Acting Principal's Report

Dear Members of the St. Cecilia’s School Community,

This week I had the privilege of overseeing our school review process. As part of a four year cycle of review an external consultant, Mr Gavin Healy spent Tuesday and Wednesday talking to staff, students, parents and representatives of our School Advisory Council about the strengths and opportunities that exist at St Cecilia's.

This process is really important in giving the school focus and direction in it's continual efforts to strive for excellence and continual improvement. Throughout the process Gavin gave us regular feedback about what he observed and heard from those he spoke to and at the end of his time he met with the leadership team to share his preliminary thoughts.

His messages to us reflected and affirmed what we already knew, that St Cecilia's is a very special place. Gavin conveyed that this was a consistent message that came through from all fifty two voices that he heard across the two days. Not only was this a sentiment articulated to Gavin repeatedly, but it was also what he observed and felt, being present in our school. In trying to unpack this intangible the strongest element that he could identify is the strength of relationships and care for one another that staff, students and families share at St Cecilia's. Of course, he also spoke of the professional, consistent and data based approach the school takes to teaching and learning, but underneath it all was the driving sense that all we do is out of concern for the wellbeing and want to support and nurture each other.

A special thank you to our staff and leadership team who worked so hard to prepare for our review, and to the parents who took time out of their busy schedules to share their valuable input with Gavin as part of the process.

Marty Update

Once again, thank you to everyone for their continued support for Marty and his family. I am very pleased to report that Marty has returned home where he is being very well cared for by his family. He wrote to both myself and Gavin, the reviewer yesterday to express his regret in not being able to be present for the review and to convey how incredibly proud he is of the school and the school community. The coming weeks will see Marty continuing to focus on his recovery at home, but he is desperately looking forward to being back at St Cecilia's as soon as he can.

Fair Countdown!

Excitement is reaching fever pitch with the students as the fair is only days away. Today and Friday will see the school transformed as stalls and equipment arrive for our fair day this Saturday.

Please refer to the latest updates on our school app, Audiri, and final reminders on the Fair page in this edition of the newsletter.

If you are available to assist Friday afternoon (after you have bought your icy-poles), we will need as much help as possible.

Difficult Times - Helping Our Kids Understand

The devastating conflicts happening in Israel and Ukraine continue to cause humanitarian crises on a monumental scale. As a school and parish community we encourage everyone to keep those suffering through these conflicts in their prayers.

For our children coming to terms with such challenging events can be very difficult, and for us as educators and parents it can be hard to know how to best support our children in understanding and not becoming overwhelmed by such situations. Finding ways to reassure, focus on the many people working to help those in need and doing what we can to limit the types of news content our students are exposed, are some of the strategies outlined in the article linked below from Unicef. Having two very curious young boys of my own, I found this article really helpful and affirming and thinking about the best approach to take in talking to them about the current wars that are dominating world news.

Please also find a prayer for peace on our Education in Faith News page.

Medication Medical Protocol Updates

In the last newsletter be published the updated Medication and Medical protocols for the school. This page will remain on the newsletter fortnightly for your reference. Links to forms you are required to fill in if you need to update us about a medical situation with your child and specifically if you need to send medication for your child to school, can be found on this page.

Staffing Adjustments for Term 4

In Marty’s absence the following adjustments have been made to staffing for Term 4

Matthew Mooney: Acting Principal

Kate Sutherland: Acting Deputy Principal

Camel Brownhill: Will replace Matthew in 2H on Fridays and assist with other Teacher Release on Mondays

2024 Planning (Repeat)

As we enter Term 4, we begin in earnest preparations for 2024.

• We will be welcoming our 2024 Foundation families to several orientation sessions and activities.
• Class structures will be confirmed and announced  in the coming weeks
• Class placements will be carefully considered and organised
• Post Review the staff will work together to formulate goals and priorities for the next four year period.

As mentioned above arrangements for our 2024 classes will be commencing in the coming weeks.

A significant amount of time and care goes into these arrangements. In the coming weeks students will be asked to nominate a number of students that they feel they would like to be in a class with in 2024. We encourage you to talk to your children over the next couple of weeks about who they think would be positive and suppotive classmates that would help them to get the most out of their learning.

It will also be helpful for you to reiterate the message that, although we will ensure that each student is with at least one of the students they name, there may be the possibilty of dissapointment in not ending up with a particular friend. You can help prepare you child for this by talking about the opportunites that having different classmates brings and reminding them that, regardless of which class they are in, they will be able to to continue to play with and be friends with all their peers on a daily basis.

As so much time and effort does go into the process, students and families will not be informed of finalised classes until the final week of term.

We are aware that some parents may have valid reasons to have input into the placement of their children for the forthcoming year. Should there be numerous requests from parents however, then the ability for staff to make positive and professional judgements for the best learning environments for our classes is compromised.  Given this, if parents have any relevant information that you believe is essential to the class placement process, I invite you to make contact with Kate Sutherland ksutherland@scgleniris.catholic.edu.au  or myself, Matthew Mooney mmooney@scgleniris.catholic.edu.au.  We will evaluate all requests and make a professional judgement on the placement of the child in question. Please note that the final decision must rest with the school in the interests of providing the best scenario for all students. 

Matthew Mooney

Acting Principal

St Cecilia’s School