Principal's Report

We are rapidly approaching the 140th anniversary of the opening of our wonderful Catholic school in 1884. Significantly, we are choosing to celebrate this important occasion by taking the whole school to share the Eucharist at the local Parish Mass at 9:30 am on Tuesday 19 March in St Patrick’s Church on the Feast Day of St Joseph. While Glen Innes was gazetted as a town much longer ago in 1852, the Catholic school has been a significant long-term contributor to the educational and spiritual fabric of the town for 140 years, and that is not paying proper tribute to the tourist attraction that is our iconic stone building prominently located on the New England Highway! I encourage all families to attend and be active participants in the Mass on Tuesday 19 March. We will be very privileged to have the Diocesan Administrator - Monsignor Wilkes concelebrate with Father Thaddeus Ike, as well as a number of Sisters from the Josephite order being in attendance.

Our Stage 3 children were fine representatives of the school last Friday for the World Day of Prayer held at the local Presbyterian Church in Heron Street. This annual event joins the local Christian churches on annual rotation in a prayer service of hope and solidarity with impoverished, marginalised and/or persecuted peoples. This year’s service focussed on the Christian women of Palestine and their plight in a perennially war-torn part of our world. Our children sang the closing hymn beautifully after walking all of the way there and back on a quite warm day for Glen Innes! Thank you Ms McMeniman, Mrs Condrick, Mrs Core and Mrs Fletcher for preparing and leading the children.

The four NAPLAN Assessments (Reading, Writing, Conventions of Language and Numeracy) are benchmarking tools that assists our team of skilful helpful adults to determine how each individual student and the cohort are going in comparison to national literacy and numeracy standards. As our Year 3 and 5 students begin their 2024 assessments next Wednesday, NAPLAN has great value in enhancing our local collaborative work in improving student growth in literacy and numeracy outcomes. As a tool used by the media to weaponize inter-systemic rivalries or as a tool to determine ‘good’ schools over ‘bad’ schools it has little if any credibility. Please join me in praying for our Year 3 and 5 children that they approach NAPLAN assessments calmly and with little stress. While it is another opportunity to test ourselves at the next level, it is small stakes in the big scheme of learning and wellbeing.

Apologies for the SPAM video from ‘Peter Rabbit’ last week! Just a novel way of encouraging our wonderful families to support our Lenten fundraising focus for CARITAS - Project Compassion for 2024. It seems to have kicked off some generous donations of sweet prizes of chocolate eggs, rabbits, bunnies, bilbies, etc. for our Easter Hat Parade and Monster Raffle on Holy Thursday 28 March from 10:30 am. Thank you in anticipation of your donations and get ready for a wonderful gathering of our faith community as well as having a bit of necessary fun in a few weeks time. Mark it in your calendar!

Until next time.

May God go with you.

Geoff McManus

Principal