AMADEUS REMINDER

Years 3-6 don't forget to bring your instrument to school tomorrow.     

RAT tests - final supplies will be sent home this week

Dear Parents and carers, 

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent  - a time for prayer, almsgiving and fasting. The Year 3 - 6 children joined Father Phil in the church and on Zoom for our Ash Wednesday Mass and received their ashes and the Kinder to Year 2 held a liturgy led by Year 2 in the hall. With all the challenges we face at the moment it was so nice to have the children pray and reflect together in the church, in the hall and in their classrooms.

Thank you to the P and F who held a new parents and Kinder parents welcome drinks last Friday evening. Thank you to all of the parents in attendance. It was lovely to meet you. Our leadership team and Kinder teachers as well as Mr de Villiers and Miss Conroy helped to make the evening a huge success. Thank you to the P and F Secretary Steph Bailey and Treasurer Stewart Old who organised and spoke at the event. Thank you to Jacqui Haydon and Cathy Davis, (pictured below) our pastoral care team, who regularly touch base with our new parents to help them settle in. A final thank you to the wonderful Class Parents who support our new parents and students.

ROAD SAFETY AROUND THE SCHOOL

We continue to receive many complaints from our neighbours who find that not only is it very difficult to navigate around the school and roundabout because of our carline that they are sometimes treated in a hostile manner by our families or their representatives. I would ask everyone to please obey the road rules and parking rules around the school for the safety of our children. It is very hard to defend our parents' actions when I  hear from our neighbours and even visiting lecturers to our school that they have been beeped at and spoken to rudely while trying to get into the school or past the roundabout. If parents are frustrated or late please don't use carline but use the walking pickup which manages to get over 100 children to their parents by 3.05. Thursday is taking much longer because of the children’s musical instruments so it would be a good day to arrive at carline after 3.15pm or to walk. The guides for carline are in our online parent handbook here. (Password SHM2020).

Feedback for Goal Setting Meetings

Goal setting meetings are being held this week. These meetings are for teachers to share goals with parents. As this is a new initiative we have encouraged teachers to be innovative and come up with different ways of constructing the goals. Some have co constructed them with parents, some have had students co construct them and attend the meetings and some are teacher constructed. The set up for the meetings and the amount of time to prepare and meet takes a lot of the school’s valuable resources and so we would like to have some feedback to see if this is a worthwhile exercise to continue doing into the future. I have linked a google form here with a very quick feedback form. This would only take a few minutes and would help greatly with our future planning. Link

We are planning to hold the Parent Teacher Term 2 meetings earlier in Term 2 with the reports still being sent out at the end of the term. This will give parents and teachers time to see if the students have reached the goals set and see how they are tracking in their learning before formalising this in a report.

Our Heartfelt morning coffee will begin tomorrow. It starts after drop off (8.30am) at the parish kitchen (outside the parish hall). Come along and have a chat with Mary Lozina, our family educator and members of the school leadership team as well as other parents. A great chance to reconnect.

Our Covid cases continue to remain low. Thank you again for everything you are doing. Some schools are severely impacted and so we will continue to take measures to keep our students and teachers safe.

Open Day - Friday 18th March 9.30am 

Prospective students in 2023. Our Open Day usually aligns with Catholic Schools Week so this year it will be held on Friday 18th of March at 9.30am - 11.00am. Please let friends and family know that it is coming up. Sydney Catholic Schools is preparing a new online enrolment portal that will be ready after our Open Day so if you are enrolling a sibling it might be good to wait until that is ready to go.

Our staff have spent two long years doing Professional Learning via zoom. It is pleasing to be able to announce that two of our staff have applied for and been accepted into the Growing in Faith course run by Sydney Catholic Schools. Ashley Blake and Kate Monckton will attend the four day course next week.

This term will end with our Staff Development Day on the Eucharist. School will finish for the term on Thursday 7th April. Our second Staff Development Day for the year will be held on Tuesday 26th April. Term 2 will commence for students on Wednesday the 27th April 

Regards

Julie Caldwell

School Covid Update

• Anyone on the school grounds must wear a mask indoors 
  
• Parents entering the school must be invited to come
• Anyone providing services at school must show their vaccination certificate
• Parents must be informed of and agree to the risks inherent in any activity or excursion that is undertaken through the school