Principal Message

With our Open Night this past Tuesday 28th February, we saw over 700 visitors to the Kildare site between 4.00 pm and 7.00 pm. For such an undertaking there were many weeks of preparation for the night itself along with school visits to all the Catholic feeder schools in the region, significant work in marketing - TV and radio ads, social media posts and fielding of enquiries. 

Many students were involved with school visits, and on the night itself, welcoming and taking tours, along with preparation and handing out of food. Their work is always pivotal with such nights and we can proudly boast always a source of wonderfully positive feedback. As one visitor from a local primary school said to me, “your students really love their school”.

So many teams of staff were involved, prior to, and on the night. On behalf of all of us, I thank all of the staff, both non teaching and teaching, who toiled to make the night a huge success. 

On Monday night last week our Byrnes Shield cricket team narrowly (last ball) lost their final against Mater Dei. Thanks to Mr Geoff McNamara and Mr Ryan Price for their great work with the team. Next year!

Our Swimming Carnival, for those who took part, was a great success and we look forward to seeing how our swimmers perform at BISSA this week. We will be reviewing our swimming carnival, given so many chose not to attend, but took the gift of a day off, to determine if this is the best model of such an event. There are alternative models to increase participation that we should at least consider.

This week our Hardy Shield Rugby League team and our Preston Butcher Touch team commence their competitions. We look forward to a strong performance from both teams and wish them the very best of luck.

On Tuesday night at 7:00 pm we have a number of our students performing in A Time to Shine at the Civic Theatre Wagga Wagga. This the first Diocesan Secondary Schools Creative Arts Showcase, no doubt the first of many. See the ad below to book tickets via this link HERE.

A busy time in Creative Arts with our Musical for 2023 well under way, directed by Mr Mack. ‘Back to the Eighties’. Many students are involved and it is looking to be a terrific show in Term Two. 

As many would know, we have suffered some shortages of supply on some uniform items. As communicated last year, our focus was on Year 7 and 11 for implementation. However the NSW government , in its generous wisdom chose, with little notice, to give every family $150 per child for school needs. We had ordered in September for Year 7 and 11 and were unprepared for the sudden demand from Years 8, 9 and 10 which cleared out some stock items quite quickly. Our supplier is working quickly to rectify this and we hope to have this resolved by the end of term.

Overall the transition to the new uniform has gone very well indeed, with a very high satisfaction level from students and parents. We have also had a number of examples of unsolicited comments on how good our students look in their new uniform. I thank everyone involved in the process so far, conscious that all students will be in the new uniform by 2025. 

This year we welcome Ms Carmel Spry as the new CEDWW Secondary Schools Consultant. Carmel has held a number of informal meetings at the College since the start of the year and this week we have our first set of formal meetings with our Leadership Team looking at our Annual Improvement Plan 2023. Carmel comes from significant Principal appointments in independent schools at Coffs Harbour and Moama to CEDWW. Her experience will be invaluable and we look forward to working with her. 

In closing, can I please remind all families as per our calendar since last year, that we have a CEDWW Wagga Deanery Staff Development day this Friday, 10th March at Mater Dei Catholic College. The College will be closed this Friday and calls will be diverted to message bank. This day will see the launch of significant Diocesan documents - Charter of Catholic Education, Transformative Learning Statement and the CEDWW Wellbeing Framework. These documents will drive our work over the next few years.