Principals Message

Dear parents and carers,

Next week Catholic Schools throughout the state will celebrate Catholic Schools Week. With the recent excellent results in Naplan across the Armidale Diocese we certainly have much to celebrate! Catholic Schools Week coincides with the 

ninth anniversary of the publication of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ encyclical to every person living on this planet.

An encyclical is like a letter.  “LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” means “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In this letter we are reminded that our common home, our world,  is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.

Seeds of Hope is the chosen theme of the week long Laudato Si’ celebration. We are invited to be seeds of hope in our lives and our world, and to be rooted in the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love.

At St Xavier’s we will focus on the environment outside our learning spaces-the gardens and grounds. The importance of caring for our chickens, our seedlings and plants and our play spaces will discussed. We will also think about how we interact in our school environment to create safe, harmonious spaces. 

Next Monday there will be a special prayer led by Year 5 to open Catholic Schools Week. This will take palace at our Monday morning assembly. Parents and carers are most welcome to attend. 

 “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.

Kind regards,

Jen

The Message Stick

The Message Stick is traveling around the Armidale Diocese and will make its way to Tamworth to be present at the 2024 Catholic Schools NSW Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Conference. It will be here at our school for one week before we pass it on to Quirindi. 

The message stick shares the message of coming, learning and celebrating together. Traditionally, Message Sticks were passed between different clans and language groups to establish information and transmit messages.They were often used to invite neighbouring groups to corroborees, initiation ceremonies, right of entry to country and invitation to religious rituals.

As the Message Stick journeys across our beautiful country, we keep in mind this year's conference theme: “Spirit on Country: Learning Together, then, now & always.” The message stick will be part of our monumental educational event which will highlight our students' cultures, success, aspirations and strengthen educational partnerships with our schools, communities, educators and nation. 

Uniform Reminder !

All students are to be in WINTER UNIFORM from this week onwards. Whether it is the new winter uniform, the old winter uniform or a combination of both, now is the time. TIES are compulsory with the winter uniform.