Principal's Report

Dear families,  

Welcome back for Term 2 and I trust that you all had a wonderful Easter break and couple of weeks with your children and families.  

Week 1 has commenced in a similar fashion to how Term 1 finished... Busy but very exciting. Our whole staff joined St Liborius (and more than 3000 CESL staff) on Monday for a full day of professional learning focusing on what it means to be, ‘Ambitiously Sandhurst’. We heard from Dr Jared Cooney-Horvath, Nathaniel Swain and the team from Teach-Well. A very worthwhile day learning about neuroscience, learning and effective teaching. 

ENROLMENTS ARE NOW OPEN

I am pleased to have our 2027 enrolments now open for families. We have our Information Evening for prospective families on Tuesday 28 at 6:30pm in our Performing Arts space. We will have several of our leaders and Foundation staff there to share information and answer questions. Following the evening, we have our principal/student-led tours (which are booking out very quickly). I encourage anyone interested in enrolling their child at Holy Rosary for 2027 to visit our website for all enrolment information and bookings.  

STAFFING  

We have a few staffing changes commencing this term. We welcome back Meg Matheson and Sophie Taylor after periods of parental leave. Over the term break, we also recruited Miss Abbey Fookes into the role of LSO (primarily to work within our Year 1 group). 

Mrs DeAraugo is currently on the road with her family as she is travelling for much of this term.  

CLASSROOM / LIBRARY MOVES

On the last day of Term 1, and during the holidays, our staff moved our library from the end room near the Foundation rooms to the southern end of the Rosarium. We also moved the 2DW classroom to where the library was. One week into the term, and we are very happy that we made this decision as our staff and students have reported a very positive impact on our learning environment. 

SOCIAL MEDIA / PHONES

You may have heard recently that the Victorian Government has announced the extension of the electronic device ban in Victorian classrooms to include smartwatches and headphones. We know the growing body of evidence is clear that unregulated or excessive digital technology use can have a negative impact on young people’s learning, wellbeing and relationships. At Holy Rosary, we will continue with our current processes for students handing in phones at the beginning of each day. We ask families to be mindful when purchasing watches for children.  

GROUNDS

You may have noticed all of the landscaping that Craig has been doing over the holidays. His work looks amazing. In the next few weeks, I may be looking for a few stumps that we can use in one of the spaces for natural seating.  

CROSS COUNTRY

Today, we held our school cross country both here at school as well as over at the gardens. Our students all put in amazing efforts. I thank Mr Coates for his planning and leading of the event.  

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you all next week. 

Have a great weekend. 

Vin Ryan 

Principal