Last Sunday’s Gospel…

The saying about a camel passing through the eye of a needle has it’s origins in the gospel story. In biblical times it would have been a familiar metaphor. The entry points to the walled city of Jerusalem were very narrow and known as the eye of a needle because of their shape. A camel could only fit through if it wasn’t carrying any load – goods or baggage. Jesus says it by way of explaining that we can’t get to heaven if we are holding on to our worldly goods or baggage. It is allowable for us to have and use our worldly good responsibly, but we can’t hoard them or take them with us. We have to be prepared to let them go.

From the Principal...

We look with hope to this new term and the return of our students to school. You will have all read the extensive letter that came out earlier this week with the maps for drop off and pick up. Please make sure you read them so you are aware of where to go to pick up your children so they, and you, aren’t distressed by the changes. The two points for pick up – front of school for A-G surnames and back of school Koala Park for H-Z surnames starts on Monday.  You do not have to pick up at 2.55pm. Please come any time between 2.55pm and 3.15pm. I would add, please make sure your children have a raincoat! They are not allowed umbrellas at school but there is no cover for them to wait for you so please supply a raincoat or poncho for them. The staff will assist in putting them on. We are very excited to see Kinder and Year 1 back on Monday!

We have been working on the reasons to assign a colour to each house so there is some meaning behind the colours and have come up with the following; Benedict  - Green (for the green pasture around the monastery where Benedict lived and worked), Caruana - Gold (for Fr Peter‘s Golden Jubilee of priesthood), MacKillop - Red (for the red earth of the outback where she did a lot of her work) and Teresa – Blue (for the coloured stripes on her habit).

Connected to the house names we have begun today, the process for voting in Captains for 2022. I met with Year 5 and their parents via Zoom today to explain how we will be doing this. The proposed timeline you will see in the accompanying procedural statement will be a little different due to the return to school. We will see how the students are when they come back and make any necessary changes. We are trialing a system of boy and girl captains and vice captains and house captains chosen from a house but they could be two girls, two boys or one of each. This is because of a big difference in numbers in some grades and in some houses in the numbers of boys and girls. We will review the process after this year to see if we need to alter it.

As you will know from your children’s work, they have been looking at the missionary work of the church because October is Mission Month. We know many of our families are struggling financially so are not putting pressure on for donations this year. If you can donate to those who are not as well off as we are, here is the link.

https://www.socktober.org.au/fundraisers/holyfamilycatholicprimaryingleburn

I know we will all do what we can this year.

God Bless

Michelle Rolfe

Principal