Principal's News
Dear Parents and Carers,
All members of our community will join with me in passing on our sincere condolences to Lynne Garner and Adam Garner on the passing of their much loved Dad and Grandfather, Paul Mahoney.
Paul passed away last Friday evening surrounded by his loving family at Anam Cara in Geelong.
Paul has been a much loved and respected member of the Colac community whose generosity and compassion my own family very much appreciated during my own wife’s illness some years ago.
Paul’s funeral will be this Friday at 1:00pm at St Mary’s.
SCHOOL SAVING BONUS Parents may be aware of the Victorian Government’s program to support Primary School Students financially in 2025 with a $400 grant for each student. Unfortunately this grant is only available to students in Catholic schools if the student already qualifies for the Camps Sport and Excursions Fund (CSEF) by virtue of the fact that the parents hold a Health Care Card.
In this case in Catholic schools the money will be directed to our school and will be credited against the families School Fee account.
END OF YEAR MASS Our End Of Year Mass will be held at St Mary’s Church at
10:00 am next Tuesday December 17th. All parents and friends are invited to join us. This will be our community’s opportunity to be with Fr Michael as our Spiritual Leader for the final time before he semi-retires over the summer.
GRADUATION Our Grade 6 class is preparing to Graduate from primary school and continue their educational journeys in secondary school in 2025.
Parents and carers should please note that the Graduation Ceremony will be held at 6:00pm on Thursday, December 12th at the Jubilee Centre at Trinity College.
Last week I had the great pleasure and privilege of accompanying these students on their camp to Halls Gap. We were certainly blessed with some beautiful weather but more importantly with some fantastic kids. Their respect for their teachers and leaders and each other was first class. After 39 years in education and maybe 50 camps the kids made this a truly enjoyable and memorable experience.
Thank you to the teachers for their planning and preparation and especially to Ms Lynch who volunteered to go in Mrs Garner’s place at the last moment, given her personal circumstances.
Our staff are always so well prepared with the children’s experience at the forefront of all of their planning for camps and excursions and so I take this opportunity to thank them specifically for this.
We wish our Grade 3 staff and students the same combination of ‘having fun and learning stuff’ when they camp together on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
TRANSITION DAY Our teachers work very hard helping to put together our class groups for the following year. The children are all surveyed about who they would like to be in a class with and we ensure that every student is with at least one of their first three choices, while for other students a break from one another can be good for both parties as well.
Today our Year 6 students took the opportunity to spend the day at the chosen secondary school while we welcomed again our 2025 Foundation students. We welcomed too, Mr Dwyer, our new principal, and his daughter, Mae who will be joining our Grade 6 cohort for 2025.
The rest of our students spent some time in their 2025 class groups between recess and lunch
Putting classes together is incredibly complex and we always do our best to balance any and all competing needs, including the children’s own requests for which friends they might like to be in their class.
It is important that parents support the school in this matter and emphasis the positives from today as all classes are final.
PERFORMING ARTS AND MUSIC In 2024 we were absolutely delighted to welcome Alana Ingles on to our staff to teach Music and Performing Arts after a year when we were not able to fill this important role.
The children have loved having these lessons back and preparing to showcase some of what they have been learning this year with a very ‘low key’ performance next Monday, December 16th.
The children will be performing in our Multi-purpose room facing out into the courtyard. Parents are welcome to attend and enjoy the show from around 2:15pm.
SOME EARLY NOTICE The last day for our students this year will be Wednesday December 18th, exiting school at 3:15pm.
The start of the new school year will begin for our teachers on Tuesday January 28th with training and preparation. The children will begin class on Wednesday, January 29th. Please note Wednesday the 29th will be the first day for our new Foundation students as well. Foundation students will attend school until 1:00pm for this first week and a half.
Jack Lenaghan - Principal