Dear Parents & Parishioners,

At the end of this year, two wonderful staff will be concluding their careers in education.

Following a lifetime of service to Catholic Education, Mrs Lisa Canty has made the decision to conclude at the end of the current school year. Retirement is too strong a word, but fundamentally this is what Lisa will be embarking on. Mind you, this doesn’t mean a slower pace of life for Lisa, just a different pace. This decision will provide Lisa and her husband, Lawrie, with the time to relocate to Marlo (where she does her best fishing), and spend more time with family.

Lisa began teaching in 1985 at St Paul’s in Coburg, where the school shared a series of bluestone walls with Pentridge Prison. In fact, Lisa’s first classroom overlooked the exercise yard of Jika Jika, the maximum security section of the prison. How things have changed. OHR, Surrey Hills is a far cry from the days of teaching at St Paul’s.

In between her time at St Paul’s and OHR, Lisa also taught at St Benedict’s, Good Shepherd and St Dominic’s. She enjoyed a short break in 1989, living in Milano for 3 months. We will have plenty of time to recognise Lisa’s great contribution to our school in the lead-up to the end of the year. And if we know anything about Lisa, it is the fact that she will give her all until she walks out the doors of our school for the last time.

Jo and her husband, James, have come to the agreement that now is a good time for Jo to ‘hang up the whistle’. She is looking forward to spending more time travelling, catching up with friends, doing Pilates, and being a grandmother.

Jo commenced her teaching career at St Monica’s College, Epping, back in 1984. Since that time she has worked at schools including Sacre Coeur, St Bede’s, All Hallows, St Benedict’s and OHR. Over the years, Jo’s teaching career has been punctuated with breaks from service in order to focus on raising and caring for her own children.

As we head towards the end of the year, we will also have the opportunity to recognise the indelible mark that the Gorgeous Mrs Golds has made on our school community. And if we have learned anything about Jo, it is that she will go out with a bang!

Planning for the Growth of Our School: Masterplan Survey

Here, at Our Holy Redemeer, we have decided to take a fresh look at the school Masterplan and would really value your thoughts. We have a quick questionnaire for you to fill out and would appreciate it if you could spare us a few minutes to provide your feedback. The survey should only take 5-10 minutes to complete and you can do it as a family or, if you wish, each family member can do it separately.

In addition over the coming weeks we will be conducting a number of consultation sessions, which will guide us into the future. We will keep you posted and look forward to all your ideas and comments.'

Please click the following link to start the questionnaire.

'CLICK HERE'

Prep 2027 Tranistion

On Tuesday afternoon Michelle Hollow and Mary Dening welcomed our group of 2027 Preps to their first transition session. At the same time, I invited the childrens' parents to the hall, where I ran a transition session, of sorts, with them. During the parent session, I facilitated a Q&A with our school captains and vice captains, providing the adults with an insight to school life at OHR.

We look forward to the next transition session which is scheduled for Thursday 5 November.

Help The Head Honchos Andy & Ollie take a stand against cancer!

During Monday's Assembly, two or our senior students - Andy J and Ollie F - spoke with conviction about a cause that's close to their heart, and what they intend to do in the lead up to the school fete. The transript below is a summary of what the boys delivered during the assembly.

Hi everyone, we’re Andy and Ollie.

You might know us as the OHR School Captains - AKA the Head Honchos.

But at this year’s School Fete, we’re going to become a different sort of Head Honcho… because we’re shaving our heads for the World’s Greatest Shave!

And while having two bald School Captains might be pretty funny, the reason we’re doing it is actually really important to both of us.

Ollie’s dad’s older sister, Jodie, was diagnosed with leukaemia.

In 1996, at just 22 years old, Jodie passed away. Ollie never got the chance to meet her.

Then, in 2008, Andy’s aunty Janelle — or Nell — was diagnosed with lymphoma.

Thankfully, Nell is now in full remission and has made a full recovery, thanks to the incredible medical care and treatment we have here in Australia.

But there are still more than 170,000 Australians living with blood cancer, and every day, 17 Australians lose their lives to it.

So we’ve decided to do something about it.

At the School Fete, we’ll both be shaving our heads to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation’s World’s Greatest Shave.

The money we raise will help fund blood cancer research and support people with blood cancer and their families.

So we’d love the whole OHR community to get behind us.

You can donate to our fundraising page, tell your family and friends, and come along to the fete to watch the Head Honchos lose their hair!

At the fete in the lead up to the big chop we'll be auctioning off the right to be the person who shaves our heads, as well as running a "How long is Andy's hair?" competition where the winner will walk away with a HUGE jar of lollies.

Every donation - big or small - will help.

Thanks everyone, and we hope to see you in the lead up to our shop, and at the Fete.

To support this great cause, select the following link:

https://www.worldsgreatestshave.com/fundraisers/theheadhonchosandyollieschoolleadersagainstcancer

OHR Spring Carnival - Only 1 Week to Go

The fete committee have done an amazing job in planning for the day. Needless to say, this is a HUGE event for our school and to ensure that it is a success the fete committee will require everyone's support. Head to the OHR Spring Carnival School Fete page to see how you can help out.

Here is the link to the school fete website: Ohrfete.com

To access the Silent Auction, simply click onto this link: 32auctions.com/OHRfete2026

Working Bee - Getting the School Grounds ready for our Fete

Our final Working Bee for the year is fast approaching and will be held this Sunday 18 October between 8.30am and 10.30am. The Working Bee will be coordinated by Laura Hilet. This Working Bee is an essential means of maintaining aesthetic school grounds that afford a safe and welcoming environment for our children, parents and visitors - especially with the Fete being the following Saturday.

This Working Bee provides a great opportunity to connect with other families, and the children always have a great time helping out and playing with one another.

For task planning and catering purposes, please indicate your attendance by emailing Laura: lauradinicol@gmail.com

What to bring:

Battery or petrol powered trimmers

Battery or petrol powered blowers

Gardening gloves

Wheel barrows

Shovels

Gardening rakes

Community Conversation

You are warmly invited to attend a Community Conversation at 2.40pm on Monday 26 October. The Community Conversation will be held in the LRC (Library).

During the Community Conversation, we would like to receive feedback on family engagment initiatives offered by the school, while also capturing input for potential future family engagement through both Learning Snapshots and Information Evenings.

Our aim is to partner with, and support parents in, their children's learning journey.

The Community Conversation is designed to conclude at dismissal time.

October is Cyber Security Action Month

The following webinar will prove helpful to parents:

'Understanding and using parental controls to help protect your child online': Wednesday 22 October 2026, 12.30pm

Parental controls can be a useful addition to the strategies you use to help protect your child online.

This 45-minute webinar covers:

what social pressures they may be experiencing online
how they can build digital resilience and critical reasoning
how to talk to your young person about what they see and do online
practical strategies for promoting positive peer interactions and help seeking behaviours.

OHR Swimming Program

Please refer to the P.E. News page for details about this year's Swimming Program which will commence in November.

Child Safe Standard 9

During the month of October, Catholic schools cast a potlight on Child Safe Standard 9 - "Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed."

Detials can be found on the Child Safe Standards page.

Year 7, 2029 – key enrolment dates

Please note the following timeline:

Applications for students starting Year 7 in 2029 will open on Wednesday 27 January 2027 and close on Friday 13 August 2027.
Secondary school principals must exchange their full list of applications, including parish of residence, with neighbouring colleges by Friday 27 August 2027.
Secondary school principals must subsequently exchange their full list of proposed offers and non-offers with neighbouring colleges by Friday 10 September 2027.
Offers will be posted to 2029 prospective Year 7 applicants on Friday 15 October 2027. Parents/carers will be required to accept an offer by Friday 5 November 2027.

Your ideas can help shape the PFA's fundraising priorities!

Go to the PFA News page to learn how your ideas can help shape the PFA's fundraising priorities.

Summer Uniform

All studnts are required to be dressed in Summer uniform from this Monday. We also ask that the students wear black leather school shoes on the days they are not wearing their sports uniform.

Term 4 School Closure Days

Melbourne Cup Weekend - Monday 2 & Tuesday 3 November
2027 Planning Day - Monday 30 November

Wishing everyone a great weekend,

Frank Dame

Learning & Teaching News

2026 Parent Information - Term 4