Principal's Message

Dear Families,

As we head into August next week, Term 3 has certainly been a busy one. Over the past three weeks there have been many engaging classroom experiences, excursions, sporting activities and upcoming performances being planned. Our Year 3 and 4 students participated in an 8 day intensive swimming program and I know the students had so much fun and learnt very important lessons about safety around water. Congratulations to our Year 6 girls who represented our school in the District finals in netball and AFL. Many year levels have had excursions and on Monday our Prep students celebrate 100 Days of school.

You will see wonderful reflections written about many of these activities further in the newsletter.

Last week I attended the MACS Religious Education Symposium. The theme was Inspired by Faith and it was designed to strengthen leadership and teaching as MACS rolls out its new Religious Education curriculum in coming years. You can read all about our 2 days of Professional Learning future in the newsletter.

Parents and Friends

I would like to thank our Parents and Friends Association (PFA) for their focus on community engagement and fundraising for our school community. There have been some exciting recent events such as Rollerama, Pyjama Day and I know our students are looking forward to the Disco tonight. I encourage you all to consider attending the upcoming Bingo Night in August as it is always a great night when we all gather together with a fun theme.

School Advisory Council

At our SAC meeting on Tuesday 21 July, Kellie Cumming, our Learning and Teaching Leader presented our latest NAPLAN data.

The key highlights were:

Over 85% of our Year 3 students achieved strong or exceeding in Numeracy
Over 90% of our Year 3 students achieved a strong or exceeding result in Writing
Over 90% of our Year 5 students achieved strong or exceeding in Reading, Writing, Spelling and Numeracy

Ferial Davis also presented to our SAC members the 2025 Good Shepherd Annual Report to the School Community (which can be found on our school website). In my Principal’s report I outlined many school achievements over the past term and also shared the MACS 2027 Guidelines in relation staffing and finance. We will be recruiting new parents to join the SAC in 2028 and in our next school newsletter I will outline the process.

Monash Youth Music Festival

On the 10th and 17th of August we have a number of Good Shepherd students participating in the annual Monash Youth Music Festival which is organised by the Waverley Music Eisteddfod committee. It brings together thousands of young musicians from all across Melbourne. We are entered in 2 categories - Choir and Band and I am incredibly proud of our students for putting in so much practice to support their performances. I would like to thank Shannen Wickremasinghe for leading this event and allowing our students at Good Shepherd the opportunity to shine.

Confirmation

We keep our Year 6 students in our Prayers as they celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation on Wednesday 19 August at Good Shepherd Church. This special time provides our students with the opportunity to deepen their relationship with God, grow in their understanding of the Holy Spirit and strengthen their commitment to living as disciples of Christ. Next week our Year 6 students will participate in a Reflection day and families will attend a workshop on Wednesday 5 August.

Coming up

We have many events coming up to enhance parent participation and engagement they include:

Prep ‘100 Days’ Assembly and Parent Engagement Opportunity
Year 3 Assembly and Parent Engagement Opportunity
Year 1 Assembly and Parent Engagement Opportunity
Grandparents and Special Friends Day (Mass and activities)
Book Week
Fathers Day Stall

Please take a look at the Diary of Dates included at the end of today's newsletter.

Thank you for your ongoing support

Jacqui Marshall

Principal
jmarshall@gswheelershill.catholic.edu.au