Assistant Principal's Page

Focus of the Week - Week 8:  Harmony Day – Everyone Belongs

We are very excited this week as we celebrate Harmony Week, and especially Harmony Day tomorrow!  Hopefully your children will have asked you about your family's cultural heritage, and are colouring in flags that represent that heritage.  As part of our celebrations, we will be putting all those flags up in Kenna Hall to show us what a multicultural melting pot we are at McAuley! Tomorrow, Thursday, we also ask that students wear something orange to school so we can show our support for Harmony Day.  If you speak another language at home, please encourage your children to participate at our Morning Assembly tomorrow by saying 'hello' or another small phrase of greeting to the school in their traditional cultural language.  As part or our Focus of the Week, we are colouring in hearts and these will be placed in a chain around our school corridors to show our support for all cultures, as the theme says, 'Everybody Belongs'!   

Focus of the Week - Week 7:  We Play safely and respectfully at school. Last week we looked again at our playground and how we can show respect towards all members of our school community on the playground.  Playing safely, taking turns on the equipment, using words and actions to include others are all ways we can make everyone feel included and respected in the playground.

The Big Veggie Crunch!  Tomorrow we will also be participating in The Big Veggie Crunch!  We will be part of a NSW primary school attempt to break a record for the highest number of children eating vegetables simultaneously, so please encourage your children to bring in veggies to eat at Fruito (10.15am).

Leadership Conference in Sydney: This weekend our Year 6 School Leaders will be heading off to Sydney to attend a Leadership Conference for Primary School students in Leadership.  This is a fantastic opportunity to our 16 Year 6 Leaders to participate in a conference specifically designed to offer them a clear vision of their role, a solid understanding of how they can make a real difference in our school and dozens of ideas that they can bring forth to enhance our school during their time as a leader. We are excited about this opportunity and look forward to seeing what they are able to bring back to McAuley!

Kindergarten 2025: It seems like this current year has only just begun and we are already thinking about taking enrolments for Kindergarten 2025!  Applications will officially open at the beginning of Term 2, however they can be downloaded from our website now. Deciding where to send your children to school is a very difficult decision, and we encourage families to gather as much information as possible about their child’s perspective school when making this decision.  If you know of someone who is considering sending their children to McAuley, especially in Kinder 2025, please encourage them to fill out an enrolment form and join a school tour.  It has been lovely to meet with many families who have taken the opportunity to tour the school and see the facilities and the students in their learning spaces.  Further tours will be offered next term. For more information, please ring the school on 6361 3344 or visit the website.

Holy Week - Stations of the Cross: Next  week, as Catholics, we celebrate the most important time in our year with Holy Week, leading into Easter.  Christ's journey through Holy Week, culminating in his Death and Resurrection is the foundation of our Faith.  The students will participate in creating displays of the Stations and you are invited to join us as we look at the journey of our Lord towards his final glory.  For further information on times, please see the RE section of the Newsletter.

NAPLAN Online: Congratulations to our students in Year 3 and 5 who participated in the NAPLAN tests last week.  The students in Year 5 completed all of the Mathematics, Reading, Language Conventions and Writing test online (even with a few internet interruptions!) while the Year 3 students completed all but the writing online.  A huge 'thank you' to Mrs Monique Dunn and Mr Scott Hudson for all the time, effort and planning that went into the preparation of this online assessment.  Thank you also to the Year 3 and 5 teachers for all the work they put into supporting the students to be ready for this assessment platform.  Hopefully the results will be available sometime towards the end of Term 2.  

Year 2 Millthorpe Museum Visit:  This Friday our Year 2 students and their teachers are off to Millthorpe to visit the Museum.  This is a wonderful excursion and every year the students have such a great time looking at historical implements and 'old fashioned' devices.  We look forward to all the photos and reports on their excursion!

New Aboriginal Education Officer:  We are delighted that we are eligable to engage an Aboriginal Education Officer to work with our Indigenous and non-Indigenous students to help them to better understand our traditional Australian culture.  More information on this will be given very soon.

Athletics Carnival: Our Athletics’ Carnival for students in Year 2 (8 year olds) to 6 will be held on Wednesday, 10th April at James Sheahan.  More information will be given about this carnival as we get closer to the date. For now, please keep the date free to join us up at Sheahan. Our Infants children will have their Athletics Carnival later in the year.

Change To Byng St Pick Up:  Please be aware of our change to Byng St Pick-up.  As Mrs Flynn stated previously, to support students in safely leaving our school grounds, we are now sitting students in their grade rows and asking parents to enter through the top Byng St gate and exit  through the bottom gate.  This allows for the quick and safe collection of students.  Your support with this is greatly appreciated.

Have a wonderful week!

Robyn Petty

Assistant Principal