Principal's News

Dear Families

Welcome to Week 9 of Term 3. Gosh…where has the time gone! As we wind down for the end of term, I want to say the next two weeks are busy. Teachers will be planning learning experiences for Term 4 including Holy Rosary Day celebrations, concentrating on The Rosary. Moving forward and soon enough, we’ll be in full swing planning for the end of the year celebrations. Our Inquiry unit of work for all grades focuses on Creativity. Your children will be involved in designing and creating masterpieces so look out for these!

Team Colours Day Friday 20 September

Students are invited to wear their favourite team colours to celebrate the last day of term. We look forward to seeing all the colours filling the yard.

Congratulations

Michaela and James welcomed their precious baby boy last Monday at 12.30pm. Michaela happily reports that the family is well and Jasper has settled in at home. We wish Michaela and James all the very best as they navigate this wonderful addition to their family.

Optimising Learning For All

Guided by the vision of Catherine McAuley and the Mercy tradition, staff dedicate themselves to creating a nurturing environment where the care, safety, and well-being of children is our highest priority. Our goal is to ensure that every child has the opportunity to thrive. This commitment, reflected in our vision and mission statements and supported by our core values, was the focus of our recent student-free days. During these days, we concentrated on enhancing our strategies to optimise learning for all students. We engaged in discussions about how to effectively address the diverse learning needs of our children, ensuring that our approaches are inclusive and tailored to support each child’s growth and development.

These images show our staff during prayer, contemplating the real ways they show love to one another and to our community everyday and a jigsaw activity matching ways we engage in Professional Learning at HR.

MACSISS Survey

By now parents should have received an email from Maria Sedunary labelled Family School Improvement Survey. We urge you to make filling out this survey a top priority as it helps us with making decisions about how we do things at Holy Rosary. We use your feedback in all sorts of different ways from the day-to-day running of the school to policy making. To entice parents to complete the survey we are offering a $150 voucher for the lucky winner in our raffle to spend wherever they like. To enter, simply send a screenshot of the final page of the survey to competition@hrkensington.catholic.edu.auby Friday 20 September 2024. The children from Years 4-6 are also taking part as are the staff. This collective data helps us make informed decisions going forward. Thankyou and good luck!

Help Us Plan for 2025

We are planning for 2025. It is critical that we employ the correct number of staff and ensure these teachers are the highest quality candidates. To help us to achieve this goal, we ask you to support us in these two ways:

If you are leaving Holy Rosary in 2025, please let us know as soon as you know. Even if you think leaving is a possibility, please tell us to assist with our planning. Please let the office know.
Please promote Holy Rosary in the local community. Classes that have optimal numbers ensure the best learning opportunities across the board.

Rock Band and Choir

Last Thursday we were treated to the combined forces of our school choir and Rock band during 1st lunch and what a treat it was! Thank you to the dedication and talents of Zoe who leads these. The Choir lifted the roof with their rendition of Dancing Queen and the Rock Band played Seven Nation Army while Ivy and Violet sang along. We will feature the choir at today’s Assembly reprising Dancing Queen so if you’d like to come along, you’re more than welcome!

Swaddle Drive

This year, in keeping with our "Love in Action" theme, we have organised a "Swaddle Drive" for the Neonatal Unit at Mercy Hospital for Women (MHW) in Heidelberg. Babies born early like to be kept feeling safe in “nests” so that they feel like they are still in their mother’s belly while they are being cared for at the hospital. The nursing staff make "nests" to keep the babies feeling safe and supported. These babies do not wear clothes for many months, so their families like to be able to choose the linen that is used to make their baby’s “nest”. MHW provides linen, but it is all the same and not fun for families to choose from.

Click on the Community page of this newsletter to find out how you can participate to make a vulnerable baby feel snug, safe and warm.

LEGO needed

Meeka will be using LEGO with the Prep - 2 children during STEM sessions over the coming weeks. If you have any LEGO you can donate, we’d love to have it!

Well done Eva in 3/4G, Jennifer in 1/2S, and Mitchell in 5/6S for completing the challenge.

Challenge has ended on 6 September 2024.

Completion certificates will be available for the students who completed the Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge 2024 in late Term 4.

Have a wonderful week.

Maria