Mary believed that God loved her and all people very much,

In 1906 Mary said: “God loves us all.”

During her life Mary worked hard to show others how much God loved them, particularly the poor children and their families.

She was kind to people;

always willing to forgive those who hurt her;

spoke the truth, was respectful and just.

Mary wasn’t concerned with age, nationality, religion, rich or poor, clean or dirty, happy or sad, sick or well, everyone was always welcome!

God let us follow Mary’s example and “never see a need without doing something about it.”

May all who come to St. Bernard’s feel welcomed by our community.

Amen

Dear Parents and Friends,

During the month of August we celebrate Australia’s first Saint, Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop. Mary MacKillop’s feast day is next Tuesday August 8th and we acknowledge and celebrate this day at St Bernard's.

The children are spending time learning about Mary and understanding her story.

This year, as a school, we will create a St Mary of the Cross MacKillop Walk.

Each class will illustrate part of Mary's story which will form stopping points along our walk. Our walk will take place on Tuesday 8th August at approximately 2.45pm. We invite parents to come along and join in the walk with their children to learn more about Mary MacKillop.

100 Days at School and Grandparents day.

Our Foundation children celebrated their 100 days of school today with dressing up and lots of special activities.

On Wednesday they celebrate Grandparents day and old people with a special liturgy and sharing time. We welcome the grandparents of our Foundation children to our school and trust they enjoy seeing their grandchildren learning happily in the school environment.

Principal Appraisal

As part of my contract of Employment, I along with each Principal of a Catholic School in the Diocese of Sandhurst must undertake an appraisal.

This Thursday you will receive an invitation to participate and provide feedback on my role as Principal for my appraisal. I would be grateful if you were able to find time to complete this feedback.

The purpose of the appraisal is to provide feedback about my leadership of the school. The appraisal also seeks to improve my professional practice through structured dialogue with CES Ltd staff and the appraisal panel, and through feedback about leadership of specific areas of school life.

Hopefully together with your feedback, we can make our school an even greater place for our children to be.

NSIT -National School Improvement Tool.

St. Bernard's is participating in the ACER National School Improvement Tool Review.

Our review team Kate Bell, Stacey Lamb and myself have been working over the past few months collating our data for the review team with the support of our Leadership team, teachers, staff and students.

This school review is an opportunity for us to reflect on our current practices and progress made towards improving the quality of teaching and learning and subsequently, student learning and well being outcomes.

Our review team consisting of Peter Glendenning, Leading School Improvement Consultant from WA, and two Members of Catholic Education Sandhurst, Kim Butler and Andrea O’Connor will be in our school for three days from 8th - 10th of August.

They will work closely and collaboratively with us to identify existing strengths and provide recommendations to inform our school’s next improvement cycle.

The review will also include a planning session for us to unpack the recommendations from our report to support us in the development of our next School Improvement/Strategic Plan.

The development of the new Strategic Plan and Master plan will be the focus for our School Advisory Council for the remainder of the year. This is an exciting time for St. Bernard’s as it lays the Foundations for us moving forward for the next phase for our school. This will be achieved in consultation with our children, parents and staff.

2024 Foundation Enrolments

Do you have a child starting Foundation next year 2024!

We kindly ask that the enrolment forms be returned to the office as soon as possible. We will begin planning for 2024 soon.

Thank you.

Have a great week, everyone!

Patricia Boak

Principal

Grade 5/6 News