Principal's Report

Dear families,  

I hope that you all enjoyed the Semester 1 break with your children at home, and no doubt it was nice to have drop off on Monday morning with school resuming. It was great to see lots of smiling faces, albeit very tired faces for a Monday morning. As we look forward for the term ahead, there is a great deal of exciting things happening.  

PRAYERS AND THOUGHTS

It is with a heavy heart that I offer our sincere condolences and prayers to the Maragos-Wharton family following the tragic loss of Amy. As a school community, we have been in close contact with Autumn, Sharon, Jim (and extended family) to share our support and thoughts. I cannot commend our staff enough, especially our wellbeing team and our Grade 4 staff, for their care, expertise and planning to support the family, students here at school and families affected.  

I have emailed, separately, Grade 4 families (and anyone closely affected) and we have worked with the Grade 4 cohort, sharing prayers, supporting and creating cards for Autumn. 

We will continue a close dialogue with the family over coming weeks. If there are any families who would like to provide a meal for the family, we would be happy to be the conduit between. Please contact our team if you wish to do this.  

I urge you all to hug your families very tightly over the weekend and take care of yourselves. If you require any support for your family, please do not hesitate to reach out.  

NAPLAN 

I am exceptionally pleased and proud to share further indicative data from our 2026 NAPLAN results. We had three areas whereby more than 80% of our students who were assessed (Grades 3 and 5) were 'Exceeding' or 'Strong' in various NAPLAN Domains (Reading, Writing, Numeracy, Grammar & Punctuation, Spelling). What a great achievement and testament to the very strong learning and teaching here at Holy Rosary and the hard work of staff, students and families.  

ENROLMENTS

We are currently planning for 2027. As I have mentioned previously, we have had exceptional interest in enrolments for Foundation 2027 and currently have a significant wait list for some families. At this point, we also have limited space within some of our other classrooms so I urge anyone who might know of someone interested in coming across to Holy Rosary in 2027 to contact our office ASAP as not to miss out.  

CANTEEN - VOLUNTEER APPRECIATION  

I cannot thank enough our volunteers (especially Tamara and Lindy) for their dedication to the school. I nearly had to cancel our canteen this week if it were not for one person (among others) shifting her entire schedule to come in and lead the team. This person knows who she is and I thank you very much.  

I do ask that any families who can assist with canteen contact the office or Lindy so that you can be put on a roster.  

OPTIONAL LEARNING CONVERSATIONS

A quick reminder for families, if you have not already and if you would like to, contact your child's teacher to book a Learning Conversation. Term 3 conversations are completely optional for you so please do not feel any obligation to schedule one if you feel it is not required. 

UNIFORM SHOP - MOVING OFF-SITE

Over the past couple of months, we have been working with the procurement team at Catholic Education Sandhurst and have discussed at our School Advisory Council that we will move our uniform shop off-site. There is a myriad of reasons for the move away from on-site including; time it takes each week and the sustainability financially for our school.  

We have engaged Noone's, who have a physical store on Hargreaves St, Bendigo and an online store. We appreciate your understanding that this financial decision is in the best interests of Holy Rosary.  

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend. I am away Monday and Tuesday on Long Service Leave with my family. Please feel free to reach out to the school if you have any questions or concerns.  

Vin Ryan  

Principal