STA News 4.4 - 4 November 2025

Principals Message

Dear St Thomas Aquinas community, 

Congratulations and thank you to Ms Sally Wong, our Chinese Language teacher, who organised the Chinese Culture Expo for our students last Friday. It was an amazing day where students participated in:

• making and eating dumplings
• tasting tea
• crafting a wall hanging
• practising calligraphy
• wearing traditional clothing
• practising Tai Chi

Ms Wong had organised volunteers from the Federation of Chinese Community of Canberra to come along and lead all of the activities. We had over 30 volunteers who loved helping all of the students throughout the day and then performed some traditional dancing and singing at our afternoon assembly, when our ELC friends joined us.

Thank you Ms Wong, and our friends at the Federation of Chinese Community of Canberra for making the day so very special. We look forward to next year's celebration!

Ian Luscombe on Supporting Positive Children's Behaviour

Ian has been a behaviour consultant at St Thomas Aquinas for a number of years. We ask him to visit every term to observe and feed back to where our expectations and systems for supporting positive student behaviour and engagement are working well or need some adjustment.

This evening Ian has been invited by the SCC to present to parents. Thank you to the SCC for hosting this opportunity for our community.

I encourage parents to consider attending. He provides very practical advice.

Arts Teacher

I am pleased to inform the community of the appointment of Ms Michelle Calipari as our new Arts teacher from 2026. Ms Calipari is a very experienced teacher who has also taught the Arts in other Canberra schools. Ms Calipari is excited to join us and to share her passion for the Arts, developing students skills in this area. Ms Calipari will continue on the excellent Arts program we have come to enjoy at St Thomas Aquinas. Again, we wish Ms Naomi Wicks the very best in her move to secondary teaching at Merici College from 2026.

Requests for Consideration for Classes in 2026

Thank you to those families who have emailed me their requests for considerations in completing class allocations for students in 2026. They have been helpful and we'll do our best to accommodate these. We'll be in touch should this not be the case.

A couple of requests have been for classes where there is no change of teachers through the year.

While I would love to provide certainty around this, unfortunately, we cannot realistically guarantee this. Teachers will sometimes change due to personal circumstances. Like all of us there will be times when this change is unplanned. Sometimes there are happy reasons, such as becoming pregnant or when a partner gets a new job interstate, and sometimes there are unfortunate reasons, such as experiencing a crisis or a loved one becoming significantly ill. These are normal, very occasional human experiences that can happen unexpectedly to anyone throughout the year.

What I can assure families is that I always ask staff to inform me of planned leave or changes for the coming year. Staff will do their best to let me know of these changes and we keep these in mind when matching teachers to classes each year.

When an unplanned change comes along we do our very best to minimise the impact of this on student learning with the staff that we have available to us. In the current climate of a teacher shortage that can be difficult. We always work hard to make it happen.

Request for consideration closes this Friday. Please see the details around the requests further along in our Newsletter today.

School Engagement Survey

Help us be the best school we can! A new annual School Engagement Survey is launching mid-November across all of our Catholic schools, and you will have the opportunity to reflect on your experiences at St Thomas Aquinas Primary School as a parent or guardian and provide feedback.

Your feedback will be valuable to help us understand how to better support your child and improve our school.

The new survey has been developed with the support of JWS Research. It will take around 10-15 minutes to complete, and your responses will be kept completely confidential and only reported at an aggregate level.

You can expect the 2025 School Engagement Survey to be distributed through Compass as a News Item and push notification in the coming days! If you have any issues accessing the survey link, please contact the Catholic Education Office through Strategy.Survey@cg.catholic.edu.au

Have a wonderful week ahead.

Matthew Garton

Principal

Are you leaving STA?

What's Happening at STA

Chinese Expo Day

Free Event - Ian Luscombe TONIGHT

Please come along to this wonderful free event! We are privileged to have Behavioural expert, Ian Luscombe join us to share his knowledge, tips and answer all those trick questions. Don't miss out! 

STA Staying Safe and Sound

Through our weekly newsletters we will be providing information from a variety of sources recommended by Australian Government, ACT Government, CECG & nationally recognised groups and institutions to build healthy relationships and safe learning environments for our students. We hope to provide families with information that allows opportunities for conversations at home

E-Safety

At St Thomas Aquinas we are continually teaching our students about digital and online safety to help them become knowledgeable digital citizens. Each week we will be posting online safety tips to help parents and families build knowledge and open discussion with your children at home.

Class Allocations 2026

Any requests for consideration received after Friday 7 November 2025 will not be considered

During this term, we will be finalising our staffing arrangements for 2026. Below is a list of the Class Allocation Principles we apply to ensure there is a fair and just process in allocating students to classes for the next school year.

First and foremost, teachers are in the best position to decide a child’s placement because they know the learning needs, supports and engagement patterns of the students they teach all day, every day. They know individuals as well as the whole year level.

Parents are invited to inform Mr Garton of anything that you feel needs to be considered, for your own child’s well-being or development.

Class Allocation Principles

When forming the class lists the following factors are taken into consideration:

• Gender
• Complex or unique needs
• Work habits
• Friendships
• Behaviour
• Health considerations
• Religion (to assist in achieving balance between classes, especially in Sacramental years) and
• Common names

Ideally, we aim for an equal spread of characteristics within classes. Where practical, parental requests based on educational concerns may be considered. Requests for specific teachers will not be considered.

At St Thomas Aquinas, we follow these principles when considering placement of students each year:

• Every care will be taken to ensure that each child is placed in the best situation to enhance their learning and social development.
  
  
• Parents who wish to raise issues for consideration regarding the placement of their children in particular classes for the following year, should put the issue in writing and email it to our Principal by Friday 7 November. These will be treated confidentially. Parents cannot assume that requests from previous years will be taken into account. A new request will need to be made every year.
  
  
• Parent requests will be considered during the process. It must be clearly understood, however, that no definite guarantees can be given.
  
  
• Where appropriate, advice will be sought from the Classroom Support Assistant and School Counsellor during this process.
  
  
• Considering all the factors listed above, the current Class Teachers compile class lists from mid Term 4. These are then handed to Mr Garton to confirm.
  
  
• Children will be informed of their class placement for the following school year in December (usually the last week of school) and the opportunity will be provided for them to spend some time with their new class teacher. New students to the school for the following year are invited to attend.
  
  
• Throughout this process, after appropriate consultation, the Principal reserves the right to make final decisions regarding the placement of children.

First Nations Families News

Awards

Happy Birthday!

Class Party - 3 Blue

Class News - 4 Green

Sacraments 2026

Is your student in Year 2 - Year 5 are interested in making a Sacrament in 2026? Please register your interest by clicking below to attend the upcoming Information Session. 

Parish News

Fete News - Sponsorship

SCC News - Healthy Lunch Ideas

Congratulations!