Dear SoGS Families,

It’s been great to see the students settling back into school life and a very big SHEPHERD SHOUT OUT to our preps who are transitioning so well, coming into school so independently in the mornings. Our preps have another week of REST DAY WEDNESDAY and will then be at school full time from Monday 4th March.

Thank you to those families who attended our whole school Mass and Ash Wednesday Mass. It is always so special to see our church full, knowing that collectively we are gathering for prayer. As Fr Dishan shared with us, in preparation for the 2025 Jubilee Year 'Pilgrims of Hope', 2024 has been the designated a Year of Prayer by Pope Francis. There is a particular focus on the Our Father, and this presents us with a great opportunity to go back to the basics of prayer. Fr Dishan asked us to think about “How is my prayer life going?” An interesting provocation for all of us. At school of The Good Shepherd, prayer plays a big part at the start of our day. The first thing we do for the day is gather in prayer and put forward our special intentions for our families, friends and the world around us. We then pray our school prayer:

BIRTHDAY CAKE POLICY

As mentioned in our last newsletter, we have been discussing the various issues around birthday celebrations: affordability for parents, inclusion of students with allergies, classes having different levels of expectations etc. As a staff, we have made the following changes to ensure consistency for all:

To alleviate pressure on those parents that either can’t afford to bring cakes, lolly bags or non food items to each child and for those parents of anaphylaxis students who have to supply their own treats every birthday, we are asking parents to not bring cakes, lolly bags or non food items to school.
School will provide each student with the gift of a special pencil with the words “Happy Birthday love from School of The Good Shepherd”. Each child will be presented with their gift in class and HAPPY BIRTHDAY will be sung. School will supply a happy birthday badge for each class for the birthday student to wear.

Everyone loves celebrating a birthday and we are no different, so we will make their day special.

SCHOOL CAR PARK

To ensure the safety of all of our families and students, we ask that you please be patient when driving in and out of the church car park. Parents who are waiting in the Kiss and Drop line, please remain to the right of the lane so that parents who are intending to park can still work their way through. When walking to pick up your child at the Kiss and Drop area, please walk in front of the yellow Kiss and Drop box rather than through the cars that are waiting. If we work together, we can maintain safety at all times.

LATE ARRIVAL and EARLY PICK UP

We understand that at times you may be running late to drop your children off in the mornings. If you are running late, please park your car and physically walk your children in so that you can sign them in. Likewise, if you are collecting your child early from school, we ask that you sign them out using the PASS TAB system before taking your child out.

AUDIRI

We encourage ALL parents to download the AUDIRI app as this is our main means of communication for every day alerts, not connected to classroom learning. Please follow the prompt sheet (image below)to set yourself up on AUDIRI . Thank you to those families that use the various forms on AUDIRI, especially to advise us of absences. The absence forms when submitted are sent to both the classroom Teacher and the front office so we know who is absent and the reason why.

PARENT INVOLVEMENT

Parish School Advisory Council: The Parish School Advisory Council provides a forum for discussion and discernment, where parent voice and community perspective are available to inform and support the decisions made by the principal and parish priest as the custodian of mission for the good of school and parish where students’ wellbeing and outcomes are paramount. We thank our appointed Parish School Advisory council members from our School of The Good Shepherd community: Nicole, Matthew and Fiona and we look forward to working together with you. We are looking forward to our first gathering which will be led by MACS staff on the 5th of March.

Parent Association: Thank you to those parents that have sent me an email regarding being a part of the parent Association. We currently have a group of 13 parents, which is just fantastic. We will not be taking any more members for now but please look out for ways in which you can be involved!

CHANGES TO THE NEWSLETTER

Taking on the constructive feedback from last year regarding the information that is included in the newsletter, we have decided to condense what is shared. For the moment we are including the Principal’s report on a fortnightly basis and any relevant information that needs to be shared amongst our community. Many parents wanted to have access to a calendar of events rather than it being published solely on the newsletter, so we have taken that feedback on board and have created a calendar on the Audiri app. Please look at the Calendar of Events page in this newsletter for more information. Beginning in Term 2, each fortnightly newsletter will feature a different curriculum area with various information.

YEAR 5/6 CHROMEBOOK ROLL OUT NIGHT

Thank you to our Year 5 and 6 Teachers and Mrs Michelle Peel for organising our chrome book rollout night. Thank you also to all the families that could join us. If you were unable to attend this information session please contact Mrs Peel.

We listened to some very interesting facts and advice by Senior Sergeant Gavin and Constable Ellie about how to stay safe online. They presented information that has been developed by the Australian Federal Police. If you’d like to know more, please visit

https://www.thinkuknow.org.au/resources-tab/parents-and-carers.

Please note this is a website for parents to access resources and information.

Have a wonderful week ahead!

Carmela D'Amato

School Community News