All communication between members of the St Columba Anglican School community, including staff, parents, carers and students, should reflect the School's values. The School encourages parents to be actively involved in their children's education and generally believes that involvement enhances student learning. For this reason, the School places great emphasis on the establishment and maintenance of effective channels of communication with parents. Our procedures will be characterised by fairness, mutual respect and a spirit of cooperation in resolving issues and concerns. For more information on parent communication, view these guidelines. You may also like to view our Grievance Policy.
Parents/caregivers may contact the School by email. Please note that, due to commitments such as sport and excursions both within and outside the school, staff may not have an opportunity to read emails each day and therefore may not be able to reply to them on the day they are sent. Although School staff will attempt to respond within twenty-four hours, your patience is valued greatly. Email should be used for routine correspondence (such as enquiries or establishing a time for an interview). Email is not always the most appropriate medium for discussing complicated or emotionally-charged issues; please set up a time for an interview with the appropriate teacher in such cases through our general contact email.
During the year, the School will send emails to parents regarding important matters, such as changes to routines, advising of student awards, and the weekly newsletter, the SCAS Express. Some parents have found that these emails have gone to their junk mail folder due to the spam filter settings on their personal email accounts. It may be worthwhile checking these folders and ensuring that emails received from St Columba Anglican School are marked as safe to avoid this happening.
In balancing the rights and obligations arising under the Education Act 1990 with those arising under the Family Law Act 1975, the school is unable to involve itself in any family matters. Where natural parents are not living together, both parents will receive all communication from the School (regardless of financial responsibility) unless the School is furnished with court orders that specify otherwise.
The School welcomes enquiries from parents/caregivers at any time. A formal Parent/Teacher Information Evening is held in the first weeks of Term 1. Interviews are arranged during Term 1 and Term 3 and at other times as requested.
The School may also request interviews if problems exist that hinder a student’s progress or where the student’s conduct warrants a parent conference.
To meet with your child’s class teacher or any other staff member, please get in touch with the Front Office or email us and request an appointment. A member of staff will contact you to arrange a time. It is not appropriate to interrupt a teacher at 8.50am or 3.20pm when they are settling or dismissing the class.
Our Parent Portal provides a variety of information, including students' timetables, medical and attendance records, assessment task notifications, events, and academic reports. The Parent Portal is also used to give permission for excursions, verify absences and access your fee account. The School Calendar contains venue details, time and other information on events and excursions. Information notes pertaining to events and excursions are often attached to the event detail page for more detailed information.
In the Secondary School, Pastoral Care entries assigned to students for issues such as uniform infractions, homework non-compliance and the like, will be visible to parents on the Parent Portal. This is designed to keep parents informed about student behaviour and school expectations.
Initial access to the Parent Portal is provided by email. Parents are asked to treat their password and access as they would a credit card PIN number. For further details on how to navigate and utilise its features effectively, please refer to our Parent Portal page.
A School Diary is provided for all students in Kindergarten to Year 6. Students must bring their diaries to and from school each day. Parents are encouraged to sign the diary each day in Primary. Some of the uses of the diary include: management of after-school activities, changes to routine, recording of homework, information for a staff member or parent that is not urgent, organisational matters, or to communicate minor incidents or positive affirmation of student behaviour.
SEQTA Learn is an individualised portal that provides students in Years 7 to 12 with information about their timetable, subjects and the assigned work for their classes. It also provides students with an eDiary and eCalendar that automatically lists classes and tasks that staff have assigned, along with each student’s activities, excursions and sports.
Students in Years 7 to 12 are encouraged to use SEQTA Learn for their timetable and other academic and co-curricular management. However, Secondary School students may purchase their own paper diary to record homework and assist with their own personal organisation. School ethical guidelines about appropriate written and pictorial content apply. Parents may find it more convenient to use the diary as a means to send written notes, such as permission to leave school for appointments and so on.
It is important that the School maintains accurate student data. The School must be notified immediately of any changes of address, phone numbers, emails or emergency contacts. Updating your details can be done through the Parent Portal. For detailed instructions on how to complete this process, please view this helpful video.
A new School Travel Pass may also be required when students move to a new address. Please contact Transport for NSW on 131 500 or visit their website.
Changes to Going Home Arrangements and Appointments
To ensure the least possible disruption to classes, we ask that parents inform students before they arrive at school of any changes to transport or afternoon pick-up arrangements. If your child has an appointment during the day please put a note in their diary (Kindergarten to Year 6), write a handwritten note for the teacher, or email Absence with the details. This will allow your child to leave class at the appropriate time and make their way to the Front Office to meet you.
The Front Office often receives phone calls late in the school day requesting office staff to convey messages to students regarding changes to going home arrangements. Our staff are very happy to convey messages to students, but it is important to note that students are often on Sport or other out-of-class activities, and we cannot always guarantee that messages received late in the afternoon are able to be delivered in time. Wherever possible please let your child know before school of their end-of-day arrangements. We understand that there are times when an emergency arises and changes to arrangements need to be passed on, and we will always try our best to ensure that this happens.
If you have a message you require to be passed on to your child, please telephone the Front Office on 6581 4188 to be connected with the Primary or Secondary Office. Please do not leave voicemail messages for going-home arrangements or messages that require urgent attention on the Primary or Secondary telephone extension if there is no answer. For Secondary students, there is also the option of emailing them at their school email address, which is the student name hyphenated (i.e. john-smith@scas.nsw.edu.au). Students are reminded to check their email accounts regularly.
We would prefer that you do not contact your child during the day via their technological devices, but rather leave a message via the School Front Office.
Forgotten Items
It is every student's responsibility to bring to school their classroom supplies, homework, sports clothes, lunch or lunch money, and anything else they need at school, and it is important for students to learn to handle this responsibility. If your child forgets items, we encourage you to allow them to learn from the experience. If parents do bring in items for collection by students, please understand that although we will try our best, with almost 1200 students on site it is sometimes difficult to get messages to students to remind them to collect items.
The SCAS Express is an electronic information publication that is emailed to families each Friday during term time.
The School has Facebook and Instagram. There is also the SCAS Exchange, a Facebook page available for families to buy and sell secondhand uniforms, textbooks and other school equipment.
St Columba Anglican School is committed to the delivery of excellence, and we really do value your feedback and any comments you may have to help us improve.
To share your thoughts and comments, please complete our Feedback Form. You can use this form to give us your suggestions, complaints or compliments. We would prefer to be able to contact you and discuss any feedback, so please leave your contact details when completing the form. If you would prefer to remain anonymous, you can still complete the form, but omit the contact details section.
If you experience any problems completing this form or need to contact the School more urgently, please call (02) 6581 4188 or email us.
