Principal's Report

We have had a wonderful two weeks at St Finbar's with Grandparents' Day, 100 Days of Prep, Hoop Time, P&F Trivia night, Aerobics competition and our first goup of Year 4 students receiving the Eucharist for the first time.  The excitement continues tomorrow with our Little Long Walk featuring special guest....Cathy Freeman. Feel free to come along to assembly tomorrow morning to share in this special occasion.  

It has been a busy start to the term with sporting events, so please make sure you have a look at Tania's Sports News page of this newsletter. 

Staffing News

I have another significant staffing announcement to make this week...Mr Callum Mills has accepted a new position. Callum has made the decision to step away from teaching and will be taking on an exciting new role with Headspace. We're very sorry to see him leave St Finbar's, but it was too good an opportunity for him to pass up.  It has all come about suddenly and Callum's last day at St Finbar's will actually be Friday August 7th...this means we now only have one week to celebrate Callum's time at St Finbar's and farewell him. 

100 Days of Prep

Congratulations to our Prep students who celebrated their 100th day of school on Friday. It was wonderful to celebrate this momentous occasion at a dedicated assembly and the children enjoyed a whole day of celebrations back in their classrooms. Following on from the Prep 100 Days assembly, our older students also got to join in the fun with a Treasure Hunt around the school and activities in their own classrooms.  Thank you to our Maths Leader Jo Fraser who coordinated this day, and to Louise Pickering and Bianca Antonio for organising such a fun day for the Preps. 

RE Symposium 

Last week, Fiona Byrne and I had the opportunity to attend the inaugural MACS Symposium at the convention centre, along with over 1000 Catholic school leaders, teachers  and clergy. The highlights for me were two of the keynote speakers Brother William Short, who reflected on the life and example of St Francis of Assisi, and Brother David Hall, who explored what it means to live our Catholic mission in today's world. His message reminded us that our mission is grounded in recognising the dignity and uniqueness of every person and striving to live our lives in the way Jesus taught us, through compassion, respect and service to others. 

Compliance checks 

Part of our duty to care to our students is ensuring that our equipment are buildings are well maintained and is compliant. Last week we had our annual inspection of the school playground, which ensures that the playground is as safe as it can be for our children to play on. Today we received the report for our Essential Safety Measures Inspection (conducted on 23rd July) which confirms that we have passed in all areas and are therefore Compliant.   

All staff received our annual training in Emergency Management yesterday afternoon, revising what we need to do in various scenarios. We have also scheduled a supervised emergency exercise in the coming weeks, where we will receive feedback on our evacuation procedures. 

Traffic congestion at Pick Up Time

Last term I wrote about the issues at pick up time with parents waiting to enter Drive Through. I've spoken to Bayside Council about this issue twice recently, and they are well aware of it as they regularly receive complaints from the community.  One suggestion they have made is to install gates at the entrance to the staff carpark and not allow any cars onsite until the bell rings at 3:30pm. I don't believe this is a feasible option so once again I ask that you cooperate in leaving lanes of traffic clear. Thank you to the parents that are waiting on Centre Rd on the other side of Nepean Hwy until they can see that the congestion into the school has closed, or delaying your arrival at school slightly. Aiming to arrive at school 3:35pm is a good option as the Drive Through is moving by then.

CyberSafety Webinars

eSafety is running some free parent webinars over the coming weeks. The live sessions will are run at 12:30pm on Wednesdays, which admittedly isn't a great time for working parents, but the upcoming topics do look useful. Please click here for more information about each week's topic. 

Take care and God bless,

Michelle Hill

Principal