Thanks for St Matthew’s Feast Day & Showcase

Thank you to Miss Sophie Murdock for coordinating our wonderful St Matthew’s Feast Day celebrations. It was a very special day that focused on walking in St Matthew's footsteps. The students participated in a pilgrimage around the school and church, learning all about St Matthew's life and how we can be more like St Matthew.

I would also like to thank Mrs Marzano, Ms Zaja and Mr Hunt for their outstanding work on the Music and Dance Showcase. What a fabulous display of our students’ talents!

Best Wishes to Miss Sophie Murdock

Our warmest congratulations and prayers go with Miss Murdock as she prepares for her wedding this weekend. Sophie, we wish you and your fiancé a lifetime filled with joy, love, and blessings. Your St Matthew’s family will be thinking of you on your special day!

School Disco — Today!

We’re ending Term 3 with a Disco for all students.

• DJ: Disco Dave (aka David Jepsen)

• Time: K-2 - 12.30pm, 3-6 - 2.00pm

• Fundraiser: School Community Council - Tickets/Donations via QKR

• Dress Code: Uniform-free day - come dressed in your favourite team colours or jersey

Thank you to our SCC for organising this event - it’s always a highlight for the students and a fantastic way to finish the term!

Save the Date — Grandparents & Grandfriends Day

Thursday, 30 October 2025

This year’s celebration will follow a new format:

• 9:30 am: Mass in the Church, followed by classroom visits 

• 11:00 am: Morning tea on the Junior Playground

• 11.45 am: Back to the 70's Concert

Parents and carers are invited to attend all or some of the Grandparents and Grandfriends Day activities, depending upon your schedule.

Parents and carers, we would love your help to make the morning tea special:

• Please send in a paper plate of food to share, either on the morning of the event or the afternoon before.

• Volunteers are needed to help set up the morning tea (9:30–11:00 am).

If you can assist, please contact Brooke in the office on 6254 2653.

School Fees

Tuckshop Ordering Changes – Starting Week 2 Term 4

From the beginning of Term 4, there will be a change to our tuckshop ordering options for students. We have found that the company associated with Flexischools has frequently delivered orders late or with missing items, which has created challenges for Mrs Town and, most importantly, resulted in some students missing their lunch.

After careful investigation, we have decided to switch to Subway for Friday lunch orders. Subway school lunches can be ordered online and include a $10 six-inch sub, drink, and cookie package, with the option to upsize to a footlong sub. The ordering process will be shared with families in Week 1 of Term 4.

Parents and carers who currently have credit with Flexischools are encouraged to request a refund prior to commencing with Subway on Friday, 24 October (Week 2).

The School Community Council is continuing to investigate whether it is financially viable to restart our own school canteen and whether we have sufficient volunteers to support this initiative.

Please note: Sushi will still be available for ordering on Tuesdays next term.

Term 4 Start Date

Term 4 begins on Tuesday, 14 October. We can’t wait to see everyone’s smiling faces as we begin the final term of the school year.

As Term 3 draws to a close, I would like to thank each of you for your contributions to our school community this term. This term has been filled with learning and opportunities to grow in faith and friendship. Highlights have included St. Matthew’s Feast Day celebrations, Book Week’s “Reading is Magic” activities, and the numerous class projects, incursions, and excursions that have enriched our students’ experiences.

I am grateful to our dedicated staff for their hard work and care, and to our parents and caregivers for the support you provide to your children and our school. Every day is a reminder of the beautiful community we share at St Matthew’s.

Please take this break as a time for rest and rejuvenation. We look forward to welcoming everyone back for an exciting Term 4.

With blessings,

Sarah Lowe
Principal

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. Every fortnight over the last two terms, I have presented one of the standards, and asked the community to reflect upon how well we’re addressing the recommendations. We welcome ideas and feedback from our families and community.

This week, we’re looking at the final standard, Standard 10: Policies and procedures document how the organisation is child safe.

The aim of this standard is to ensure that policies and procedures are championed by leaders, localised, understood by staff and clearly communicated.  This standard is important because, when implemented effectively, child safe policies and procedures provide guidance and clarity to staff volunteers, parents and children about how to prevent and respond to child safety issues. 

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

• Child Safe policies, Codes of Conduct and complaint handling procedures are publicly accessible. 
• Staff understand and implement the Child Safe policies and procedures

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 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 very normal cycle that friendships go through. To learn about this, we use the Friend-o-Cycle diagram. As Friendship Fact #1 teaches us, no friendship (or relationship) is perfect. It’s normal for us to encounter conflict with our friends. Research shows that about 85% of disputes at primary school are what we call: Friendship Fires. These are normal, low-level friendship issues like misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and disagreements.

The Friend-o-Cycle helps children see that Friendship Fires are a normal part of a friendship and, when they’re put out respectfully, they can actually make a friendship closer and stronger. 

When trust and respect are central, friendships can survive conflict and get back into the healthy zone of the Friend-o-Meter. The Talk-it-Out phase is where skills come in (and children need to practise these!) to put a Friendship Fire all the way out and move on to Forgive & Forget.

We encourage you to 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 provides simple but meaningful language and skills to open up a dialogue with your children. You can join URSTRONG for free: https://urstrong.com/.

Petra Cole

Assistant Principal ┃Child Safe Advocate┃Classroom Support Teacher

Sophie Murdock

Religious Education Coordinator

App. Checklist for Parents

Checklist
The aim of this checklist is to help you navigate the app world and give you the tools to ensure you and your family enjoy safe and positive online experiences. 

Do research 

• The eSafety Guide is a good starting point. 
• Other sources include Common Sense Media and ConnectSafely, which review the most popular apps. 
• Search for recent reviews from Google Play and Apple Store.
• Discuss the benefits and risks with family or friends who use the app. 

eSafety tip: Check whether the app can be used for content sharing, photo and video sharing, messaging and online chat, voice chat, video calling, live streaming, gaming, in-app purchasing, online relationships, location sharing and encryption. 

Check the age rating and requirements. 

• Apps usually state a minimum age for users in their terms of use, but they don’t all have verification requirements. 
• The eSafety Guide includes the stated age for many popular apps. 
• Common Sense Media makes an independent assessment of age recommendations. 
• Check the advice on the eSafety Parent page Are they old enough? 

eSafety tip: When deciding if an app is suitable for your child, think about their level of maturity and judgement as well as the age recommendation. 

Consider privacy – read the terms and conditions and ask yourself these questions: 

• What information does the app request? 
• Does the app provide privacy protections? 
• Can you restrict who sees your profile? 
• Who can find you in a search? 
• What information can people see about you? 

eSafety tip: See the eSafety page Connecting safely – Apps for more advice. 

Check the permissions and other settings – read the community guidelines and ask yourself these questions:

• What permissions does the app request?
• What information does the app collect? 
• Does the app need microphone and/or video camera access to perform its functions? 
• What are the default settings? 
• Do you need to change default settings initially and after each update? 
• Does the app allow in-app purchases?

eSafety tip: See the eSafety Parents page Taming the technology for advice on using parental control and safe browsing tools. 

Safety check 

• Can you report things in the app? (For example: online abuse, impersonator accounts, offensive or illegal content). 
• Is the in-app reporting process easy and clear? 
• Are the in-app reporting options limited, or can you report a wide range of safety concerns? 

eSafety tip: Let your child know they can come to you for help if anything makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, and they won’t be in trouble. You can help them report serious online abuse to the eSafety Commissioner. 

Mr Daniel Hunt

ICT Coordinator

Year 6 Agricultural Excursion to Crookwell

On Monday, the 22nd of September, Year 6 travelled to Crookwell by bus. Our first stop was St Mary’s Primary School, where we visited our pen pals who we had previously written to. They shared their paddock/oval with us and we versed them in soccer. After break time, we boarded the bus and left for Mrs Lowe’s farm, where we met Mr Lowe and learned about the wool industry. We were lucky enough to have a demonstration on how to shear sheep, and some students volunteered to try shearing. We later had the opportunity to pat some sheep and a few little lambs were available to hold. All the students thoroughly enjoyed the farm visit and the view into agriculture and farm life.

Written by Audrey de Haan 

Written by Stella Munoz 

On Monday, the 22nd of September, the Year Six cohort went on an excursion to St Mary’s Primary School in Crookwell and Mrs Lowe’s farm. The trip was one and a half hours by bus. When we arrived in Crookwell, we were greeted by Mrs Lowe, who brought us to the St Mary’s school hall. We got to meet our pen pals who we had recently written to by letter. St Mary’s school had fewer students than St Matthew’s, so our pen pals got to meet three St Matthew’s students. After we met our pen pals, it was recess time. During recess, we went to play on the paddock, which is their oval, and separate from the school. We had to cross the road, which thankfully wasn't busy. When recess ended, we all headed back to the bus to take a short trip to Mrs Lowe’s farm. When we arrived at the farm we walked inside a shearing shed which is where farmers shear their sheep. Soon after, we got to feel some wool which was conveniently laid out on a large table. Then we watched Mr Lowe shear a sheep. 

Afterwards, we went outside to see lots more sheep, and we even got the chance to hold a baby lamb. The lamb that I held was only three months old. There were other sheep in the paddocks, and also lots of cows. About halfway through the visit, we took a cohort photo on a large dead tree. At lunch time we ate our food on a comfy field of grass and then we all had a run around and after, it was time to go. 

Written by Nathaniel Donaldson 

CEO Sleepout: A big thank you to the St Matthew’s community!

Thank you to everyone who donated to this year’s Vinnie’s CEO Sleepout! With your help, I raised $6195 to provide food, shelter and support programs to Australians in need.

I expected the Vinnies CEO Sleepout to be cold, and Canberra delivered with its coldest June night in nearly 40 years.
What I didn’t expect was the discomfort of sleeping rough.
Nothing prepares you for sleeping on cold, hard concrete.
The pain in your hips and legs from having nothing soft underneath you.
The tossing and turning as you try (and fail) to get comfortable. Or the beanie that won’t stay on, and the cold biting at your face.
At best, you get a few hours of broken sleep. Mostly, you’re counting down the hours until it’s morning.

For 122,000 Australians, this is their reality every night, made worse by the fear of staying safe. There is much work to be done, but together we have raised awareness and funds for Canberrans in need.

Thank you again for your generosity and support.

Many thanks,
Sharelle (Joshua’s Mum, Kindy)

Holiday Science Workshop

Daramalan Basketball Training Camp

Ginninderra Cricket Club

Team Kids

TeamKids have another amazing SPRING Holiday program planned!

• Learn new skills and make new friends
• Qualified and REMARKABLE Educators
• Digital detox with our no screens policy
• Delicious and nutritious morning and afternoon snacks
• CCS-approved care

Click the link below to check out St Matthew's Primary's program + secure your spot today! https://downloads.teamkids.com.au/st-mathews-primary.pdf

Rights in ACTion

Rights in ACTion September 2025