Principal's Message
“THIS IS MY COMMANDMENT: LOVE ONE ANOTHER, AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.”
Dear Parents / Carers,
This reading from the Gospel of John reminds all of us that everything begins and ends with one thing…..love.
Love is not an emotion………. it is an action. Each of us must consciously choose to love every person we come into contact with, even when we don’t really feel like it. To be the face of Christ to those we meet requires us to CHOOSE LOVE. It is easy to choose love with those who love us back…….our family and friends. The challenge is to choose love for those who challenge us…..the driver who cuts us off on the road, to the colleague who takes too long to offer help, to the worker who doesn’t get our order right.
None of us get it right all the time. But every time we choose love, particularly in those most challenging circumstances, we are setting an example for our children and other people to follow.
More importantly, by doing this we are following the commandment that Jesus gave to his followers over 2000 years ago, and gives to us today.
How appropriate that last Sunday was Mother’s Day! Mothers often provide the purest form of love that exists. A love that exists no matter what we do, a love that doesn’t judge and a love that never ends.
I would like to offer my special thanks our wonderful staff, led by our Family Faith Educator, Ann Woodhouse and Ms Norris who made the celebration of Mother’s Day so special for our community. It was great to see so many of our mothers, grandmothers etc, enjoying the breakfast that had been orgainsed.
I hope all our mothers and other women who play such a crucial part in the lives of our students had a wonderful day and were truly spoiled.
TELL THEM FROM SURVEY
In the coming weeks we will be inviting students, teachers and parents to provide feedback on their experience of our school, using an online survey. The surveys are an important part of our whole school evaluation and planning process.
We would like to invite you to complete the Tell Them From Me (TTFM) Partners in Learning survey. As we value the role of parents and carers within our school community we would greatly appreciate your feedback.
The information you provide will be used to maintain our commitment to working together in partnership to further improve student learning and wellbeing at St Patrick's Catholic Primary School Sutherland.
The survey is anonymous and will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. You are able to access the parent survey on your computer or mobile device by using the URL below:
www.tellthemfromme.com/sutherland26
The survey closes on June 12.
SOCIAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE
One of the families in our community has a connection with the School Of St Jude in Tanzania.
In 2002, The School of St Jude opened with one teacher and a handful of sponsored students. Today, The School of St Jude is a pioneering leader in charitable education within Africa. They provide free, quality education to 1,800 bright primary and secondary students who come from considerably poor backgrounds. They provide them with everything they need for a successful education, ensuring their students' well-being and future success.
Located across three campuses, they provide boarding for all secondary students and employ around 300 Tanzanian staff. 97% of St Jude’s secondary graduates go on to access higher education, supported by Beyond St Jude’s or by other means.
The Beyond St Jude’s program for secondary graduates supports 100s of graduates with access to higher education and provides more than 20,000 government school students with volunteer teachers each year.
100% of St Jude’s students and scholars are on scholarships.
As a School we are always looking for meaningful ways to show our students what ‘Social Justice’ looks like in reality and we have decided to support this School with a fundraising initiative on Thursday 2 July. Called “Christmas In July” the students will be invited to donate a gold coin and wear their best Christmas outfit, clothes in Christmas colours etc.
The students at St Jude’s are currently putting together a video about their School that we will share with our students. We will then work with some of our senior students to create a video about St Patrick’s Sutherland, with the hope that we can develop an ongoing relationship.
Kind regards,
Steve Darcy (Principal)