Head of Primary P-4 Del Monte

Wow what a big year it has been! I am so very excited about 2023. We have some fabulous initiatives and experiences planned already for the children.  Next year is going to be amazing! First, let’s reflect on 2022.

This year, on the Primary campus, we chose the theme of Joy. Joy in our learning, joy in our relationships, joy in the service of others, joy in our experiences, joy in community events. 

First and foremost, the opportunity to work with the Primary students brings me joy each and every day. When I am asked if I have children, and I get asked this question often, I happily reply, ‘Yes I sure do, I have 350 of them!’

My dream for each and every one of them is to ensure that they come to know and love Jesus and have the opportunity to reach their full potential, flourish, and contribute positively to society and our world.

On the Primary campus, we aim to provide our students with hands-on, purposeful, real-world approaches to their learning with an ever-increasing variety of opportunities to allow them to find what sparks joy for them! This has led to the expansion of our curriculum including our co-curricular program. We are excited that we now offer digital tech and Italian to all students on the campus including Prep.

Our Music Program here at Santa Sabina is something that we are rightly very proud of. This year they have performed at the Sydney Town Hall at the Gala concert, The Conservatorium, and most recently at the Carols evening which fills us with so much joy.

This year we increased the co-curricular activities for the students to be involved in before, during, and after school. These offerings have given our students the opportunity to engage in a range of activities some of these include music tuition, basketball, dance, young engineers, speech, and drama, motiv8te sports, Mandarin, chess, and even crystal growing just to name a few… *not to mention, it has the added bonus of limiting parents time in Sydney’s traffic.

This brings me to joy in the service of others, this calls on the wise words of Gandhi:

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

I am passionate that the children reach out to others in service as I believe that education is about the development of the whole child not just academically but socially, emotionally, and spiritually. Most importantly, they love and care for others. 

At Santa Sabina College, one of our Dominican Pillars is service. St Mary MacKillop, Australia’s Patron Saint, called on us ‘to never see a need without doing something about it’.  This can be in gestures both great and small. 

On the Primary Campus, we also took up St Mary MacKillop’s call to help another Catholic community. We reached out in service to assist St Joseph’s at Woodburn, which is in the Lismore diocese. St Joseph’s was devastated by floods this year and, tragically, lost its beautiful school. In addition to losing their school, half of the school families also lost their homes, businesses, and everything they owned. 

It is important that students are able to use real-life experiences to learn and inquire. Our Year 1 class used the St Joseph’s service initiative as inspiration for their entry into the Mathematical Association of New South Wales Incorporated (MANSW) competition. Impressively, they were awarded first place in both the NSW competition and the National Competition. Our Year 3 class also were awarded Highly Commended in the NSW competition.

This year we had a strong focus on Literacy as we commenced implementing the new English K-2 Syllabus. Literacy skills in the early years are essential foundations for later success at school. 

We introduced the IntialLit reading program in Kindergarten and Year 1 – an evidenced-based program supported by over 20 years of research on how students best learn literacy skills. We already have seen great gains in our reading results this year and we will expand the program in 2023.  

Thank you again to the many parents who helped us cover countless resources (over 1000 to be exact)! We couldn’t have been able to commence this initiative so quickly without your support.

This strong, explicit literacy and numeracy focus will be coupled with a continued focus on building curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking fostered with a global perspective through inquiry learning which we hold dear on the campus. The combination of explicit numeracy and literacy teaching with our already instilled inquiry approach will ensure that our students are learners who are problem-solvers and critical thinkers who inquire about their world. Some might say we will have the best of both worlds. 

There has been much joy this year with the reintroduction of our Parent Helper Programs and P&F events. We are so grateful for the time, commitment, and support shown by these volunteers to support our students. Thank you to our parents for entrusting your beautiful children to us.

I would like to acknowledge and thank our College Principal Ms Skerman for her leadership and guidance this year. Her vision for the College is based on providing an education that is tailored to suit every single child’s individual needs and offering a holistic environment with academic excellence at its core.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of our teachers and staff for their tireless commitment to ensuring our students have the most relevant and engaging learning experiences. 

I wish all in our community the joy and blessings of the Christmas season. May we take this break to recharge and remind ourselves of our blessings and how lucky we are. I know I will be reflecting on the privilege that it is to be the Head of the Primary at Santa Sabina and be blessed to work with our gorgeous children. 

With this in mind, I will conclude with some words from Dr Suess that remind us to be joyous, and thankful because we are lucky. So in the words of Dr. Suess…

Just tell yourself, Duckie, you’re really quite lucky!

Joanne Giannini
Head of Primary P-4