Last Sunday’s Gospel…   

The Gospel last Sunday was quite challenging for us.  Jesus is very clear in what is required to be one of His followers and gives different examples. What He is saying is that we have to be prepared to let go of anything that prevents us from following Him. That could be people, possessions or activities that lead us away from Him. 

From the Principal...                                                                       

We had our first huge community event in nearly three years – in my time at Holy Family! Grandparent’s Day and Book Week was an extraordinary event where we had literally hundreds of you back together with us. It was a wonderful time and I thank you all for taking the time to come. Please pass my gratitude on to your special visitors as well. Your efforts with the costumes were amazing and didn’t the students do a good job with their poetry presentations! Covid safe measures meant we held the event outside when we were all together but I don’t think we would have all fit in the hall anyway! Your donations for morning tea were very generous as well and we needed it all. I am very grateful to our wonderful staff who absolutely love preparing for days like this but it is always more work so I do appreciate it very much.

My gratitude also goes to the P&F who ran the Father’s Day stall. I had to be out in the middle of the day at another school and I came back in time for afternoon dismissal and to have many excited students showing me their shopping bags and goodies! It meant a great deal to the students and I’m sure our Dads appreciated it too! It’s lovely to be getting back to ‘normal’.

Our NAPLAN results have come through and while we do not yet have access to the State Mean, we can see we are tracking very well against the Diocesan Mean. Our Year 3 students are actually the best spellers in the whole diocese! We are above or very close to the diocesan average in all other areas for Years 3 and 5 and are very pleased with this result. The students and staff are working very hard and while we have not been able to use casual teachers to provide Professional Development for our teachers, we have been doing as much in class PD as possible. Teachers also recently gave up their own time after school to complete a five hour writing course after school in the evenings. We are very lucky to have such a dedicated team who strive always to improve their practice in order to maximise learning for your children.

I hope the sleep survey results and tips have been helpful! You will also notice a number of other things Sarah, our counsellor, is sending you this week. We are in uncharted territory with assisting the children getting into ‘normal’ life again and are trying lots of different things. We hope it helps!