Dear Parents and Carers

As the 2021 school year draws to a close, the first 3 Advent candles have now been lit: Hope, Peace and Love.  

Pope Francis asks us to be humble enough to prepare a manger in our hearts to receive the Christ Child, and to see the Light of Christ in others. Our 2021 year has certainly continued to challenge us with the pandemic continuing. However I feel, as a community, we have continued to be faithful to our vision and ensure we have been respectful, nurturing and engaging with each other. If we truly reflect on our own individual actions over the year, I am sure you will be able to recall many moments where you reached out to others or had others reach out to you with kindness, and therefore saw the Light of Christ in others.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of you, for working so well with your children and all staff, to ensure our students managed and in fact, achieved their own personal successes. We look forward with hope to the year ahead.

Year 6 Families who  have their youngest child moving on to Year 7. It is with a sense of sadness and hope and optimism  that we send off our amazing families who are leaving at the end of 2021. We wish you all the very best and look forward to hearing of your successes moving forward. We cannot thank you enough for the positivity you have shared with us and the value you have added as part of our learning community.
Farewell to the following families: Ashton, Azzopardi, Coghlan, Connell, Connolly, Cook, Cruz, Curtain, Duckett, Eyck, Farrell, Geracitano, Gibbon, Hughes, Hutchinson, Leen, McDonald, McNulty, Nutt, O’Neil, Payne, Sampson.

Other families: We also thank and warmly wish our existing families, who are moving onto other locations and journeys, all the very best. Farewell to the following families:  Whitten, Malik, Dean and Mackay. 

School Advisory Council News: Certainly the light of Christ was also evident in the final School Advisory Council meeting where we farewelled our current Chairperson Briony Darcy and Council Member Meg Poirier. It is with much heartfelt gratitude we thank Briony for sharing her wisdom, kindness, voluntary skillset as Chairperson of the School Advisory Council over the last 2 years. Especially in these challenging years we will be forever grateful for Briony’s presence, leadership and clarity as she represented the voice of the parent community so beautifully and contributed greatly to our new building project. Click here for the C2021 Chairperson report. We also thank Meg Poirier who, with her educational background and beautiful nature, also added many positive contributions and made a difference to the decision making of the school over the last 4 years.  

Next year we welcome Hayley Bennett and Teneille Pasque onto the council as new members. We thank Peter McKinnon who will step into the Chairperson role and thank him for accepting this offer.

PFA Members Leaving: Many thanks to all the voluntary work Pip Hughes has done as secretary and Sue Azzopardi to organise events, build community, connect families  and provide extra resources for the school. Your positive contributions have been greatly valued. Also to Kelly O'Neill for all her great work as administrator of the Parent Facebook page. This is greatly appreciated and we wishyou all the best.

Extra curricula events: We certainly hope you have felt the love from the school and maintained a sense of connection and belonging as we progressed though this term. It has been wonderful to enjoy some activities with you this term and see the children have extra curricula events to see the year out such as excursions, hub gatherings, Mission Fete,  beach day and tonight's wonderful Year 6 Music Night. Many thanks to all the teachers and students for their extra planning of these events.

 Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Mass: It has been suggested by the Parish as a wonderful activity for families who are attending these Masses, to ask you as families to find out the greatest gift each family member has given to you over lockdown. If you can please record these gifts individually and place in a decorated envelope with your family name, you will be invited to place it in a basket in the foyer and this will be taken up to the altar during the offertory and placed in Baby Jesus’ crib.

May the Christ Child born to us at Christmas, come into our hearts and be present to us in a special way this Christmas.Have a wonderful holiday season together and we look forward to reconnecting for the 2022 school year.

Kerryn