Although we have 10 weeks this term, this is the last newsletter for the 2024 school year. The next 3 weeks promise to be busy with many events taking place. Hopefully I have outlined everything below. 

As the school year draws to a close, once again I reflect on how blessed I am to be part of such a wonderful school community. I invite you to take the time to say a prayer/affirmation for those in our community that are not as well as they would like to be, who are facing challenges, or who are struggling with the demands of the everyday. It is evident that St. Clare’s is a very caring community from the items coming in for the St. Vinnies hampers. Please continue to send these items in, they are very sincerely appreciated.  

For the members of our community that will not be returning to St. Clare’s in 2025, staff and families, we wish you all the best. Farewell to our Year 6 families that do not have a younger sibling: Aspinall family, Calleja family, Chaffey family, Condon family, Emmi family, Jensen family, Kumar & Kaur family, Morris family, Solien family, Summerville family and Vipiana family.  And also, Reddacliff, Lizzio and Blennerhassett families. 

We look forward to our swimming carnival this Friday. Thank you to all parents assisting on Friday with carnival jobs. Your assistance allows our day to run smoothly so that our students have a wonderful carnival. I would also like to acknowledge the planning and preparation of our upcoming carnival by Cherie Jenkins, and the staff helping out with the Water Safety program. Please ensure students apply sunscreen before coming to school and have some in their bags to reapply. All students need to bring their hats, lunch and snacks, and come to school with their swimmers already on, with House shirts and sports shorts over the top.  Please do not send money with students as the canteen will not be available to students. 

P&F and Board 2025 

As we farewell our Year 6 students, we farewell Jim Chaffey from the Board. I would again like to acknowledge and thank those that have served in roles on the P&F and Board. It has been a pleasure working with you all and I cannot thank you all enough for the time you put into supporting St. Clare’s. Also, thank you to those above and also to those that don’t hold an executive position, but go over and above to help out wherever needed.  

The P&F AGM will be held on Monday 25th November @ 5:30pm at the Leagues Club - all interested parents and carers are invited to attend. 

Yr 6 Farewell Liturgy and Dinner Dec 2 

On Monday December 2, our Yr 6 students will be farewelled with a Liturgy at 5:30 pm followed by dinner with their parents, Fr Joby and staff.  Please keep our Yr 6 students in your prayers this week as they prepare to complete their primary schooling at St. Clare’s and move to High School in 2025. 

Awards Assembly & Volunteers Cuppa Dec 4  

On Wednesday December 4, we will be holding our Awards Assembly at 9am where we will recognise the contribution of students who have served in special roles for our school and the Catholic community.  Thank you to our sponsors for our end of year awards. Your support is much appreciated! Parents are warmly welcomed to attend the awards presentations.  

The following will be announced at our Awards Assembly: 

2025 School Captains and House Captains

Sports Award

St Clare’s Spirit Award 

St Clare’s Academic Award 

St Clare’s Achievement Progress Award 

St Clare’s Character Award (Prep – Year 5) 

2024 House Cup 

At the conclusion of the Awards Assembly, anyone that has volunteered throughout the year is invited to join us for a thank you cuppa before they leave. 

End of Year BBQ  Dec 4 

Also on Wednesday December 4th, the P&F will be organising a BBQ. Families are invited to return to school at 5:30 pm for the BBQ. A huge thank you to the P&F for putting this on for us! This will be followed by a small Christmas Concert by the students and speeches. The night it scheduled as below: 

4.30  Cooking starts 

5.00  BBQ starts 

6.00  Principal’s Welcome and Speech (includes farewell to staff and families in speech) 

6.15  Acknowledgement of award recipients and incoming captains from the morning Award Assembly  

6.30 P&F President speech 

6.45 Concert 

7.10  Year 6 Valedictory Speech (School Captains) 

         Year 6 Presentations 

7.30  Dessert 

Waterslide day Tuesday December 3 

Students are reminded to pack swimmers, sun-shirt, sunscreen and towel on Tuesday 3rd December for the Inflatable Water-slide proudly provided by the P&F to reward our students with some fun for all their great work throughout the school year!  Remember NO jewellery, or clothing with buttons or zips allowed on the water slide. Classes will be rostered to use the slide throughout the day. Please contact your class teacher with any concerns. 

End of Year Mass Friday Dec 6 

We will be having a mass on Friday at 11:00am in the Church.  From here we will proceed together out to the Montefalco area to countdown our end of year dismissal. All parents are invited to attend. Students will be dismissed at 12pm.  Anyone who does not have a parent  here at 12pm will be taken to the admin verandah for collection via stop, drop and go.   

Week 1 2025 

Term 1, 2025 commences for students on Wednesday 29th January.  

Uniform Days for 2025 

Academic Uniform - Monday, Wednesday and Friday 
Sports Uniforms  - Tuesday and Thursday 

School Fees 

Thank you to all families who have made their school fee payment. Please ensure that fees are finalised prior to the end of the term. If you wish to discuss outstanding fees please contact the office to make an appointment.  

For those who pay their fees by direct debit or Bpay we appreciate if payments continue over the holidays to ensure there will be no outstanding fees starting 2025.  

Staffing 2025 

We have been working for several months now to finalise staffing for the 2025 school year. Sadly we said goodbye to Mr Jeb Ryan at the end of Term 3. Jeb has relocated to Brisbane so that his son can undergo treatment. We continue to keep Jeb and his family in our prayers during this very challenging time. We are continuing to work on appointing a suitable long-term person to this position that will benefit our students. We are hopeful that this will be sorted over the break and we will have a teacher in this position for the 2025 year. 

We will be farewelling Mrs Penny Irvine, our Teacher Libarian at the end of the year as she and her family relocate to Cairns. Penny has organised some amazing learning opportunities for students during her time at St. Clare’s. She has brought us amazing Science Days, Reef Trips, lessons with drones, robotics and 3D printers, not to mention sharing her love of literacy throughout the school. We sincerely thank Penny for all that she has done in her time at St. Clare’s - you will be sincerely missed Mrs Irvine! 

We will be introducing 2 support teacher roles next year - Curriculum Support Teacher & Diversity Support Teacher. The aim of these roles is to provide additional teaching support and mentoring to students and staff across the school and to build the capacity of these support teachers to perhaps take a step in the direction of a leadership role in the future. The application process for these roles was internal and open to existing teaching staff. I am very pleased to announce that Mrs Cherie Jenkins has been appointed as the Curriculum Support Teacher and Mrs Melissa Leonardi as the Diversity Support Teacher. For 2025, these roles are part-time and both Melissa & Cherie will continue to work in classrooms as well.  

Please see below a list of staff for the 2025 school year as it currently stands. Teaching staff have been allocated a class, however this is always subject to change.  

Karran Burzacott - Principal 
Sharon Chappel - APRE 
Helen Andrews - Leader of Diversity (on Long Service Leave Term 1) 
Chris Edwards - Leader of Diversity / Leader of Learning and Teaching 
Rosanna O’Kane - Admin & Finance 
Antonina Dal Zilio - Admin Support 
Vera Borgna - Library Assistant / Admin Support / WHS Officer 
Gita Sima  - Prep 
Zanelle Collins - Year 1 
Amanda Baston /Kaitlyn Marsilio - Year 2
Carolin Schoch - Year 3 
Rochelle Lee Bow- Year 4 
Melissa Murphy - Year 5 
Melissa Leonardi/Cherie Jenkins  - Year 6
TBA - HPE 
Jo Wall - The Arts 
Cherie Jenkins - Curriculum Support Teacher 
Melissa Leonardi - Diversity Support Teacher 
Sharon Scouller - School Counsellor 
Pauline Colombini - Student Support Officer 
Alicia Johnson - Student Support Officer 
Marie Vipiana - Student Support Officer / Tuckshop 
Steph Grimaz - Student Support Officer 
Jenny Sollitt - Student Support Officer 
Carla Low - Student Support Officer 
Natasha Johnston - Student Support Officer 
Janine Burns - Student Support Officer 
Jodie Costa - Cleaner 
Luke Mason - Groundsperson 

Booklists & Uniforms 2025 

Booklists and Uniform Requirements will be going home next week. Please take the time to read these carefully, particularly our uniform expectations. We ask that all families take particular note of the requirements for hair, jewellery and shoes. 

• Tracks and colours are not permitted in hair - if this is something you want to have done, please do so in the first days of the break to allow it to grow out before school returns in 2025. 

• Students wearing jewellery or accessories that do not meet the requirements will be asked to remove them. 

• Our formal uniform requires all black shoes - if you are purchasing new school shoes over the break, please keep this in mind. While black joggers can be worn with the formal uniform, they must be all black - including the soles. Joggers of any colour may be worn with the sports uniform. 

We sincerely appreciate the support of our parent community to keep our expectations high at St. Clare’s.  

Sent to the Principal’s Office 

On behalf of the staff I wish to thank all the parents for your support throughout 2024. Enjoy your special family gatherings over the holiday period. We look forward to seeing you all again in 2025. 

Wishing everyone a blessed Advent,

Karran Burzacott

As we enter the final weeks of the 2024 school year, there is so much to be grateful for. I am grateful for the staff that I work alongside each day, they really do make St Clare’s the special place that it is! I am grateful for the students, especially our Seniors who are soon to end their chapter with us, I will hold dear the many memories l have shared with them. I am grateful for our parents and wider school community. It really is unique to find such a supportive and involved group of people who all work together with the best interests of our students at the forefront. As we move into the season of Advent, what are you grateful for this year? 

Our Year 5 class had the pleasure of visiting the Tully Nursing Home this week to enjoy a session of Bingo with the residents. On arrival, we dropped off 20 blankets which were donated by the staff of St Clare’s as Christmas gifts for the residents. Thank you to our amazing staff for their generosity! 

 

Next Thursday November 28, Bishop Joe Caddy will be visiting the Tully area. Bishop Joe is looking forward to meeting some locals so he will be attending our final school assembly, presented by our Year 6 class. After assembly, families and parishioners are invited to join him for morning tea in the Good Samaritan Room.  

There will be many celebrations happening in the last week of school and I hope that everyone is able to bring their child along to our End of Year BBQ and Christmas Concert. The students have been very busy working on ‘Lights, Camel, Action! The Sequin’ which is a nativity play with a groovy twist, and the sequel to our Christmas play in 2022. Some children will have costumes organised through school (and will get changed at school before the concert). Families of these children have been sent a Seesaw with information. It would be great if the following could be used as a guideline (but please, no need to purchase anything) for clothing for the night to fit in with each class’ theme: 

Prep & Year 1 (Angels) - Own white clothing 
Year 2/3 girls (Stars) - School supplied coloured shirts and tutus. Own tights for under tutus. 
Year 2/3 boys - Own clothing 
Year 4 - Own clothing 
Year 5 (Roman soldiers) - Own white shirts. School supplied head laurels 
Year 6 - Own clothing 

I hope that all of our St Clare’s families enjoy a peaceful break over the Christmas period and I look forward to seeing you back again in 2025.  

With Blessings,

Sharon Chappel

Term 4 Assemblies