Thursday 8th October 2025 

Gospel of the Week

Luke 17:11-19

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke

It seems that no one has returned to give thanks to God except this foreigner.

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one of the villages, ten lepers came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, ‘Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.’ When he saw them, he said, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ Now as they were going away they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This made Jesus say, ‘Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.’ And he said to the man, ‘Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.’

Dear Parents, Carers and Guardians,

This week in the Gospel, Luke recounts how Jesus healed ten men with leprosy on his journey to Jerusalem, but only one, a Samaritan, returned to thank God and fall at Jesus' feet, prompting Jesus to remark on the absence of the other nine and declare the Samaritan's faith had made him well.

The Gospel gives us a clear lesson is that Jesus expects us to show gratitude. In the account of the Thankful Leper, Jesus is clearly angry at the unthankfulness of the nine lepers who didn't return. We must train ourselves to show thanks, to give thanks, to be filled with thanksgiving.

God's mercy is for all. These were ten lepers living in rejection because of their disease yet God had mercy on them. We are unclean too; our sins are like leprosy, eating away at our soul. Come to Jesus and accept His mercy and grace.

Welcome back to Term 4. It is with great anticipation that we always begin this term.

On Tuesday, we welcomed for the first time, our new Foundation students for 2026. It was such a wonderful occasion to see the newest members of our St Patrick’s community arrive with their parents. I held a parent Information session which was very well attended by both first-time parents and parents who are seeing their second, third and in one case, their 4^th child reach this milestone.

There will be another 4 transition sessions this year with the final one being on the 4^th December and I will be running the parent information session again next week.

This term we have many things to look forward to. Year 6 school camp, Year 6 Graduation, the Christmas concert, swimming for our junior school and much more. How lucky are the students of today who are afforded all these opportunities and that have the dedicated teachers by their side.

As no doubt you have seen, we have moved our junior school out of the E building in preparation for the refurbishment to begin. The work will begin in the next couple of weeks so there will be some adjustments as to where students and parents can move around the school.

We ask for your patience during this time.

Take care and God Bless,

Meg

On Wednesday 10th September, our Year 2 students had a wonderful day at Rippon Lea Estate. Students experienced what it was like to live in the olden days. They saw how people dressed, how people lived and the types of fun games children played.

This week the Scholastic brochures will be handed out in class. All orders are made online via Book Club LOOP. Please follow the link below to make your purchase.

All purchases must be made before Friday 24th October 2025

Building project

This will begin in Term 4 and the students in Block will be moved into different rooms for the final term. See below for the list of the new rooms your child will be in:

• FGW in D10
• FKG in D9
• Visual Arts into A5
• 1AF into A4 (Visual Arts room), 
• 1NC into A3 (Italian room). Italian will occur but it will happen in the student’s classrooms
• 2WJ into D6
• 2JM in D8
• Performing Arts into D3 (next to the uniform shop)
• Wellbeing room in D7

Please do not hesitate to ask any staff around the school if you are not sure of where your child/ren are located.

Student Toilets-IMPORTANT

Please remember that under no circumstances are parents, carers or guardians allowed to use the student toilets. If this is happening, you will be approached by a member of staff and asked to leave. If you need to use the toilet, please come to the office. We cannot have adults in the toilet facilities with our children. This is a SERIOUS BREACH of child safety. Thank you for your co-operation.

The Avenue carpark

As you will have noticed, this has now undergone a major change. The whole carpark is one way only and all angle parking, which means there is NO REVERSE PARKING as well as a crossing from the carpark to the school that all families must use. Thank you to all the parents who have been respectful in understanding when staff have had to speak to them to ensure they are doing the right thing. This change has come about to keep our students, your children safe at ALL times.

There will also be a clear NO CROSSING zone as well which must be obeyed at all times. Please ensure that you continue to follow the rules in the carpark. Thank you.

School Uniform

Just a reminder about our school uniform and the expectations that all students will adhere to this. Please note that grey tracksuit pants are not an acceptable solution for our grey pants. This is certainly not accepted in Secondary Schools.

Future Enrolments

This term, once again, we have had multiple inquiries for school tours, in particular for 2026.

With this in mind, can I please ask for any existing families who have younger siblings coming to St Patrick’s in the next few years, to please make sure they fill in their enrolment forms early as possible. St Patrick’s is looking to manage a high demand of places within the school community and places may become limited.

If your child will NOT be returning to St Patrick’s in 2026, you must also let the office know.

Thank you.

St Francis Xavier College, Officer school tours

If you are looking to enrol your child into St Francis Xavier, Officer, please note these important dates in your calendar.

Officer Campus Talk & Tour – 09.30am – 10.45am 

Tuesday 14 October

Wednesday 12 November

Year 7 2026 Enrolment Interviews

Wednesday 29 October

Year 7 2026 Transition Day – Monday

Monday 8^th December all day

Dates for your diary-

2025 PUPIL FREE DAYS-

Friday 31st October 2025

TIME IN LIEU (TIL)

St Patrick’s will also be closed for 3 Time in Lieu days (TIL) ensure that we can manage our commitment for all staff to continue to provide activities such as school camps for our students.
Please note, these dates are separate from our 8 Pupil Free Days. Those 8 days are for our staff

professional development which will focus on Religious Education, Learning and Teaching and Student Wellbeing.

TIME IN LIEU Dates - St Patrick’s will be closed.  

Monday 22nd August 2025

Monday 3rd November 2025

Friday 19th December 2025

Year Level Camp/ Fun Day Dates:

TERM DATES 2025

2025 PUPIL FREE AND TIME IN LIEU DAYS:

The 3 Time in Lieu days ensure that we can manage our commitment for all staff to continue to provide activities such as school camps for our students.
Please note, these dates are separate from our 8 Staff Professional Development days. Those 8 days are for our staff professional learning which will focus on Religious Education, Learning and Teaching and Student Wellbeing.

We use PAM as our main form of communication.  All emails, Student Attendance, Sick Bay notes, School Reports, commonly used forms, excursion/camp permission notes and Family Learning conversations, will all be communicated via PAM.  

Access PAM via this link   Link to PAM 

PAM - Parent Access Module

PAM (Parent Access Module) is our Parent to School communication platform.   PAM will provide real time access to keep parents updated with their children’s progress, important dates and messages. Relevant resources – calendar events, student reports, parent notified absences, absence data and sick bay notes will all be accessed via PAM.

Parents will be able to easily book Parent Teacher interviews through PAM, and access teacher email addresses. 

PAM accounts are linked via your email address that we have in our systems. 

If you have recently changed your email,  please call or email us on office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

Click on the 'forget password' link to set your password and then verify your email address.  (Email addresses must be verified for PAM to work properly).  Once your email is verified, your email can be used as the username for your account.

Once you have successfully logged in, you can save PAM to your homescreen on your device.

If you have any issues or need help with PAM please contact the school via email, office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

PAM Instructions

Parent Notified Absences via PAM

Once you have PAM set up and saved to your home screen you can easily send in Parent Notified absences.   Please use this platform going forward as this automatically syncs with the class roll.   This will fix the issues of receiving SMS notifications even though you had already notified the school. 

Please remember to update your Contact Details, Media Consent Details and any relevant Medical Details for your child if they change.  

Most medical profiles have now been updated. Please remember to keep them up to date and upload any asthma/allergy plans that may be relevant.

To update any contact details please contact the school office. 

SiMON Everywhere is an app our school uses to acces PAM and CDF Pay. We will be sending reminders through this app, as such please download and sign in. There is a guide below for your reference. If you are having any issues please contact Megan McMenamin in the school office mmcmenamin@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

School Fee Statements have been emailed out to most families.   Please check your junk/spam folder if you haven't received it.   As in previous years, all Fees are charged at the start of the year with the expectation that they will be paid by the end of the school year.   This can be done as one payment or instalments, via Direct Debit, Bpay, EFTPOS or cash.   You can find Direct Debit forms in the Knowledge bank section of PAM, or ask at the school office.   If paying by BPay please use the code on your statement to ensure the payment comes off your fees.   

2025 SCHOOL SAVINGS BONUS (SSB)

The School Savings Bonus is a State Government initiative designed to assist
families with cost-of-living pressures. Under this funding, each eligible student is
entitled to a $400 bonus for application towards activity levies and uniform purchases
from approved supplier. Within our school, all CSEF applicants are eligible to receive
this funding. All families who have a Centrelink Health Care Card and have not
applied for CSEF in the past are encouraged to contact the school office and initiate
an application this year. Please refer to the below link for more information:

https://www.vic.gov.au/receiving-school-saving-bonus#non-government-school-
information

Health Care Card and School Savings Bonus

For those families who have an eligible Health Care Card your fees are still being processed with the concession rate to be applied.   If you haven't filled in a CSEF (Camps, Sports, Excursion Funding) form please download the attached form or pick one up from the school office.   This needs to be done as soon as possible so we can receive the funding and apply your concession.   This year it will also affect the allocation of the School Saving Bonus ($400) that the government announced last year.   So the sooner these forms are in the better. 

First Holy Communion

“This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Lk. 22:19

 "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,”

Mark 14:22-25

Key Dates

Bookings for your preferred time and link will be shared in the coming weeks.

St Patrick’s Primary School will now use a NEW form of CDFpay that is different to the one that we have used in the past. The NEW CDFpay is powered by Flexischools and is an App based system. This is a way of collecting money for any Fundraising, Events and paying for school lunchtime treats like Popcorn for your students. 

Parents and Guardians will need to download the App and register. Instructions on how to register are as follows:

How to register for a CDFpay account

1.    Search ‘CDFpay’ on the App Store (Apple) or Google Play store, download the app, then click ‘Sign up now’ or enter the following link in your web browser:

Look for this App Logo and Download

2.    Enter and confirm your email address, then click ‘Sign up’.

3.    Check your email inbox and follow the prompts to complete your account registration (check junk/spam if lost).

Have questions? Visit https://flexischools.zendesk.com/hc/en-au/ for detailed FAQs or chat to the Flexischools Digital Assistant. If you cannot find what you are looking for, please complete the online Contact Form and Flexischools will get back to you directly. 

When you are set up on the App. you will be able to select the Event, Fundraiser or item to purchase for your student. The school will be notified when the payment is made. 

School Fees will continued to be paid via the Direct Debit arrangement, BPay or via Card in the school office.