Principal Talk with Mrs Lowe
Where in the World is Mrs Lowe?
Last week, Sarah Lowe attended the Australian Catholic Education Conference in North Queensland. This week, she is in Brisbane for the Australian Primary Principals Association Conference. Both events provide valuable opportunities for school leaders to connect with colleagues, keep up to date with current trends in education, and build knowledge and skills through workshops and presentations. The APPA conference also encourages principals to support one another, share ideas, and celebrate the joys and challenges of leading in primary education. Sarah is looking forward to bringing back insights and new learning to share with us on her return.
Book Week 2025
Last Friday, we celebrated Book Week Dress Up Day and it was amazing! Our Book Week Dress Up days are always a highlight—for both students and teachers! Thank you to parents, carers and students for supporting Book Week, and for joining in the celebrations with such enthusiasm. We’re also very grateful to our teachers for creating engaging lessons that inspire a love of literature. A special thanks goes to our librarian, Sally Judd, for her wonderful organisation of the day, as well as the delicious morning tea and lunch which she baked and provided to staff. Her passion for books and reading shines through in everything she does, and we are so lucky to have her leading the way.
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 8: Physical and online environments minimise the opportunity for abuse or other kinds of harm to occur.
The aim of this standard is to identify and minimise risks to children in physical and online environments at school. This standard is important because safe physical environments play a significant role in reducing opportunities for abuse to occur.
Our aim is to prioritise this standard for child safety in what we say and do:
- Leaders set expectations about behavioural standards for staff interacting with children in physical and online environments. Our Code of Conduct sets clear behavioural expectations about adult interactions with children.
- Risk assessment and management plans identify risks to child safety in physical and online environments, and how these will be managed.
- Physical environments are considered. We increase natural lines of sight while respecting a child’s right to privacy.
- Children are provided with information about online safety and regularly encouraged to tell staff about negative experiences.
- Staff and parents are provided with information about risks in the online environment.
Indicators of success for this standard include:
- Opportunities to harm children are reduced or removed.
- Children engage in creative and safe activities.
- Children speak up about risks in the online environment.
- Children’s privacy is balanced with the need to keep them safe.
If we are addressing this standard successfully, we would expect our children to say:
- I know there are some areas in the school that I am not allowed to enter.
- I can talk to someone I trust about anything I have seen or done online.
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).
Friendology
St Matthew’s is proud to be a URSTRONG school. URSTRONG provides a friendship skills curriculum, Friendology 101, that helps our students to establish and maintain healthy relationships, manage conflict with kindness, and increase their overall resilience. One of the first foundational concepts in the friendship skills curriculum teaches our students about the 4 Friendship Facts.
When we know what to expect in our friendships, it’s much easier to understand and accept the ups and downs.
The 4 Friendship Facts were developed because it was noticed that children weren’t sure what was “normal” or common in their friendships. These 4 Friendship Facts are the foundation of a healthy, respectful friendship and apply to relationships throughout life:
- No friendship (relationship) is perfect.
- Every friendship is different.
- Trust and respect are the two most important qualities of a friendship.
- Friendships change…and that’s ok.
Do you often find yourself at a loss for advice when your children come to you with their friendship issues? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. You can join URSTRONG for free and support our school by sharing the same messages and teaching the same skills that we teach here at St Matthew’s. URSTRONG offers simple yet meaningful language and skills to facilitate open dialogue with your children. You can join URSTRONG for free: https://urstrong.com/
School Fees
Just a reminder that your Term 3 2025 School Fees are now overdue unless payment is being made by regular instalments.
Please contact the front office if you haven’t received your fees or have any questions. Thank you for your attention to this.
Goodwill and Respectful Communication at School
At our school, we know that the way we speak and listen to one another shapes the kind of community our children experience. Goodwill means approaching others with kindness and generosity of spirit, even when we see things differently. Respectful and caring communication helps ensure that every interaction builds trust and strengthens relationships.
A helpful mindset for us all is to assume positive intent—to remember that teachers, staff, and parents are working together with the same purpose: the wellbeing and education of our students. When we begin conversations with this shared goal in mind, it allows us to listen more openly, respond more thoughtfully, and resolve challenges in ways that benefit our children.
Some ways that all adults in our community can model goodwill and respect in everyday school life include:
- Greeting each other warmly.
- Pausing to listen before responding if a concern arises.
- Asking questions kindly, with the assumption that we are all acting in students’ best interests.
- Using calm, positive language—even when discussing something difficult.
By nurturing goodwill and respectful communication, we create a school environment where students feel supported, families feel heard, and staff are able to do their best work. Together, we are building the kind of caring community we want our young people to grow up in.
Thank you
Thank you for the many congratulations and kind wishes I’ve received following the announcement of my appointment as Principal of Rosary Primary School, Watson, from 2026. While I am very excited to begin this new adventure, I am so proud and deeply grateful to have been part of the St Matthew’s Primary School story—it has truly been a privilege.
God bless our community.
Mrs Petra Cole
Assistant Principal