Message from the Principal
'At our very heart is the desire for each individual student to flourish across academic, physical, cognitive, emotional, social and spiritual domains. We support students to grow in virtue and to embrace a view of themselves and the world that leads to peace, justice, and the prosperity of society as a whole. Ours is a journey towards hope and optimism that is enlightened by faith and animated by love.'
Dear Families,
I hope that your long weekend was filled with great activities with your family and friends. I know that some extra days off for our staff were very welcomed in yet another busy term. Our teaching staff are immersed in quality teaching at present and are putting in lots of extra hours to ensure that the assessment schedules are ready and formal reporting requirements are met for the end of semester 2. We thank everyone for the efforts of enduring the COVID restrictions and celebrate the easing of these restrictions.
We look forward to welcoming our new Preps later in November and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing most of our Preps with their families at the transition bag pick up day on Thursday. We look forward to posting fun and interactive transition videos on the School Dojo to compensate for some precious lost face to face visits.
At this time there is a lot of work going into ensuring adequate staffing for 2021. Our enrolments are increasing slightly in 2021 as we welcome nearly 60 new Preps and many more students across the school coming from other schools. With 48 Year 6's going out, we are grateful for a levelling out of numbers and look forward to a steady increase over the coming years. We will always continue to ensure the best teacher to student ratios and expert educators and support staff.
We begin our year 1-6 Transition program in week 8 and allow our students to be in their 2021 spaces to become familiar and ready for a new year. These sessions are important as they enable us to group our students equitably.
I would like to take this opportunity to farewell several staff members who will not be returning in 2021 and some who will be taking up new opportunities. We farewell Ms Anisah Furness who is taking up the 'Kimberley Calling' and travelling to the Kimberley with her family to teach Art in Indigenous communities for 2 years. Hopefully Anisah will bring some great Indigenous perspectives back to St Anthony's in 2023. We officially farewell Tamara Busbridge who left earlier in the year to teach at St Frances De Sales Lynbrook. We hope to have Tamara back to say a proper goodbye to the children who were in remote learning when she left. We welcome back Miss Maggie Collins who has joyfully and professionally stepped into a leave replacement position in 2020. Maggie has been a breath of fresh air and we have loved having her on our team. Maggie will take up the Visual Arts Role in 2021. We wish all of these wonderful people much happiness in their future endeavors and thank them for being an important part of the St Anthony's community.
Enjoy the next couple of weeks as we journey closer to Advent and as we try to ensure that our celebrations under restrictions remain child focused and happy. Please go gently as the end of year can bring anxiety and worry with the transition to new schools, levels and new challenges. It is a time to look after each other more carefully and mindfully.
As always if you have any feedback, ideas or you need any assistance at all, you are always most welcome to see me, Mr James Gow, Mrs Glennis Kerr or any member of the wider school leadership team.
God Bless,
Patrika Rowley