From the Principal

Benvenuto - Welcome

Welcome back to Term 4.

We are jumping straight into a very busy term with camps, excursions, swimming, production and many other exciting things happening throughout the college.

Next week our School of Wonder students begin their annual swimming program. Schools across Victoria are required to implement a swimming program with the aim to enable students to:

• Learn how to swim

• Develop lifelong skills in water safety to reduce their risk of drowning and injury

By the end of primary school, it is anticipated that students should be able to demonstrate the knowledge and skills identified in the Victorian Water Safety Certificate.

The certificate is awarded when a student can:

• Swim 50m continuously

• Answer water safety-based questions

• Perform simple rescues

We are very lucky to have a fantastic facility such as Aquamoves to partner with us to provide this important opportunity for our students.

Yesterday a group of students attended the Hume District Athletics Day in Albury. This is the next level of participation for Athletics. We had nine students qualify at this level, with six being able to compete on the day. All performed to their absolute best during competition and garnered some great success. Congratulations to Vernal who won his division in shot put – Vernal now goes to Melbourne to compete at state level. Congratulations to all participants who represented our college so well.

Only a few sleeps to go for our production cast and crew as they put the final touches on Matilda Jr. The Musical. Everyone has been working so hard in preparing for the event and we are all excited for opening night to come around. It is fantastic to see students take up the challenge of singing, acting and dancing before an audience. Our initial three nights sold out fast, so we promptly added a fourth night to accommodate demand, with this show also selling out rapidly. So much behind the scenes work goes into putting on a production and we are very grateful to the production team who have taken on the challenge.

This week, Pope Francis has released an Apostolic Exhortation which follows on from his Encyclical Letter 8 years ago, Ladauto Si, it is called Laudate Deum (Praise God). In this document Pope Francis again highlights the call made for all people of good will to care for the poor and for the Earth – our Common home. If you would like to read this latest publication, please find the link HERE.

Sue Carroll, Principal