSEF Form required by the government - this allows you to receive a payment towards camps and excursions/sports activities.

Please contact the office if you have any questions.

Student Medical Information Updates Required

A reminder that we require all families to login to PAM and update their child's medical information if any details have changed or if you are a new family to All Saints School. Please ensure that this is completed as soon as possible.

To update a medical profile for your child/children please follow these instructions:

Click on the link to PAM (found on SZ App or on the All Saints School website)
Click on student. (Remember that each child has their own medical profile)
Click on Medical Profile (blue writing to the left of screen)
Check all questions and select Edit Details for updates to be made.
Once you get to the end of the questions please confirm by clicking on the Green “Update Details” box found at the bottom right of screen.

As a parent/guardian you are able to access your child/ren's medical profile on PAM at any time to update as needed.

If you have any queries or require your PAM login details, please do not hesitate to contact the office.

School Closure Days

Please add the following dates to your calendars. There will be no school for students on these days.

Term 1

Wednesday January 29 - SWPBS (completed)

Tuesday March 11 - Structured Literacy

Term 2

Thursday April 24 - Southern Zone Collaboration Day (DOBCEL determined date)

TBC- Curriculum Day- Maths

Term 3

TBC- Faith Formation & Religious Education

Term 4

Monday October 6 - Structured Literacy

Monday November 3 - Report Writing & Assessments

Please note: We will notify families of the TBC dates as early as possible so that any arrangements for supervision of your children can be arranged.

Sports Uniform Days

Students are able to wear their sports uniform to school on two days during the week. One of these days is their specialist day and the other one is a day chosen by the teachers. Please see below the sports uniform days for each year level. On the other days students are to wear full school uniform. Please make sure that children are in the correct uniform on the right days.

FOUNDATION: Tuesday & Friday

1/2: Tuesday & Friday

3/4: Wednesday & Friday

5/6: Thursday & Friday

Important Dates

Term 1

Week 3

Monday February 10 - Parent Teacher Information Sharing Sessions

Tuesday February 11 - Parent Teacher Information Sharing Sessions

Tuesday February 11 - PHDSSA Interschool Swimming (for selected students)

Friday February 14 - Opening School Mass 11:00am (in the school hall)

Week 4

Monday February 17 - Fruit Kebab & Smoothie lunch

Thursday February 20 & Friday February 21 - Jamie away at Diocesan Leadership Gathering in Horsham

Week 5

Monday February 24 - All Saints Athletics Carnival @ Nelson Park

Thursday February 27 - Foundation Speech Screening

Friday February 28 - Casual Clothes Day- Country & Western theme

Saturday March 1 - Relay for Life

Week 6

Wednesday March 5 - ASH WEDNESDAY: the beginning of Lent

Friday March 7 - World Day of Prayer

Week 7

Monday March 10 - Labour Day Public Holiday- No school for anyone

Tuesday March 11 - Student Free Day: Staff Professional Learning- Structured Literacy- No school for students

Tuesday March 11 - Bayview eDay for Yr 7s in 2026

Wednesday March 12 - NAPLAN Testing Window opens

Wednesday March 12- Friday March 14 - Year 4 camp to Dunkeld

Week 8

Monday March 17 - Wednesday March 19 - Year 5/6 camp to Ballarat

Friday March 21 - Harmony Day

Week 9

Thursday March 27 - PHDSSA Interschool Athletics Carnival (for selected students)

Week 10

Friday April 4 - Last day of term 1

Congratulations

Well done to Edward Eichler (Year 5) for his efforts in competing in the 2025 Victorian Interschool Cycling series in Ballarat over the weekend. It was a great experience for him riding with so many other kids. He placed 6th out of 22 riders in the criterium road race. This was a combined group with upward of 30 riders all on the same track - he was very happy with his place. Good job Ed!

Learning & Teaching

From the Foundation Rooms:

Our Foundation students are settling in well, making new friends, and embracing school routines. We are focusing on Learning to Learn, where students practice classroom expectations and develop great learning habits, like listening with their whole bodies. They are especially enjoying the afternoons, where they can socialise and explore through Investigations, our play-based learning time.

We look forward to watching them grow in all aspects of school life and are excited to work with parents and carers to ensure they get the best start to school!

Students of the Week

Term 1 Week 2 Assembly

FCL: Jordyn Vaughan

FYW: Ava Mochales

1/2DW: Charlotte Uebergang-Sandstrom

1/2ID: Lucy Crimmins

1/2MS: Axel O’Dea

3/4DL: Sienna Burgess

3/4JS: Liam Webb

3/4KD: Lola Ford

3/4MN: Charlie Foster

5/6AJ: Ayden Marra

5/6BS: Hazel Budde

5/6DC: Tyler Leishman

5/6RV: Seth Hawthorne

Digi Tech: Erin Hollis-Compton

Indonesian: Tommy Wilson

Phys Ed: Izobel Oliver

The ARTS (Music): Tilly Friend

Principal’s Award: ‘Never see a need without doing something about it!’

Noah Bourke

Congratulations to these students for the wonderful work and effort that you have been applying. Keep inspiring and encouraging those around you.

Ballarat Diocese FLARE Primary Literacy Strategy - Letter to parents/carers

SWPBS- School Wide Positive Behaviour Supports

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS)

All staff have been working with Anne Ruddell from Catholic Education Ballarat on School Wide Positive Behaviour Supports which is a framework for school communities from Foundation to Year 12 that helps schools in improving social, emotional, behavioural and academic outcomes for their students.

SWPBS provides evidence-based, positive, and proactive practices that support and respond to students’ social, emotional, and behavioural needs.

SWPBS uses a tiered intervention framework along with robust data-based decision making to provide primary prevention for all staff and students, secondary prevention for students with at-risk behaviour and tertiary prevention for students with high-risk behaviour.

We have developed our school matrix and major and minor behaviours flowchart.

This week our students have been introduced to the 'Whole School Expectations' from our matrix and learning about what some of these behaviours look like.

School Wide Expectations

We are RESPECTFUL!

We are RESPONSIBLE!

We are SAFE!

We are NURTURING!

Leadership & Stewardship

House Leaders

Our House Leaders for 2025 have been selected. I would like to congratulate the following students who have been voted in as our House Leaders for 2025. We look forward to working together to provide wonderful opportunities for the students of All Saints Parish School.

School Leaders and House Leaders will receive their badges at our Opening School Mass this Friday at 11:00am in the school hall.

BALMORAL: Payton Buchner & Idrissa Charlery

MINERVA: Millie Rogers & Vossie Vosloo

OTWAY: Alicia Iddon, Banjo Mewburn & Cassie Vecchio

WANNON: Tilly Friend & Xavier Lindsey

All Saints Parish School has a team in Relay for Life.

This year we are delighted to again be participating in the upcoming Relay for Life event on Saturday March 1st.

Our theme this year will be a Country & Western theme.

At All Saints Parish School, we firmly believe in instilling values of compassion, empathy, and social responsibility in our students. Participating in events like Relay for Life not only aligns with our educational ethos but also provides an invaluable opportunity for our students to actively engage with the community and make a positive impact beyond the classroom walls.

Leading up to the event we will be providing opportunities for our school community to take part in fundraising activities to support the cause of the of Cancer Council.

Monday 17^th February – Special Food Day

We will be holding a special food day on Monday 17^th February. We will be selling Banana Smoothies and Fruit Kebabs for $2 per item. To place your order and make a payment please use CDF Pay. All orders and payment must be placed by Thursday 13^th February at 4pm. When placing the order, please make note of any dietary requirements that need to be catered for.

Friday 28^th February – Country & Western Casual Clothes Day

Students are invited to come dressed in casual clothes with a Country & Western. For those who do, we ask for a gold coin donation.

Wednesday & Friday – Icy poles

Icy poles will be for sale every Wednesday & Friday lunchtime during this term for $1. All money raised for this term will go towards Relay for Life.

Families are also invited to walk with us throughout the relay on Saturday 1^st March. If you would like to join our team or make a donation please use the following link:

https://www.relayforlife.org.au/fundraisers/AllSaintsParishSchool6008

Welcome Picnic

The weather was perfect for our Welcome Picnic.

Thank you to the families who came along. It was great to see you all.

We look forward to partnering with you in your child’s education as we pursue ‘fullness of life for all’!

At All Saints Parish School we hold the care, safety and wellbeing of children and young people as a central and fundamental responsibility of our school.

Webinars for parents and carers

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/webinars

Join one of our free webinars for parents and carers.

These live webinars give parents and carers the knowledge, skills and tools to support their children to have safe online experiences.

On this page:

ownloadExternal linkDownload

Download

Please be Allergy Aware!

This year we have a number of students in our school who have a variety of allergies, some of these are food related others are animal or environmental. Some of these allergies are severe and our students can have an anaphylactic reaction which requires an EpiPen to be administered. While not all of our allergies cause anaphylactic reactions it may only be a matter of time before an allergic reaction escalates to this level. All of our All Saints teachers are first aid trained in how to handle anaphylactic reactions but we would really love to not have to put this training into practice.

All Saints Parish School no longer claims to be a 'nut free' school due to the amount of foods that may contain nuts. However, we are asking families to be 'allergy aware' when packing lunchboxes and limit the amount of foods that come to school containing nut products including some muesli bars, biscuits, cakes and spreads such as Nutella and peanut butter. There are some products such as a type of spread similar to Nutella that is nut free. We are also asking families to be 'allergy aware' when sending in treats to share with the class for birthday celebrations.

We really appreciate your support with this and so do the families of the children who suffer the allergies.

Student Attendance- It's not OK to be away!

As we begin this new school year it is a perfect time to make all families aware of the importance of turning up to school every day.

CatholicCare- School Counsellor

We are very happy to continue our partnership with CatholicCare. Private counselling referrals are available from the school office on request.

Students who have previously worked with CatholicCare will continue unless we are otherwise advised by parents.

SchoolTV - Wellbeing Platform

Because parenting doesn’t come with a set of instructions, SchoolTV is a wellbeing resource that can support you in the challenges relating to modern-day parenting.

This award-winning resource helps build relationships, foster connections, enable understanding and break down barriers to navigate a pathway towards better mental health and wellbeing for young people. It can assist in starting conversations on topics that are sometimes awkward or difficult to tackle.

Below is a URL link to the All Saints SchoolTV platform.

All Saints Parish School’s ‘School TV’ can be accessed using the following link: https://asportland.catholic.schooltv.me

In this edition of SchoolTV - Managing Screen Time

As a result of the global pandemic, there has been a noticeable shift in the amount of time people spend on screen-based devices. Families are transitioning back to pre-COVID routines but many are still struggling to re-establish the boundaries and rules around screen use. Some continue to deal with digital conflict and tech-tantrums on a daily basis. The latest research found that 77% of teenagers spend more than five hours on screens per day, but it is important to note that not all screen time is considered equal.

Parents play a crucial role in modelling a positive and healthy approach to using screens and assisting children to navigate the content they watch. It is better to model and mentor screen use, rather than monitor it. Children tend to do more of what they see us do, and less of what we tell them to do. However, it is still important to outline the risks and highlight the benefits of screen use to ensure you keep a balanced attitude. Encourage discussions around the issues that people experience in monitoring their screen time and be honest about your own difficulties.

Parents need to remain firm in their approach to managing screen time. Excessive screen time can be detrimental to a child’s overall wellbeing. Ensuring the correct privacy settings are in place is vital to prevent children from being inadvertently exposed to inappropriate content or online predators. Parents need to also be mindful of the potential impact screen time can have on a child’s social, emotional, educational, behavioural, and even physical domains.

In this edition of SchoolTV, care-givers will be provided with a range of guidelines and strategies to help manage screen time at home.

We hope you take time to reflect on the information offered in this edition of SchoolTV and we always welcome your feedback. If you have any concerns about your child, please contact the school counsellor for further information or seek medical or professional help.

Here is the link to the Managing Screen Time edition of SchoolTV
https://asportland.catholic.schooltv.me/newsletter/managing-screen-time

Happy Birthday

FEBRUARY BIRTHDAYS

STUDENTS: Indianna M, Emmy B, Kaylee J, Kaziah M, Bonnie S, Kaidyn K, Ilaria T, Zoe T, Ari D, Charlie M, Addison B, Pippa B, Ezra N, Gabby D, Willow B, Jake R, Nate L, Harriet H, Ryan C.

STAFF: Miss Wood, Miss Simpson

Praying With Children

Praying with Children resources offer an insight into the scripture readings from mass on the weekend. It is a wonderful opportunity for families to discuss the Gospel stories and complete some related activities if they wish.

Please click on each of the flyers below to access the activities.

childrens_liturgy_of_the_word_16_february_2025_6_ord_c.pdf

childrens_liturgy_of_the_word_23_february_2025_7_ord_c.pdf

COMMUNITY NEWS

WFNC_Junior_Football_Newsletter_Fyler.pdf

Term 1 Week 3 Newsletter- Monday February 10