Year 5 Green shared their learning with us this morning in their assembly at Lavalla campus. The focus of their assembly was centred around their ‘Top 5 Tips to staying safe online’. Year 5 Green acted out some situations and shared with the Lavalla community strategies and ways that we can stay safe in the online environment, which is so important in today’s world. The class finished with a fantastic dance to the song ‘Safe and Sound’. Thank you to 5 Green for their wonderful assembly, reminding us of the importance of staying safe online and giving us some great strategies to help us do so!
Grandparents’ Day
We look forward to welcoming all grandparents to our Grandparents’ Day celebrations next week on Thursday 24 October. Please refer to the previous Newsletter for further information. Maps will be provided on the day to assist you in finding classrooms around the Marian Campus. The RSVP has now closed for this event.
PK-12 Faction/Guild Alignment
As you will have read in the Newsletter at the end of last term, as part of the process of moving onto one campus and aligning our PK-12 College, in 2025 we will be refining our faction system in primary to provide consistency for families across our PK-12 community.
As part of this, the current Primary four faction system is evolving into an 8 Guild system. This will mean factions are consistent across the entire College and will be better for our families in the long term. From the start of 2025, students will be placed into one of our 8 College Guilds.
The process we used for allocating Guilds to all Primary students is outlined below in sequence:
Primary students with siblings already in the secondary school have been placed into the same guild as their sibling(s).
Year 6 students have already been placed into a Guild for Year 7, 2025 and this will not change. As a result, primary students with siblings currently in Year 6 have also been aligned to this Guild.
After categorising those with siblings in secondary or Year 6, we have aligned the students’ current primary faction colour to the base colour of the new allocated guild shirt:
Primary Marcellin faction (blue) to Camara or Mackillop Guilds (base colour blue).
Primary Delany faction (red) to Marcellin and Catherine Guilds (base colour red).
Primary Knox faction (green) to Romero or Brigid Guilds (base colour green).
Primary Brigid faction (yellow) to Chisolm or Thomas More Guilds (base colour purple).
All parents in Kindy – Year 5 will receive an email in the coming week which will advise of the 2025 Guild for their family.
Students will be able to start wearing the Guild sports shirts (pictured below) at the start of the 2025 school year. The uniform shop is currently working to stock these new, smaller-sized guild shirts and more information will follow regarding when these shirts can be ordered. Please be advised that it is not compulsory to have the new Guild top at the start of next year. As with any uniform change, there will be a phase-in period, which in this case will be 2 years. Throughout this 2-year period, students can continue to wear their existing coloured faction top.
Currently, each of the four factions has two Year 6 sport leaders. Moving into next year with our 8-Guild system, each guild will have one Year 6 sport captain. This will retain a total of 8 sport captains.
Whilst this is a change for our community, it is an important step and a very exciting time. Your support in ensuring the alignment of our PK-12 College is greatly appreciated.
Parent Representatives
In 2024, we were required to move to only having one Parent Representative for each year level due to a lack of parent volunteers for these roles. I would like to take the time to thank these parents for their efforts this year. It is greatly appreciated.
In 2025, we are wanting to move back to having 1 parent rep for each class across the school. Of course, this relies on having enough parent volunteers.
Before the end of this term, information will be sent out to Primary parents asking for expressions of interest for the Parent Representative roles in 2025. In the meantime, I encourage parents to consider putting their hand up for this class role in 2025 to ensure we have enough people to cover all classes.
I have included below a short explanation of what the Class Parent Representative role involves:
The Parent Representative role is purely a pastoral and social role for members of the class. The focus is purely and primarily a social, community-building role, which may involve liaising with the class teacher with regard to any support required. In 2025 we continue to ask parent reps to refrain from providing their parent groups with reminders or information about classroom/school events, dates, etc. In 2025, it is essential that parents refer to official College communication (SeeSaw, email, Newsletters) as their main source of information as all details are provided through these channels, and not rely on parent reps for this information.
Newman Norms / Medals of Marcellin
Our new Newman Norms are now on our website and I encourage you to have a look at these expectations for our Primary students – Newman Norms – Newman College. Each week our staff and students will focus on 1 Norm, to discuss and unpack what that norm means for our students in their day-to-day school life.
Recently Maddie (Lavalla) was drawn out of the raffle for demonstrating our Newman Norms. Congratulations to all students who received a raffle ticket in the past fortnight.
Our token jars have been emptied and we have started the competition for our Term 4 winning faction!
Hats
With the warmer and sunnier weather back, it is timely to provide a reminder that all primary students are required to wear a hat during recess and lunch times, as well as during sports lessons. If your child does not have a hat, please ensure they are provided with one as soon as possible. Please also check the lost property on both primary campuses if you are missing one.
2024 Swimming Lessons (Years 1-6)
An email was sent to families of students in Years 1-6 earlier this week regarding upcoming 2024 Swimming Lessons. It is essential that all Year 1-6 parents complete the registration (via the link in the email) by Monday 21 October.
URSTRONG
A reminder that parents will continue to have access to a FREE URSTRONG parent membership. We hope that as a URSTRONG Family, you will reinforce the important messages of empowerment, self-compassion, & kindness at home.
2025 Class Allocations
Shortly, teachers will commence working on class groupings for the 2025 school year. Many factors are considered when selecting student class placements, including gender, pastoral needs, social and emotional needs, academic needs, special learning needs, and relationships. Every effort is made to give children the best opportunity to succeed. All Newman College teachers are outstanding professionals in their field, and students will receive a high-quality education no matter which class they are placed in.
Early in Term 4, students will be asked by their Classroom Teacher to nominate five friends, of which at least one will be placed in their 2025 class.
If you believe your child has special pastoral needs that may need consideration, you are asked to contact your child’s classroom teacher or contact me via email at ryan.vonbergheim@newman.wa.edu.au early in Term 4.
Any requests must be provided to the class teacher or myself by 3:00pm Tuesday, 22 October (next week).Requests made after this date cannot be considered.
Parents should understand that requests cannot be guaranteed as staff must consider a wide range of factors when creating class groupings within a triple-stream school. Parents should be aware that requesting a specific teacher is not a consideration in the class allocation process.
Once class lists have been finalised, they cannot be changed. Class lists will be published to families at the conclusion of our Move-up Day, details of which will be communicated next term.
Fathering Project
The next Fathering Project Event will be held on Friday 8 November from 4:30-6:00pm at Marian Campus. This event is for children and dads of students at Marian Campus. The event will be Paper Planes and Pizza. Please see the flyer below.
