Dear Parents and Carers,

Last week I had the privilege of attending a 3 day conference and retreat with 68 other Catholic Leaders from our Archdiocese. The influence from fruitful professional discussions that happen at these events cannot be underestimated, and I have come back to our beautiful school this week, inspired by what I have been part of and optimistic for what we can achieve here at St Thomas’.

One of the areas that we spent a significant amount of time on was the understanding and implementation of High Impact Teaching Practice across the school and achieving the Bold Goal “High Impact Teaching Practice is visible in every classroom”. This will be a focus for us over the next three years. It will be supported by Professional Learning Units of work and the School Leadership Team will be working closely with the teachers as they develop their skills in their classroom practice. The Leadership Team will be adopting an Instructional Leadership model to work in partnership with the teachers.

Parent Teacher Meetings

These will be happening in Week 8. If you haven’t already booked a time to come in and meet (or Zoom) with your child’s /rens teacher/s, here is the link to do so.

Bookings are open until 5pm next Thursday March 18th. This will then give the teachers ample time to prepare for the meetings.  Interim reports regarding personal, social and learning behaviours will be coming home with your child/ren tomorrow and these are often a good starting place for a discussion about your child/ren when you meet with their teacher/s.  I encourage all parents and carers to take up this opportunity to meet, as building a strong and positive relationship between home and school is so important for the education and wellbeing of our children.

Working Bee

This is one of the best community events that we have each year (besides the fete of course). It will be held on Sunday March 28^th between 8:00am – 12 noon.  It’s been 2 years since our last big Working Bee and we would love to see as many families come down to help out with the various jobs that need to be done to make our school environment even more beautiful than it is now.  You can email the school to let us know that you can come, reply using this link

or fill in the sheet below. There will be pizza and cold drinks served from 11:45am and refreshments will be available throughout the morning.

Parents are reminded that smart watches are treated the same as phones or BYO iPads at school. Smart watches, fitbits and similar devices with cellular, photographic and film capabilities pose a risk to student wellbeing and safety. When these technologies are misused by students, they can be very disruptive to students’ welfare, socialisation and in some cases cause various levels of harm. If text messages are sent to smart watches, then children are required to leave their smart watch in their school bag. Messages for students should be sent to the Front Office. We want to ensure that students are not being distracted from their learning. As a school, we also want to be able to guide and support students in being able to solve problems with the support of peers and school staff whilst at school. As with phones and BYO iPads, these devices will be confiscated and parents contacted if used inappropriately.

Working with Vulnerable People (WWVP)

Any parent or carer who volunteers to assist in classrooms, with sporting teams, clothing pool, etc must have a WWVP and are required to have it with them when assisting at school. As with your driver’s licence renewal, your photo will be taken at Canberra Connect Office, and a card sent to you within a few weeks. There is no fee for this. Please ensure you renew your card online and when your new card arrives bring it into the school so it can be photocopied and a copy left on file here at school. The link for registering or renewing a WWVP card is below:

We are currently updating our register of volunteer WWVP cards. Next time you are in the front office please call in and we will photocopy your card, even if you have provided it in previous years. If your card has expired, and you have received an email from Access Canberra extending your expiry date, could you please forward this email to office.sttapkambah@cg.catholic.edu.au

Canteen Update

We are in to process of interviewing for a new canteen manager and planning for the canteen to reopen at the beginning of Term 2.

Second Hand Clothing Pool

Have you got an hour or two to spare each week/ fortnight? We are hoping to have a group of volunteer parents and carers to run the Second Hand Clothing Pool.  All it requires is to come in at a time that suits you to sort and hang the donations and to fill orders that come in through the front office. If you are interested, please email or call Naomi in the front office. She will be able to answer any questions you may have.

Yours in partnership 

Ursula Jamieson 

Ursula Jamieson
Principal