Principal's Message
Good afternoon Parents and Carers,
Welcome back to St Philomena's Catholic School for the 2021 academic school year and I trust all our families have enjoyed a wonderful and blessed Christmas and New Year. A special welcome to all our new families joining our St Philomena's Learning Community for 2021. I look forward to getting to know you all throughout the year ahead.
The year has started extremely well with all students from Year 1 to Year 10 commencing on Monday. Consistent and embedded agreed practices regarding learning and behaviour across K-6 and Years 7-10 has led to a very smooth transition into their learning this week. Through my daily learning walks I have been so excited to see the high levels of engagement in all areas of school life. Only four days in and our students are already engaged in rich learning opportunities crafted by our brilliant Leaders of Learning.
Over the Christmas holidays the school was a buzz of activity with trades of every variety working to improve learning conditions for our staff and students. New guttering, freshly painted learning spaces, installation of air conditioning in the secondary Art and TAS learning space, along with 3 new learning intervention studios is just a taste of the work carried out over the past 6 weeks. A special thank you to our Admin, Uniform and Grounds staff for their hard work and dedication for ensuring the school was ready and looking its best for when our students returned on Monday. A fantastic effort thank you!
Many of our students were delighted to see new soccer goals (and soccer balls) introduced to our grassed playing areas, providing them with a more authentic game experience at recess and lunch. Our hope is to also mark out these fields throughout Term 1 to further enhance the game experience.
On Wednesday afternoon, our Stage 3 students (Years 5 & 6) participated in their first elective classes (a new learning strategy for 2021). Throughout this year, our Stage 3 students will be provided with the opportunity to learn Japanese (with Mrs Helen O'Neill), Music (with Mr Stuart King) and Digital Technologies (with Mrs Kara Carrigan). This initiative provides our students with the opportunity to be exposed to (and develop) key skills and competencies necessary to transition into the future learning requirements of secondary education. Early feedback from the students yesterday outlined their excitement toward this new initiative.
St Philomena's finally felt complete today as we welcomed our 44 new kindergarten children (and their parents) to school, as they begin their learning journey with us. Thank you to our new Year 6 school captains and prefects for welcoming our new students and providing their parents with a small welcome gift.
While preparations continue for the renovation of the Parish Hall building to make way for our new library space, we will be without a fully operational library throughout Term 1. During this time, we will create a micro 'Pop Up Library' to ensure our students still have the opportunity to engage in a library environment and develop critical literacy skills.
COVID-19 continues to play a significant part in our educational landscape at the commencement of the 2021 school year. The safety and well-being of our staff and students continues to be our priority and we encourage all of our families to adhere to our COVID-19 protocols.
God bless
Jamie McDowall
Principal
