Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to the first week of the 2025 school year. I hope you all enjoyed a restful break, filled with quality family time.

This year, our theme is Together on the Path of Peace. Our theme is inspired by 2025 being the Catholic Church’s year of the Jubilee with the  theme of Pilgrims of Hope- on the path of Peace.  The Jubilee year is held every 25 years or during other years as called for by the Pope. The Jubilee year signifies a special year of grace, prayer, and reflection. As Pilgrims of Hope, we will focus on walking a shared journey of peace as a community. The Catholic view of peace emphasises reconciliation, justice, and the dignity of every human person, grounded in Christ's teachings of love and forgiveness. Peace is seen not only as the absence of conflict but as the active pursuit of harmony and social justice.

Walking this path means fostering peace in our thoughts, words, actions, and relationships. It begins in our hearts and extends to our families, school and wider community.

In alignment with this theme, we continue to implement practices that promote peace and unity in our community, including:

• A focus on Catholic identity and the human dignity of every person.
• Incorporating Prayer, Mindfulness and/ or Christian Meditation into the school day.
• Restorative practices for behaviour management, helping to repair relationships and build understanding.
• Emphasising forgiveness, social justice, and making a positive difference in the lives of others, including reaching out to our parishioners and elderly.
• Our commitment as a Fire Carrier school to reconciliation and fostering respect for Indigenous cultures.
• Stewardship through caring for creation, promoting sustainability and responsibility for the environment.
• Encouraging respectful relationships and inclusion, ensuring everyone has the opportunity to flourish.

Let us commit to being peacemakers, guided by Jesus’ teachings and strive to build on our harmonious and supportive environment for everyone.

Meet and Greets: You will receive an Operoo today to book in a time to meet with your child's class teacher next week. The purpose of the meet and greets is to provide opportunity for you to meet with your child's teacher and share any information you feel is important for your child's teacher to know. It is a lovely opportunity to get to know each other as you journey together in partnership over the course of the year. The meet and greet will take up to  10 minutes.

Home Learning at Our Lady Star of the Sea: As most of you are aware through communication in 2024, we are trialling and taking a new direction with our homework focus this year after completing a consultative process with all stake holdrers in 2024 and further exploring evidence based research. 

Please find our Home Learning Policy moving forward and a summary of the Key Changes to Home Learning for 2025 below:

1. Compulsory Reading (Prep–Year 6):

• Daily reading will be mandatory for all students and must be recorded in diaries. 

• Times tables will be a focus and communicated via Hub News every fortnight.

3. OCCASIONAL TASKS 

No provision in the policy shall prevent classroom teachers from occasionally setting tasks for their whole class or individuals. Such tasks include a speaking and listening activity and an interview with a parent about a specific topic, e.g., gathering or inquiring about information to support project work and particularly in the Year 5/ 6 area, finishing off work as required, to align with secondary school preparation.

4. A Home Learning link will be provided on the school website and a link added to Hub News for those families wishing to engage in their own home learning.
5. The school also provides electronic platforms for sharing learning through parents Seesaw accounts and Google Classroom. This is a great way for parents/ carers to see the child’s learning and expand the family’s interaction with learning. 
6. Homework Marking:

• Homework will no longer be assessed or reflected in formal reports.

These adjustments are intended to make home learning more meaningful and manageable while supporting students' academic growth and overall well-being.

Staffing 2025: We welcome our new staff. Sarah Veenvliet Year 5 classroom teacher. Jack every Year 4 LSO; Amanda Durbridge Year 2 LSO and Charlie Alexander Year 5 LSO. Please also see our 2025 wonderful team below and the areas they will be working within the school. 

Communication Channels: Please note our newsletter, emailed fortnightly on a Tuesday, is a thorough source of information and communication. It includes a message from myself with updates, a full calendar of events and our wonderful hub news which is very specific to your child's daily requirements. For clarity, always refer back to the newsletter. Emailing classroom teachers is our preferredmethod of communication and you will have access to your teacher’s email. Please note, teacher protocol is to email back within 24-48 hours on working days as per our policy. Included at the bottom of the newsletter is a rundown of the different communication platforms and their purpose. Please familiarise yourself with this if you are new or haven't already.

Recording your child's absence from school

A friendly reminder that we ask you to record your child's absence from school using Parent Access Module (PAM) before 9:00am on the day of absence with the reason. 

Simply follow the below steps: 

1. Go to https://pam.staroceangrove.catholic.edu.au
2. Login using your credentials. Your login email address is the one you have provided to the school. You can choose the 'Forgot password' option if you can not remember your password.
3. Click on 'Parent Notified Absences' at the top right of the page
4. Fill in the required fields. Done. 
   

   Year 6 2024 Special Award Winners: Congratulations to the following children who received special awards at the end of last year at their graduation ceremony.

   
   
   Bellarine Psychology Leadership in Compassion Award - Iyah Durling & Zoe Hodges

 Ocean Grove Lions Club Bursary Award - Willow Armistead & Winni Ward

     Cosmopolitan Lodge Leadership Award with Richard Clarke presenting the award - Ahli James and Amara Gauld

    Rotary Ocean Grove - Daisy Bianco, Jett Piec, Nate Wombwell, Maddison  Mifsud

    Bellarine Community Leadership Award on behalf of Alison Marchant Bellarine MP - Nicholas Wright

   Corangamite Leadership & Community Spirit Award on behalf of Libby Coker -Federal Member for Corangamite - Bas Gee

Andrew Chinn Workshops and Beginning of Year Mass Monday 3rd February 2.15 pm: On Monday 3 February, Australian religious songwriter and singer, Andrew Chinn, will be visiting our school to share his songs with our children. Andrew’s songs, such as “These Hands”, “Rainbow”, “An African Blessing” and“Rise Up!” are used in classrooms and liturgies around Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada. The workshops with all year levels will take place throughout the day and he will be performing with our students at our beginning of the Year Mass on this same day at the Church at  2.15 pm. All welcome. We look forward to seeing you there if able.

Our teachers have been busy and here are some photos of the spaces almost ready to go.

Wishing you all a wonderful and peaceful start to the year.

Kerryn