Principal's Panorama

As Week Six winds down, I am reminded of our commitment to our school community who reside outside of our 'gates'.  Having spent Wednesday at a Curriculum Reform Day about the new Science Curriculum, I was unable to be present for our Father's Day Games afternoon and yet I hear the 'turn out' was amazing!  We are fortunate to have Dads, Grandads, Pops and significant male role models who make the time to 'show up', time and time again for our young people. 

Thank you to our Parents and Friend's Committee for their work in preparing food, games, photos and gifts for our 'Dads' and significant male role models.  

Thank you to the Guyra/Armidale Council Library for the hire of games such as Giant Jenga, Connect Four and others, I hear they were a HIT!  

Huge congratulations to our Brain Olympia teams, who trekked up to Holy Trinity Inverell for the day.  Our young people worked brilliant together in their teams, with one of our teams making it to the next round of competition again this year! In 2022, we won the small schools round at Holy Trinity only to have an act of God (floods), cancel the next round of finals in Gunnedah.  I wish the team well on their next competition round in Gunnedah on the 11th September. Thank you to Mrs Grills for being our Skilled Helpful Adult representative and supporting our young people in this wonderful endeavour!

It is that time of year again when all of the schools in the Diocese of Armidale complete the annual satisfaction survey.  This is the same survey that has been completed annually in every school in the Diocese for the past number of years, sometimes known as the "My School Survey" or the "Happy School survey"; it is an anonymous survey to help the schools and system drive strategic improvements. 

In our primary school setting, all parent/carers, skilled helpful adults and students in Years Four to Six complete the survey.

The data is collected via email survey and is collated by the "Survey My School" Team (external to the Diocese), the data (numerical and comments) is then sent to Armidale Catholic Schools so that the data is completely unidentifiable to specific families/children. 

The data is then input into the Data Ecosystem so that educators, system leaders, principals etc. can see the data for each question and use this to direct their AIP etc for the following year.

Parent Learning Walks and Talks

Please book in for your Learning Walk and Talk in Week Eight, we are looking forward to sharing the next steps of the learning with you and looking for your feedback.

As I pen this, St Mary of the Angels' young people are engaging in the next series of their learner agency work, I can hear their excitement and their challenges as they navigate the complexities that agency holds for them and future young people.  The conversations are very deep and I am filled with joy that our community will have these young people in the 'driving seat' in the future.

I hope that all of the Fathers, Grandfathers and significant male role models in the lives of all of our school and wider community, have a wonderful Father's Day on Sunday.  May you also be blessed with a day filled with the love, joy and wonder, the same that you provide for those around you, each and every day!

Until next time!

Zoe