Last Sunday’s Gospel...

Jesus asked his disciples who they thought He was. Peter alone spoke up and said he believed Jesus was the promised Messiah. Such faith was rewarded – Jesus trusted Peter with His church. The other important point of this is that Jesus promised to build the Church. It was a divine promise and will endure, even though at times the Church has faced and continues to face great challenges.

Did you know...

St Peter’s Basilica, the most important of our churches, is built in Rome over the tomb of St Peter.

From the Principal...

The P&F meeting we held via Zoom was very productive and informative. Feedback about communication has been positive, especially around COVID-19. The map and the signs in the blocks were suggestions from the P&F to further enhance our afternoon procedures and I thank you all for following them. We are updating our front foyer to create a more welcoming face to our school and the P&F have kindly agreed to pay for a statue of the Holy Family to be included in this space. We hope it will give visitors, and all of you who use the space a more accurate first impression and ‘feel’ of our Holy Family school. We are also sourcing some bike racks that again the P&F has offered to fund. We have to put quite a detailed procedural statement in place to enable this to happen and educate the students. We will let you know when riding a bike or scooter to school becomes an option and all the directions around ensuring this happens safely.

We were able to hold a lovely celebration for Fr Peter. He visited all the classrooms and the students had the chance to do something special for him and speak to him. We had a socially distanced guard of honour which enabled him to have a happy send off with the students. Mrs Smith and I attended his Jubilee Mass, celebrating his 50 years as a priest and the parish did a wonderful job decorating the church and putting together a reflective interview that we will share with you. We wish him well as he continues his life work in Campbelltown and I encourage you all to keep in touch with him. He will still love to see everybody.

We experienced a very different Staff Development Day on Friday! Due to all the new restrictions we aren’t allowed to do professional development all together any more. It has to be all delivered via Zoom. So the staff all dialed in on their computers from home and we had a modified day delivered by the team at CEO Wollongong. We engaged in a great deal of discussion and reflection about being people of presence and principle and how we live out our Baptismal call to do this. It tied in well with our work on Vision and Mission and gave us a chance to deeply reflect on our own relationship with Jesus, and therefore, how we can bring Him to life for the children. It was a fulfilling day.

I met with our new Parish administrator, Fr Sean Cullen on Thursday. He was very interested to hear all about our school and will be a frequent visitor so the students should get to know him well. The sacramental programs were also thoroughly discussed and Fr Sean is keen to make sure the students all have the chance to complete their sacraments this year. We will send you more detail about this separately.

Unfortunately, we have to cancel our Kinder transition for this year. We will be producing something virtual to try to introduce them to school and make our new families feel welcome. Hopefully all will be well as we move into this time where we have a few more restrictions – luckily most of what we do is already compliant so the students won’t notice much difference, except for restrictions with singing.

God Bless 

Michelle Rolfe

Principal

Dear Parents,

By way of introduction, I am Fr Sean Cullen, newly appointed Administrator of the parish of Ingleburn, after the retirement of Fr Peter Caruana. I am very grateful to Fr Peter for the dedicated pastoral care he offered to the parish over the last 36 years, and especially for his interest in the parish primary school of Holy Family.

As you are aware, these are challenging times for our world and Church. So many of the things we do naturally as a Church we are currently unable to continue, but we are, as they say, “back in business.”  Our “business” is to build up the Body of Christ in our local community. As Catholic we begin this task at the altar, where we come to intimately know and receive Jesus in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

We are fortunate to have a Church that can accommodate the maximum number allowed by government health regulations, which is 100. I warmly invite you to participate in Mass as frequently as possible.

Our weekend Mass times are:

Vigil:  Saturday 6pm

Sunday  9am, 11am and 6pm.

As you know, it is required that you register if you wish to attend Mass. To make this as painless as possible, simply go to holyfamilyingleburn.org  and click on Mass registration. All the options for Mass times will pop up and you just need to fill in your details at the Mass you would like to attend. There will then be no need to ring the parish office or sign in when you arrive at the Church. 

Unfortunately, I will not be resident in the parish as I also work in the Southern Highlands parishes of Bowral and Mittagong, but I will be in the parish here every Wednesday and Thursday, and will celebrate the weekend Masses as much as possible. When I am not here, the priests from Macquarie Fields will celebrate the weekend Masses.

We will be celebrating the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Confirmation and First Communion this year, so I look forward to meeting with you and working with you throughout the year.

If you would like more information, please do not hesitate to contact me at any time through the parish office.

With God’s blessings

Fr Sean

PB4L Focus Areas for Weeks 6 and 7

Each week we focus on a particular aspect of our schoolwide expectations for positive behaviour. Students and staff collaborate on ways to support each other in meeting these expectations.

Our focus for Week 6 is  We are on time and ready to learn:

• Smile and say good morning when you see someone for the first time
• Respond to the bell and move safely to lines
• Listen to and follow staff instructions
• Walk on footpaths and keep to the left
• Enter the classroom calmly and follow classroom procedures
• Let your parents know when you need to replenish pencils, pens etc (primary classes)

Our focus for Week 7 is We use the STOP, THINK and DO strategy to help us make good decisions:

• STOP before you do something that may get you in trouble or not be appropriate
• STOP and THINK about your choices. Do what is right
• STOP and THINK about our school rules to ensure you are following them
• THINK about what you are about to do or say. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Am I going to be bothering someone else?
2. Am I going to be in trouble?
3. Is this a good choice?

• STOP on the playground when you hear the bell and walk safely to class
• STOP in the classroom when you hear announcements
• STOP and check on others if you see a need
• STOP and count to 10 if you are feeling angry or frustrated and need to calm down
• STOP and think about your words. Are they kind?

We encourage you to speak with your children about these focus areas. Thank you for your support, when we all work together, we achieve great things.

Please keep the Dsouza family in your prayers.  The beloved Uncle of Ethan (Year 5) and Jeremy (Year 2) entered Eternal Life recently.

God be with us in our sorrow, through the night and through the day; may a blessing come tomorrow that will clear its cloud away.

The P and F Association is unable to provide a Father's Day Stall on the school grounds this year.   We wish all our Dads, Grandfathers and Carers and a very happy Father's Day.