Dear Parents and Carers,
Recently, I attended a Leader’s Retreat over a 3-day period. The essence of this reflective time was about ecological spirituality. We were able to focus on one particular Saint and her visionary approach way back in the 12th century. St Hildegard of Bingen was an activist, writer, poet, composer and philosopher and someone who influenced thousands throughout her life, she was even considered by many as the founder of scientific natural history. She developed four rules to live by which are still relevant today:- 1. See possibilities – live with hope and bring love to the world. 2. Be generative – do a good deed, be productive in life. 3. Be interconnected – make decisions that brings togetherness and look for the common good. 4. Be fruitful – come alive and be filled with the holy spirit. I found the retreat very inspiring and a time of great personal reflection, a time for being thankful and an opportunity for spiritual growth. In these challenging times it certainly made me feel blessed to be able to serve this wonderful school community and be witness to the educational and spiritual growth of all our students as they experience the love of God through our wonderful staff, their friends and most importantly through their families.
Confirmation
Many of our Year 4 and 5 students recently celebrated the sacrament of Confirmation with family and friends in our Church. This sacrament of initiation, like Baptism, provides the students with the opportunity to confirm their baptismal promises and bring them deeper into communion with the church. It was special to witness this ceremony last week and I would like to congratulate all our candidates, thank their sponsors and families as well as thanking Fr Roy and Ms McCard and all the leaders who assisted in the preparation of this sacrament. The students will now complete the final initiation sacrament of First Eucharist over the next few weeks.
Uniforms and Hats
Already we can feel the weather beginning to change. As the days are getting longer and we see the warmer spring days appearing, we start to spend a greater amount of time outdoors.
It is a timely reminder to our school community about the wearing of the school hat. Our school uses the UV rating for the day to determine whether students need to wear a hat during Term 3. The UV is available to families on our website and provides the current UV as well as the maximum for the day. Students will need to keep their washed hat in their bag as we work through Term 3, until hats are compulsory in Term 4.
Students can start wearing their formal summer uniform from the last two weeks of Term 3 as we change seasons. The last two weeks of Term 3 and first two weeks of Term 4 is a period where students can transition from winter uniform to summer. Thank you for your support.
Book Week
Each year we look forward to celebrating book week. This year the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) celebrated its 75th year of book awards. This is certainly a remarkable achievement as they have been a big part of school life and an important way to promote books and reading for all children.
It goes without saying how popular the parade is for everyone, it is a real highlight of the week. Thank you to all families for your support as we understand how difficult it was again for parents as they were not able to be with us on site. We hope the many photos and videos made available assisted you in being part of the celebration, even though it was through a screen. Thank you to all involved and who assisted in making Book Week a wonderful celebration of many stories and books that we experience in our lives.
Watch out for our up-and-coming ‘Book Fair’ which will be happening very soon. More details made available on Skoolbag and Seesaw.
Sports Day
We are preparing for our Sports Day on Thursday 23 September 2021. Please be aware that this is the last day of Term 3 and the students will be finishing early around 1pm and will be dismissed from Daly Oval for the start of the holidays. Students who require OSHC on this day, will make their way back to school and be supervised by staff until OSHC starts at 3pm. A program of events is being organised with details around all COVID measures and will be sent out to families in the next few weeks, so everyone will be aware of any restrictions.
Toys and Equipment from Home
At times throughout a school year, some students occasionally want to bring to school a special toy or piece of sporting equipment to play with or share. We encourage all students to keep their special item at home, as issues can arise if the toy or item goes missing, or gets broken. If it is something for learning or a special occasion that you wish to share during class time, please contact your child’s teacher to discuss.
Building Update
Each week we get closer to starting the two new building projects for our school. In the next few weeks, we hope to finalise our builder and establish a starting date for stage one. The bottom yard Sports Court plan is with council and we hope to have final approval soon.
You would by now have seen the banner on the front fence announcing to the wider community our plans for the top yard as well as the bottom yard. We have had many positive comments and we are beginning to make preparations for moving OSHC, the Year 6 class and Italian lessons for our school to manage the change in the top yard.
During this time of construction, we understand this will impact greatly for some families if they have been using the top yard to park and do any drop offs and pick-ups. We hope to provide details around this soon so that all families are aware of how these changes will operate. Our goal is to make this all run smoothly for our families, so everyone can arrive and depart from school in an orderly and very safe manner. Thank you in anticipation.
Kind regards
Adrian Grbin
Principal
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