Principal Report

Principal Message – Term 2

Principal’s Message Week 9 Term 2 2022

This week’s newsletter will be the last one for this term. I am sure that all families are looking forward to the two-week break. Holidays, either as time away or time at home, are a chance to step away from everyday life and reconnect with the people we love and to ourselves. In fact, it has been shown that a simple break not only helps build families' relationships with each other but also improve children's learning and behaviour in school. Being able to step out of the routine, and away from technology, is a good and healthy thing; revitalizing and energizing us to take on whatever lies ahead. 

There is no such thing as a ‘quiet’ term in schools anymore and this term was no exception. Despite the illness, that has affected staff and students, we have managed to keep the school and learning opportunities going. Throughout this term our children have been involved in all sorts of activities in and out of the classroom. We’ve participated in Cross Country, the winter sports program, Reconciliation Week, Year 5/6 Camp and celebrated St Columba’s Feast Day, 100 days of Prep and Confirmation. With the children excelling in the HOLT district Cross Country and the Netball Lightning Premierships, coming in first place on both occasions! Our 1/2s have been on their first excursion for the year to the Museum and hosted their parents for breakfast and time in the classroom for their UOI. Our 3/4s headed off to Sovereign Hill and our 5/6s to the Victoria Market. And just to add to this we have had a plethora of wellbeing and social justice opportunities: Running club, Lego club, Chess club, lunchtime soccer sessions, Be Kinder Day, funding raising for the floods, Vinnies Hamper Appeal and Prep Breaky with their parents. This is just a snippet of what your child has been involved with and does not include all the learning opportunities they have had over the course of this term with their teachers.

Semester One reports were sent out this week and I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I did. What excites me when reading reports is that I get a real insight into each child at St. Columba’s and the progress they are making academically, social emotionally and as learners.

What stood out for me is the significant achievement and progress of all children. You only have to look at our prep children, who have shown remarkable progress from the day they first walked in the gate six months ago. They have done exceptionally well, and I expect their gains, in the second half of the year, in all areas will continue to astound their parents and us even further. 

I feel very proud of all the children at St Columba’s. Not just due to their academic achievements but also the resilience, adaptability, and flexibility they have demonstrated and developed this semester. The ability to adjust to the changes in your environment and being able to respond quickly to changing ideas, responsibilities, expectations, trends, strategies, and other processes is a key 21st Century skill. Whilst life after lockdowns has had its fair share of challenges, I believe these skills are a very useful by product for our children’s futures and worth developing.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff for their thorough preparation of the reports. With assessment, report writing, and significant illness, this time of year for teachers has been an extremely stressful and busy time. However, as always, the staff at St. Columba’s go about it in a most professional manner. The teachers are looking forward to discussing your child’s progress further at parent teacher interviews next term.

The last day of each term traditionally has a wellbeing focus and this Friday we will have The St Kilda Inflatables for the day. The children can wear their sports uniform and footy colours. It should be a lot of fun and bring a great sense of community. 

As we head into the term 2 break, I thank you, our families once again for your overwhelming support throughout this term and we are so pleased to have you back onsite: at assemblies, on excursions, in the garden, at Mass, information nights and for PFA events. like the Election BBQ. To the staff, I say thank you for your dedication and professionalism. It has not gone unnoticed. To our children I say well done. I feel very proud of our ‘Little school with a big heart’ and believe that we have as a community continue to faithfully enact the spirit of our motto this term.

I wish you all very pleasant break and look forward to seeing you at the start of term 3, ready for what is going to be a very exciting term for our school community.

Stay safe and well over these holidays.

Daniella