Principal's Report

Thank you to all of those Mum’s, Dad’s, Grandma’s and Pa’s, Nanna’s and Pop’s who joined us in actively celebrating the theme for Catholic Schools Week - A Hope-Filled Future by participating in the math's games in the classrooms last Wednesday! A great deal of fun and learning was had by young and old and emphasised the targeted work we have been doing with the MaST initiative to gain positive growth in numeracy and mathematics. Thank you to Mrs Chard and our strong team of skilful helpful adults for leading and facilitating. Oh, and the sausage sizzle afterwards wasn’t too bad either!?

Similarly, the Years 1, 2, 3 and 4 with Kinder celebrated a lovely Mass with Father Gleeson and the parishioners last Tuesday and the Year 6 students bussed their way to Armidale with myself and Ms McMeniman last Thursday to gather as a faith community with Bishop Kennedy to officially mark Catholic Schools Week. As a Catholic school, these opportunities to celebrate the Eucharist and pray with our local and diocesan communities are especially valued.

As a school heavily committed to working in partnership with families I share an excerpt from the Living Well Learning Well document that I promoted at the beginning of the year.

The focus today is to emphasize the high importance and contribution of our adult learning partnership. If we are all collectively committed to improving learning growth and positive well-being then these partnership characteristics will definitely enhance that potential for student growth and success. Notwithstanding that I have already discussed the importance of attendance in earlier newsletter articles, speaking positively about the school, the teachers, and support staff, partitioning a time at home to discuss the school day and consider what a “literacy-rich” home environment might look like at your place, are all proven and positive contributors to learning growth and positive wellbeing. While we continue to look at many and more ways to have families on-site in our classrooms, our daily partnership exists both in the classrooms and in your homes. Please consider these notions and how they might work at your place?

At the time of writing, there have been 76 school days (15 weeks approximately) in 2022 and while we completely understand the helplessness of the Term One COVID restrictions imposed by the NSW government, particularly for close contacts, we also note that for some students with non-COVID related absences an absentee rate approaching 3 weeks for some of our students means close to 15 days of learning have been missed this year. Please make sure all absences are explained either by phoning the office or using the COMPASS app. Similarly, if there is an absolute family necessity to take an extended break please contact the office or myself directly, as unexplained or unapproved absences beyond 5 days must be documented. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in supporting regular student attendance.

May God go with you

Geoff McManus

Principal