Welcome

Selamat Holy Family Community! (Which means GREETINGS in Indonesian)

Welcome back to the start of the school year. I hope you all had a wonderful, restful summer break, even though with the weather we had, it didn’t really feel like summer!

The start of the school year is always an exciting time, with new friends, new teachers and new routines to learn. The students have settled nicely back into school life, with things around the school being very calm.

WELCOME

I want to take this opportunity to welcome all of the staff, students and families, who are new this year. We hope your time at Holy Family is joyful and memorable, full of new friends and experiences.

We are very blessed to have employed three new staff members:

Mrs Tish Singh: Physical Education

Ms Jackie Barr: Learning Support Officer Yr 5/6

Mrs Debra Evans: Learning Support Officer Yr 1/2

Please make them feel welcome, and don’t hesitate to go and introduce yourselves, as they look forward to getting to know our community members.

PREPS

We welcome our new Prep students, who will be taught by Mrs Lambden-Grant this year. Miss Newbound has formally taken on her married name, so the students are now calling her Mrs LG.

The Preps are very lucky to be in a class with Year 1 students who have shown them the ropes and helped them settle in! They have done a fantastic job settling into all of the new school routines and activities, although they did look exhausted by the end of the first week.

The Preps will continue to have the next two Wednesdays off school as rest days, while they build up their stamina towards a whole week at school.

CLASSES

This year we have five classes:

Prep/1 - Mrs Lamben-Grant

Year 1/2 - Miss Serena Jordan-Munro

Year 3 - Ms Julie Feddersen

Year 4/5 - Mrs Lea Drury

Year 5/6- Mrs Kylie Hudson

Some interesting combinations exist in composite classes, such as our Prep/1 class. Still, this structure allows us to keep class sizes across the school evenly distributed, which is best for our students’ learning.

As teaching and learning these days is about teaching every child at their own point of need, the year levels children are in are no longer too important. When teachers think about their students, they consider them as learners at particular starting points, rather than students in specific year levels.

STAFFING

Please find a list of all the Holy Family staff for 2023 and their roles, in the attached document:

HOLY FAMILY STAFFING 2023

In this newsletter, you can read all about the Holy Family staff and their hopes for their work in 2023 in our special edition of staff news.

With great sadness, I announce that Shaun Fuller, our IT Technician, finished up with us at the end of Week 1. Shaun has been offered a position working for Phillip Islands Nature Parks in their IT department. Shaun will be sadly missed as he has been part of the Holy Family staff for around 23 years, and in that time, he has done an excellent job maintaining all of the computers and infrastructure. We wish Shaun all the best in his future endeavours and thank him for his service to the Holy Family Community.

We will also be losing another long-standing staff member at the end of Term 1. Mrs Danuta Kovzan (Dannie) has been the library technician at Holy Family for well over 20 years. Dannie is lucky to be heading off into retirement after many years of working tirelessly to ensure that the students have a well-stocked library full of books for them to enjoy!

Dannie is currently training Ibu Sanny to take over this role in Term 2.

PRINCIPAL APPOINTMENT PROCESS

The process for the appointment of a new Principal will commence this term again.

This means that I am fortunate to be able to continue in the role of Acting Principal until at least the end of Term 1. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Holy Family students, families and staff for their unwavering support whilst I have been in this role. I pray that we find the best person for the job who can strongly lead the Holy Family Community into the future.

Please see the timeline below for how the principal appointment process will unfold:

COMs Advertising Date Friday: 3 & 10 February 2023
The Age Advertising Date Sat: 4 & 11 February 2023
Closing Date for Applications 20/02/2023
Commencement Date Term 2, 2023 or By negotiation
Shortlisting meeting Wed 22 Feb at 10.30 am - 11.30 am
Interviews Wed 1 Mar from 12.00 pm

COMMUNITY HUB

Our Hub Leader, Glenis, is currently trying to get around to meet all of our families. Please come and introduce yourselves, as Genis is trying to grow the HUB this year to make it a welcoming and inviting place for all families.

Glenis has extensive knowledge of parenting, transitioning to school and ties with support agencies in the local community. Glenis has even started up a toy library, where you can come and borrow new toys for your children for free.

The Hub operates from Wednesdays to Fridays, so please don’t be shy and drop in for a cuppa and a chat anytime. Glenis is really keen to find out what activities the Hub could offer parents this year. It could be anything from yoga to karate, to craft, so, please come and share your thoughts and ideas; we would love to hear from you as it is YOUR Hub!

PARENT HANDBOOK

Please see the updated 2023 Parent Handbook with all the important school information for this year.

2023 Parent Handbook

START UP WEEKS

The students began their learning at Holy Family with two ‘Start Up’ weeks. During this time, teachers rolled out classroom expectations, set up structures and routines with students and participated in getting-to-know-you and team-building activities with their class. The two immersion weeks are a great way to ease the students into their new learning environment whilst setting them up for success for the year.

HATS

This is a friendly reminder that all children must wear a hat outside in Term 1. At the moment, many children are coming to school without hats. Please ensure your child has their hat at school with them each day as they need it to play and work outside.

PARENT MEET & GREET

We will hold our start year Meet and Greet on THURSDAY 23rd, at 2:30 pm.

This is an informal opportunity to come into the school, meet your child/ren’s teachers and have a look around the learning spaces.

This afternoon we will also be running some workshops that you are welcome to join:

2:30 pm in the Junior School - Literacy at Home - presented by Mrs Crist (Literacy Coach) and the Junior teachers
3:00 pm in the Senior School - Camp Parent Information Session - presented by Ms Moran and the Senior Teachers

We hope to see you all there as we look forward to meeting you all and partnering with you in your child’s learning journey this year!

THANK YOU

I want to extend a big thank you to the staff members who gave up time in their holidays to come and set up the school in preparation for the new school year. We hope you like what we have done around the place to make the learning environment as inviting as possible, and we may have even had a little fun together, while we were doing it! Even our ex school dog, Daisy, came to help!

Pauline Moran

Acting Principal

Pak Kris

Indonesian & Art Specialist

Bearer of Light