Download the updated Term Three calendar here

Bullying No Way Week at St Matthew’s – 11–15 August 2025

St Matthew’s is proud to be part of Bullying No Way Week, Australia’s national initiative to prevent bullying in schools. From 11–15 August, all classes across the school will participate in engaging activities that promote kindness, courage, and respectful relationships.

This year’s theme, “Be bold. Be kind. Speak up.”, encourages students to take positive action against bullying and support one another in building a safe and inclusive school environment. Through creative classroom projects, discussions, and collaborative learning, our students are developing a shared understanding of bullying behaviours and how to respond effectively.

Together with schools across the country, St Matthew’s is committed to fostering a culture where every student feels safe, valued, and heard.

St Matthew’s is a Nut-Aware School

At St Matthew’s, the safety and well-being of all students is our highest priority. We are a nut-aware school, which means we take thoughtful and practical steps to reduce the risk of allergic reactions, particularly anaphylaxis, which can be life-threatening.

While leading health and education bodies no longer recommend blanket food bans, we ask families to avoid sending nuts and nut products to school, especially in classes where students have known allergies. This is particularly important for younger students who may not yet be able to manage their allergies independently.

Our staff complete annual anaphylaxis training, and emergency medication is available on campus and at all school events. Students with known allergies have individual care plans in place, and we continue to educate all students about allergy awareness, including the importance of not sharing food and washing hands after eating.

Thank you for your continued support in helping us maintain a safe and inclusive environment for every child.

School Fees

Child Safeguarding Corner

The Child Safe Standards provide us with tangible guidance about how to create cultures, adopt strategies and act to put the interests of children first, to keep them safe from harm. Each fortnight, I present one of the standards and ask you to reflect on how you think we’re addressing the recommendations. We welcome ideas and feedback from our families and community! This week, we’re looking at Standard 7. 

Child Safe Standard 7: Staff are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and awareness to keep children safe through ongoing education and training. 

This standard aims to ensure that we invest in building staff skills, abilities and confidence.   This standard is necessary because training gives staff the confidence to respond to abuse if it is detected. It also reinforces the importance of child safety and that it is everyone’s responsibility. 

We aim to prioritise this standard for child safety in what we say and do:

• We provide ongoing education and training opportunities for staff. 
• We have a Child Safe Advocate. 
• Our staff understand how to identify, respond to and report child abuse. 
• Our annual plan includes a schedule of learning opportunities for staff. 

If we are addressing this standard successfully, we would expect our children to say: 

• Adults understand how to keep me safe. 
• I know that adults are taught how to behave around me. 
• Adults notice when I feel sad. 

We now have a page on our school website dedicated to Child Safeguarding and we encourage you to view it. 

If you have any questions or feedback about how we are addressing this particular Standard, or about our new Child Safeguarding page, please email me (petra.cole@cg.catholic.edu.au). 

Proudly supporting Bullying No Way: National Week of Action

This year, St Matthew’s is participating in the Bullying No Way: National Week of Action. Bullying No Way Week is a commitment being made by thousands of schools and supporters across the country. It provides an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to bullying prevention. 

Students from Kindergarten to Year 6 are participating in explicit lessons about how to be bold, be kind and speak up, which is the theme for this year’s campaign.  I encourage you to ask your child/ren about what they have learned this week. 

For more information about Bullying No Way Week and bullying prevention, visit the Bullying No Way website, which has some excellent fact sheets for families.

Petra Cole

Assistant Principal

Sophie Murdock

Religious Education Coordinator

Book Week - August 17-23

Each year, many schools and public libraries across Australia spend a week in August celebrating books and Australian authors and illustrators. This term, we have some wonderful opportunities for our students to participate in to celebrate Book Week. 

Author visit

On Tuesday, August 12, our Year 3–6 students were lucky to meet award-winning author Katrina Nannestad. She’s known for The Travelling Bookshop, The Girl, the Dog and the Writer, and historical fiction like We Are Wolves and Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief.

Katrina shared insights into her writing process and gave students practical tips—like imagining what their characters see, hear, and feel. We also loved hearing the real stories behind her books. Some students even dressed up as her characters!

Thank you, Katrina, for an inspiring visit!

Book Week Dress Up and Activity Day

As our aim is to bring students and books together, we invite all students to come dressed as a book character, either fictional or real, or as something relating to the Book Week theme ‘Book an adventure’ on Friday, August 22.  We will begin our day with a short assembly and then progress into Book Week-related activities. Could your child also bring along the book or a picture of the book cover (attached to a lanyard or pinned to their costume) to let others know the book their character is from? This year, we will be asking students to bring along a gold coin donation as part of our dress-up day. All money collected will be going to the World Literacy Foundation, which is partnering with Reading out of Poverty. This year, they are supporting early literacy in disadvantaged communities across Australia.

If any students choose not to dress as a book character, they will wear their normal school uniform. Please note that the costume does not need to be elaborate or expensive.  We would encourage parents to use dress-up clothes from home for the event. There are also many simple DIY ideas on the Internet.

As a Christian community, we are asking parents to assist us in selecting appropriate characters that complement our values and beliefs.  We would ask that characters who are violent or scary (i.e., ghosts, vampires, or those involving weapons) be avoided.  If you are unsure and would like to clarify this further, please speak to your child’s teacher.

The teachers and I look forward to seeing our students come dressed as their book character of choice.

Book Week Competition

This year, we are holding a Book Week competition. Students, if they choose, can decorate a paper plate to represent their favourite book – it could be a scene from the book, a character, or the cover of the book. There are some ideas below. If you need a paper plate, please collect one from Miss Judd. Students will need to write their name and class on the back of their paper plate. This activity will need to be completed at home. Entries need to be given to Miss Judd by Monday, August 18th, and winners will be announced at our Book Week dress-up day.

Sally Judd

Teacher Librarian

This term will be OFF THE CHARTS with our STEM Club Adventure Series.

Join us as we EMBARK on an EPIC four-part mission, where we'll ACTIVATE new STEM realms by CRACKING codes, SOLVING puzzles and INVENTING clever ways to SUCCEED in each mission ?️‍♂️
Our ADVENTURE starts HERE – www.teamkids.com.au/venues

Thanks, Parents and Carers!

Donuts with Dad, Muffins with Mum (or vice versa) parent and carer thank you breakfast - Friday, 5 September

Free Parent Workshops and Webinars

Yawarj Mara Youth Group

Daramalan Basketball Training Camp

Karinya House Walk for Hope - Gather your team!