Dear Colleagues,

On Easter Sunday we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The pinnacle of our Catholic faith that brings hope to all of us. Just as Jesus emerged from the darkness of the tomb, so too can we find hope in our own lives and the work we do. The resurrection reminds us that there is always the promise of new life and transformation. As educators in Catholic schools, we have the privilege of sharing this message of hope with our young people every day. When reflecting on our vision, some key words relate this message - that we are ‘Christ-centred’ and ‘hope-filled future’. What an incredible privilege this is. May the joy of Easter inspire us to approach each day with renewed faith, hope, and gratitude.

Our Catholic Principles and Values focus our work on truly being a ‘Christ-centred’ learning community. Our Catholic Principles and Values are:

Primacy of God - Love of God and our relationship with God and love of neighbour
Sanctity of Life - the sacredness of the human person ‘made in the image and likeness of God’, this principle also encompasses our call to be stewards of God’s creation caring for our people and our planet.
Fidelity in Relationships - our relationships with each other, authentic and faith filled
Common Good - our Catholic Social teaching calls us to work for fair distribution of resources for all so that human dignity can be upheld, to support our most vulnerable in our community so that they too can have a hope filled future.

These clearly set out our core Catholic principles and values that are known, understood and articulated by staff so that we can explicitly teach these principles and use them to support high quality educational outcomes for all our young people.

Photos from Chrism Mass

Congratulations

Recognition of Service

Starting this term, we are recognising staff who have made significant contributions to our Catholic Professional Learning Community. To begin this recognition, this term we are recognising people who have 5.10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 years of service to our Diocese. We will do this annually in Term 4 from now on. The first schools that I had the honour of recognising people were at McCarthy, Tamworth and St Patricks Walcha.

Staff At McCarthy - Michael Whitton (Principal), Ronny Rindo (15 years), Melissa Lees (20 years), Amy Gambrill (5 years), Heather Burke (5 years), Kate Sullivan (20 years), Jonathan Dean (5 years), Dane Kelly (10 years), Damian Kenniff (10 years)

St Patrick’s Walcha - Megan Wilson (20 Years), Dallas Hyatt (Principal)

Bernadette Yeo

Congratulations to Bernadette Yeo, our Professional Officer: Speech Pathology for presenting in Perth at the DSF Literacy Services Language, Literacy & Learning Conference. It was a wonderful opportunity to share our work around students with severe and persistent reading difficulties. Read3 is a literacy intervention program that is in action across six of our regional schools. This work is making a difference in our students' lives to help them realise a hope-filled future!

School Visits

Last week I continued my school visits with learning walks at McCarthy Catholic College, St Joseph’s, West Tamworth and St Patricks, Walcha. As always, it was wonderful to see such engaged students from our youngest in kindergarten to oldest in Year 12 supported by high quality learning planned and implemented by our staff (all in Week 9 right before Easter!). It is wonderful to see how some of our transformed learning spaces are being used with agility to design great learning and teaching.

This week, I will visit St Mary of the Angels, Guyra, St Mary’s College, Gunnedah, St Nicholas’, Tamworth, and St Francis Xavier, Narrabri. Next week, I will finish the term with visits to St Joseph’s, Quirindi, St Edward’s Tamworth, St Mary’s Armidale, O’Connor Catholic College, Armidale and St Joseph’s, Warialda.

And a couple of selfies!

Regina Menz

Director of Schools

WHS News

Employee Assistance Program