Principal's Report 

 Dear Parents, 

Welcome to the 2024 school year! I hope you and your families had a wonderful holiday period and everyone is set for an exciting year ahead. Welcome also to families new to Mackellar with our prep students starting fulltime as of today, and a range of students new to Mackellar beginning school across other grades last week. 

With the new year come new staff faces. In grade one we welcome Perri Telford. In grade two we welcome Hanna Mercado and Jess Mercieca, whilst in grade three we welcome Linda Varol. In grade five we welcome Wendy Allan and to round off our new staff we welcome Jaida Bonnici into physical education. I am sure you will make all of these new staff feel very welcome in our community. 

With the start of any new year at school come a range of reminders to ensure all in our community are informed and aware.  The first of these is of course being sun smart.  Can you please ensure your child has a school hat every day in term one. Caps and non-school hats are best left for outside of school. Please also remind your children that there are sunscreen dispensers at school should they require that.

 A reminder also that our school yard is not supervised in the morning before 8:50am. Please ensure your children do not arrive to school too early as they will not be supervised before this time.  Likewise after school, the yard is supervised until 3:40pm, so having your child picked up by that time would be greatly appreciated. 

Some upcoming dates to place into your diary include our Meet and Greet sessions to be held on the 27th and 29th of February. These are a great way for parents to inform us about your child as we move into the school year. Also coming up is the Labour Day public holiday on March 11 followed by a pupil free day on March 12. Students are not required at school on these days, however TheirCare will be available on March 12 for children needing supervision. 

Finally, a reminder to parents of grade three and four students regarding our upcoming camp.  Payments for these are continuing for the 50 students currently signed up. If you would like your child to attend but have not yet informed us, please do so as soon as possible as spots are filling fast. If you need financial assistance please speak to the office staff. 

Tomorrow after school, our teachers will be undergoing Emergency Management training to ensure all of our processes are up to date. Part of these processes includes ensuring our parents know how we will communicate with them in an emergency. 

If the school does have an emergency, we will communicate to the parent body en masse using the XUNO student management tool. As such, it is imperative that parents have access to XUNO messaging. If this is an issue for your device, please contact the office.

And to round off our first newsletter for the year, a request from ABC Music that if your child would like to learn an instrument here at school, please contact them to discuss. Thom from ABC music will be putting on a demonstration at lunchtime tomorrow for all students to showcase what they can learn here at school. The ABC music flyer can be found on the Important Dates and Information page of this newsletter.

Kind Regards, 

Simon McGlade

Principal