Principal's Report 

 Dear Parents, 

With swimming well underway our students look more excited than ever. The first week has gone off without a hitch with some very tired swimmers at the end of each day.  A big thank you to Lauren Wishart for her exceptional planning skills, and to the other staff for their attention to safety and wellbeing during the program.  No doubt these swimming and water safety skills will help our students be safe around water over the summer vacation period. 

As we approach the vacation period, we will be celebrating Christmas with class activities, movies, decorations and our end of year sing-a-long. Of course, we understand and respect that not all families celebrate Christmas. As such, if you would prefer your child not to participate in these celebrations, please let your child's classroom teacher know so alternate arrangements can be made to ensure everyone is included. One of those events is next week's Christmas assembly. On this day, students are welcome to dress in Christmas/holiday attire as we sing some non-religious Christmas songs and keep an eye out for the big man in red!

Prior to the last election, the state government proposed providing each child in grade 5 a fishing rod, reel and tackle. These items have arrived and in the coming days they will be distributed to each grade 5 student to keep and use with their family. They are not required at school.  Good luck landing a big one!

Also as we approach the end of the year, we say goodbye to our grade 6 students of course, but there may be other students leaving for a range of reasons. If you know your child will not be attending Mackellar Primary School next year, please inform the office accordingly. At the end of the year, and as our school gets slightly smaller in enrolments, we also say goodbye to a number of staff this year for varying reasons. 

Tammie Hoang and Liana Yakou finish up their short-term contract, Tammie to replace Renee Imeri and Liana so we could extend our Hive sessions to one hour. We thank them both for their hard work and taking up where Renee and Mr. D left off. We wish them all the best for their exciting teaching careers ahead. 

We also say goodbye to some long serving teachers at the end of they year in Anthony Michielin who is moving to Coburn Primary School, Dafina Ivanovska who is moving to Aitkin Hill Primary School, Alecia Mayne to Diggers Rest Primary School, Brenda Elliott to Stevensville Primary School, Tracey Ngo to Burnside Primary School and Kim Jordan to St. Bernard's Parish Primary School. 

Each of these wonderful staff members have made a long, lasting and outstanding impression on so many students here at Mackellar.  They have worked and cared diligently for so many students, and have each made a significant contribution to the fabric that is Mackellar Primary School.  We wish them all the very best in the next step in their teaching journey, and know that they will continue to positively support students in their care in whatever school they are at. 

And as some staff leave us, some join us. In our last newsletter for the year, we will introduce you to some new members on our teaching team and also bid farewell to several of our Education Support staff also who have made an equally impressive mark on the students here. 

Finally, a reminder that school finishes at 1:30pm on Wednesday December 20th for the year. TheirCare will be available from that time for families requiring care. TheirCare's vacation program will commence from January 2nd and run through until January 29 with school starting for all bar our new preps on January 30th. Parents of 2024 Prep students will receive correspondence detailing their attendance requirements during this period. 

Kind Regards, 

Simon McGlade

Principal