Gratitude

I recently attended a Grandparents’ Day event with my granddaughter, Evie. As I walked into the room, she came towards me at the speed of light, grabbed me tightly and with sincere little eyes looking up she said, “Thank you for coming to my classroom today!”. My ‘grandmother’s heart’ completely melted as she expressed her gratitude and our morning continued with a flurry of activity, lots of chatter and games as we played together.

I love listening to the prayers of our little learners – thanking God for family, for friends and for special things. Gratitude comes naturally to them during these times as they pause and consider the community that surrounds them, and their child-like faith reminds us how important it is to live each day with a heart of gratitude and thankfulness.

This term, we are encouraging our students (and ourselves) to deepen our gratitude and express why their hearts are full of thanks. One of the ways we’ve encouraged this is with a little game of Noughts and Crosses (see below). 

• I am grateful for the staff because they prayerfully lift every student, parent and family before God.
• I feel thankful when I see happy faces who greet staff with a cheerie hello at Kiss’nDrop each morning.
• I am thankful for my friend who brought a meal to my house when I was feeling sad. 
• I am thankful that my mum and dad taught us to be thankful, loving and kind. 

Gratitude connects people, it strengthens community, and it demonstrates Jesus’ love through words and actions. As we head towards the end of a wonderful year of Celebrating God’s goodness, our hope is that we will do so with a heart of gratitude. 

Why not take the concept of this little game at home with your children, and help us foster, celebrate and spread gratitude for all that God continues to do every day. 

Preparing for 2026

The preparations for 2026 have commenced. 

One process which takes our teachers considerable time, prayer and thinking is the 2026 Class Allocation Meetings as we plan to allocate your child to a class for the year ahead.  This process is complex and takes into consideration a variety of factors. Your classroom teacher knows your child well as a learner and will prayerfully think through this in the context of the cohort and their specific needs – academically, socially, emotionally, spiritually and physically. 

Every teacher will engage in a conversation with their students, asking them to nominate a selection of peers and friends with whom they would like to learn alongside next year. Whilst friends are important, teachers spend time considering a range of factors as placements are considered. As you talk with your child about the preparation for change, I encourage you to join us in this dialogue, and help your children consider the people who will be good for their learning, in all its shapes and forms.

If there are factors that you would like your class teacher to know or consider prior to their meetings with me, please be in contact with them this week, as we value the partnership we have with you. Please note that requests for specific teachers cannot be taken, rather a teaching style or considerations relevant to your child’s learning would be helpful to raise. 

In the rare situation that you may not be able to share information with a classroom teacher, Jo Bryant may be contacted for Junior Primary students, Jude Shields for Senior Primary students. Additionally, Brendan Deith or I can also be contacted if information is of a particularly sensitive nature.