Principal Address

Dear All,

This is our penultimate newsletter of the year. I pray you had a good week and that the lead-up to Christmas is going well.

We had a wonderful Christmas Chapel this morning. As I looked over our Christmas Chapel today, I was filled with pride and honestly felt quite emotional. I saw all of our K–2 students on stage, acting and dancing their little hearts out, confident and happy. Our Year 3 and 4 students sang so beautifully. Our Year 5 and 6 students were smiling and cheering on their buddies and friends. Our parents were proud and supportive as always. Our staff put in hours of work, even in the tiredness of the end of the year, to ensure all of their kids did their best. Then, at the end of Chapel, many of our parents stayed to pray for all of your children. It really was beautiful.

I often preface saying something nice about our school with “we are not perfect,” but I’m not going to do that. We have an incredible school, and we are all blessed to be part of it.

Thank you all for coming. A special thank you to Mrs Auckett and Mrs Burgess for the incredible costumes, and to Mrs Britton for directing. It really was like a mini-musical. It was a lovely celebration of Jesus and of all our students. Congratulations to all involved. Here are a few photos, thanks again to May Bailey, who gives up her time on all these special occasions for us, we are super grateful.

2026 Musical

This week, our students auditioned and some received parts for the 2026 musical. Those with speaking roles are expected to learn their lines over the summer holidays and be ready for their first rehearsal on Thursday, 22 January.

Congratulations Toakase

We are so very proud of Toakase. She came second in the shot put at the School Sports Australia National Championships today in Canberra. It was great to be up with Year 5/6 as they watched her on the livestream and cheered her on. To contextualise this achievement: there are roughly 180,000 eleven-year-old girls in Australia, and just about every one of them competes in shot put at an athletics carnival. And our Toakase is the second best in Australia. Amazing.

Presentation Day

A reminder that this Thursday is Presentation Day. If you have not filled out the attendance form, please do so, to ensure we put out adequate seating : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSccO7JvW32rg5DYZ-_lIqiWjXZ69A4HJIcF98oCNvV8GuDrlw/viewform

There will be a number of awards presented. For those students who are not receiving an award, we will acknowledge every child with a completion certificate for their achievement this year (other than Year 6 and Kindergarten, who receive separate graduation certificates).

A few other important notes

Please be seated at 9 am sharp.
Please aim to arrive by 8.30am as the car park will likely be full.
We are also opening the bottom playground for parking.
Students need to be in proper summer uniform with black shoes. Students who are not appropriately dressed will not be allowed on stage.
A friendly reminder that this is one of a very small number of formal services we hold each year, Young children need to be adequately supervised and remain in their seats at all times.

Year 6 Graduation

Our Year 6 Graduation will be on Friday morning at 9:00am, it would be great to see as many people as possible come and send off our Year 6's.

Further 2026 Information

Thank you for the many encouraging emails I received as I went through the details for 2026 in last week’s newsletter

A few slightly less exciting updates:

Classroom Spaces

As you know, we are building next year. The construction of a ten-classroom, double-storey learning space is planned to begin early next year, with the goal of having it ready for Day 1, Term 1, 2027.

When you return in January, the school will look different. There will be three temporary classrooms in the current staff car park, and two temporary classrooms at the bottom of the property in the play area on the right-hand side near Henry Lawson Drive. The current K–1 block will be demolished at some point (we are hoping for Early Term 1), but we are waiting on final building approvals and an interim traffic management plan. We need to ensure that the temporary classrooms are ready so that demolition can begin as soon as approval is granted. Stock is limited mid-year, so we felt it best to install them at the start of the year to minimise disruption.

We will send out correspondence in January regarding the general flow of the school, student movement, and classroom locations.

There are two things I want to communicate with confidence:

The school will be safe.
Learning will not be disrupted. The flow of the school may be disrupted, but learning will not be.

For the beginning of the year, Kiss/Drop procedures will remain the same. However, once construction begins, there will be changes and challenges. It may be wise to mentally prepare for longer waits, parking on Ashcroft Street and walking in, and not being able to park in the car park. Compared to many schools, we have had it very good for many years. The wait time in Kiss and Drop is generally not long and most people can conveniently park in the carpark and walk in. I need to be honest and say, this is unlikely to be the norm next year and into the future. I’m hoping this continues, but we must be prepared.

All of this is necessary not only for the school’s transition to a full double-stream but also because our buildings are over thirty years old and our students deserve quality learning spaces. We need to think about all of our kids being in a great and purpose built learning environment.

There are some other exciting improvements happening during the holidays:

A giant fan is being installed in the gym to help keep it cooler on hot days.
The gym is being painted.
We are building a multi-purpose creative arts space for our band, choir, and dance groups. This will be in a current storage space in the gym that is being repurposed.
While I can’t make promises, we are very aware that the soccer field is becoming more of a dustbowl. We would love to install a high-quality artificial surface so our students can enjoy playing without ending up covered in dust. However, with reduced parking during construction and the possibility that the church may need to use this space for parking on Sundays, we need to properly assess how feasible this will be. If everything looks workable, our hope is to install it at some point next year.

I also want to make it clear that with our new school crest, there will be no changes to uniforms in the immediate future. Many of you have recently purchased the new sports shirts, and we will not be asking anyone to buy new ones anytime soon.

I look very much forward to seeing you all at Presentation Day on Thursday and touching base before the end of the year.

My door is always open.

Mr Joe Britton