Dear Parents and Carers,

This week we celebrated the Assumption of Mary (15 August). According to our faith, the Holy Mother, having completed her course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. It marks her return to heaven to be reunited with Jesus. While the bodies of both Jesus and Mary are now in heaven, there is a difference between the Assumption and the Resurrection/Ascension. Where Jesus arose from the tomb and ascended into heaven by his own power, Mary’s body was taken up to heaven by the power of her Son. For this reason, we use different words to describe each event. One is the Ascension of Christ and the other, the Assumption of Mary.

Mary urges all people, regardless of culture or beliefs, to open their minds and hearts to God. Mother Mary explains how to live more fully conscious of our presence and purpose here on earth, and how to prepare ourselves for re-entry into the spirit world after physical death. She is the masterwork of God and the start of God bringing mankind into communion with Jesus. I thank Miss Jackson and our Pope Francis students for preparing our very special mass to celebrate the Assumption of Mary.

Announcement

I am humbled and very excited to be continuing in this role as your Executive Principal. I appreciate that there have been challenges this year but with the clarity we now have on our future structure I think we can move forward with greater confidence together. I thank you for your ongoing support throughout the process and I look forward to creating more opportunities for us to develop and grow together. Please see attached communication to both communities that I sent out last night. Thank you kindly to those who were able to attend.

Just a reminder that we have our Father’s Day events coming up on Friday 1 September.

1. P&F will be providing a coffee cart. It will be set up closer to the Kameruka entrance area so as not to impede on the basketball courts where we will have some handball games. Thank you kindly to the P&F!
2. Purchase your Father's Day breakfast items on Qkr
3. Purchase your Father's Day Cana gifts on Qkr
4. We will have our usual Friday award assembly followed by a Kindergarten Father's Day presentation. 

Holy Communion Retreat Day

"Do this in memory of me" Luke 22:19. Our First Communion Retreat Day was exceptional, educational and empowering! It was even more enjoyable because we made lots of new, great friends from Blessed Sacrament and the other schools that joined us. Our favourite part was when we practiced for our First Holy Communion Mass in the Church. We practised all the parts of the mass and we role played receiving Communion, the Body of Christ. We also learned about the Road to Emmaus story and what it teaches us about the Mass. We are so excited to be making our First Holy Communion soon because we will be able to receive Communion every time we go to Mass!

By Abigail.L and Emily.F (4 Gold)

Science Week

We have had a terrific start to Science Week.

We have worked with Farmwall to understand how to be astro farmers and grow microgreens in space. At this hands-on workshop, we learned that this technique of farming allows crops to be grown in space, harvested every 2 weeks and the greens are 40 times more nutritious than regular vegetables. Very efficient and sustainable!

The workshop was a lot of fun, everyone got their hands dirty! The Sacred heart “space farm” is now up and running in the hall. Our plants will be ready to harvest and eat in two weeks.

Today, we were visited by Dr Alana Wylie from Eyeheart Science. Dr Wylie took us through some of the greatest moments in Science this year. Students  learned about flying car technology, plant discoveries, new marine life species, moonlet discoveries and even facetime for Birds!

Each day this week workshops have been run by the Year 6 Science and Tech team and leaders supported by Ms Adamo, Ms Morgan and Mrs Petersen. Workshops have included food science experiments, chemical experiments, design and make activities and technology. VIP scientists have had lots of fun exploring science at these workshops. The shrieks and exclamations of joy and discovery have been heartwarming.

The environment team also had the opportunity to present at the recent Zero Emissions schools network meeting, hosted by Blessed Sacrament, where they met with Zali Steggall MP OAM and heard about environmental issues being debated in parliament.

I sincerely thank Mrs Petersen for all of her hard work, creativity and genuine joy at providing such a wonderful experience for our children!!

May God bless all our families.

Leanne Meehan

Executive Principal