Principal's Message

Good afternoon parents & carers,

What a busy and exciting fortnight we have had at St Philomena's.  Week 2 & 3 have provided our school community (staff, students and parents) with a taste of 'normal' school life with a range of events taking place throughout the school.

Last week, the P&F completed the final preparations for our annual Mother's Day stall which was held on Thursday.  Thank you once again to Mrs Allison Turner and her many helpers for their dedication to ensuring this years stall was filled with wonderful gifts for students to purchase for their mums for Mother's Day.  On Friday, there was a truly wonderful experience for our mums with a beautiful K-2 Mother's Day Liturgy followed by a Mother's Day Picnic on the school grounds with live music played by Mr King and the School Band. Thank you to all the staff for their dedication and contributions towards making this day so special for our mums.

This week, Year 3, 5, 7 & 9 have been involved in a number of NAPLAN assessments. Although a little nervous about the experience, we are extremely proud of all our students sitting these assessments, in particular our Year 3 & Year 5 students who are sitting NAPLAN for the very first time.  The impacts of COVID-19 2 years ago, prevented our Year 5 students from sitting the assessment in Year 3.  We wish all our students the very best throughout the fortnight of testing and we know they are very ready to demonstrate their high level of confidence and competence in the areas of reading, writing, language conventions and mathematics.

A very special thank you to our P&F volunteers that gave up their Saturday (last weekend) as part of the St Philomena's P&F Stall for the Moree on a Plate event.  The colder weather this year, saw the crowd favourite 'Hot Chips' selling extremely quickly.  A whopping 48 kilograms of hot chips were sold in a matter of hours.  Not to mentioned the 'blue sugar' provided to the many children on the day through the sale of delicious fairy floss.  A special mention to Mrs Katina Madden for her impressive 'fairy floss wrapping' skills, ensuring lots of children were kept on a solid sugar high throughout the event.

After a number of years in the planning (and saving), St Philomena's took delivery of a brand new Lotus Blu Laser Cutter earlier this week.  Thank you to B & F Gartshore Builders and Woods Airconditioning & Electrical for their support with the installation.  We greatly appreciate your ability to help at short notice. 'St Lawrence' the Laser Cutter (as named by Mrs Davison) will provide our students with the ability to engage in the secondary design and technology syllabus in a more specialised way through the use of an industry approved machine (and design software) that cuts (and etches) a range of materials (wood, acrylic, paper, cardboard, leather and fabric).  Students in Year 8 this semester will be using the Laser Cutter to design and produce a light made from sustainable materials.  The images below are early samples made using the machine during our training day on Thursday.