Last Sunday’s Gospel…

The mystery of the Trinity was the focus of last Sunday’s gospel. We recognize only one God but God in human form was Jesus and the constant Presence with us now is the Holy Spirit. It is a little hard to comprehend which is why we call it a mystery! St Patrick explained it with a shamrock or three leaf clover. A way of explaining it to our students is them the student, them the son or daughter and them the friend. Now imagine being able to do all those things at the same time. We can’t but God can because he’s God.

From the Principal...

It probably comes as no surprise, with all the media coverage that I am going to write about the flu. We are experiencing more illness at school. I know it can be extremely difficult to care for sick children and try to go to work yourselves as well – being a parent of three myself! We are having more children come to school who clearly have heavy colds. Please keep them at home. We have to try to keep students and staff safe and restrict the spread of the flu so if they do have obvious symptoms, please don’t send them to school. Our increased cleaning remains in place daily so we are doing all we can. We also have plenty of RAT kits at school so if you require more, please let the office staff know and they will send more home with your children. Thank you for your help with this and I hope as few of us as possible get sick.

I am beginning to read some of the student academic reports as teachers finalise them. They coincide with the parent teacher interviews coming up in Week 10. We are very pleased with the learning gains made this semester across the board despite the significant amounts of sickness and hope to increase learning as students come to school more regularly. Attendance and better performance go together when students are well!

We are trying something new with the students on the playgrounds. After looking at our data with regards to incidents, the committee decided to trial allowing the students to play on any playground within the grounds, according to the activity they want to play. For example, if the handball courts on the basketball court are all full, there are courts at the shelter area of the netball court. Years 1-6 can also choose to play on Koala Park. Kinder have a grassed area for their exclusive use near the hall. We have adjusted duties accordingly and staff are working with the students to teach them about what they can do on different playgrounds and how to find their friends. This is only a trial for a few weeks and we will see how it affects the data - hopefully less incidents, and also how well the students like it through the SRC and our Captain’s Team. We will make adjustments according to student feedback and please feel free to let us know what the students think after they have given it a try.

Can you please be mindful of pedestrians in the carpark? We are lucky to have such a big carpark and to be able to park off the street but need to keep everyone safe when we have hundreds of people in the one place especially after school. I thank the vast majority of you who are vigilant – reversing into the spaces, driving slowly and walking on the pedestrian pathways. So keep up the great work and if you do need to slow down, or a staff member asks you to park out of the OOSH bus zone, please do so with good grace. 

We are looking forward to our 40th year celebrations! Mrs David and the RE team are preparing Mass with Fr Henry, we are organizing a beautiful high tea for all the adults from the school and parish community and the P&F are cooking a sausage sizzle for the students to energise them for all the fun activities that will be on offer for them for the afternoon. I hope you are all able to join us! We have also started to plan for Book Week and Grandparent’s Day. It is exciting to be able to hold these very important community events again!

We had a large number of parents at the last P&F Meeting – lots of new faces as well as the familiar ones. It helps us make great decisions for our students when we all work on things together so please feel most welcome to join us. You won’t be the only new one! The P&F have supported our purchase of new bibles and religion text books for the students. It amounts to nearly $10,000 which means each grade will have a class set of bibles to share and we start on a strategic replacement of texts over the next couple of years. I am very grateful to you all for your ongoing support. I had another occasion to feel it today. I received my Principal Appraisal report and found that the panel had 106 parent surveys returned, though I don’t see the actual surveys myself. I was very touched that so many of you found time to respond and while I haven’t yet had time to go through all 20 pages of the report – yes it is very thorough, I will try my very best to keep doing the things you like and get better at the areas needing improvement. I am very glad to be part of the Holy Family community.

God Bless

Michelle Rolfe

Principal