Principal's Message

Dear Families and friends,

This week we pray for the Sri Lankan community and the people in our own community who have been deeply affected by the tragedy on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka. During this time of uncertainty in the world we seek comfort from one another and continue to use our strength in prayer and strength in our own community to support one another. Our hearts and deepest sympathy go out to all the victims, their surviving family, friends and their communities. There are no words to describe the pain and suffering of so many people. We hope that our Sri Lankan brothers and sisters will find comfort in each other and strength in all the good memories and lessons their loved ones had gifted to them.

Welcome back to Term 2. The children came bouncing through the gates last week with enthusiasm and great spirit as did the staff. We are looking forward to another great term working with you on the very important task of educating your children.

We are looking forward to making our school movie this term with Andy Druit. We hope that it will capture the essence of learning and the complexity of the work that we do here every day. We look forward to sharing this with you. Below is a little bit from our website about our learning spaces. We celebrate what we do.

Learning spaces at St Anthony’s are flexible which means they are sociable, changeable, built for movement, interaction and small focused teaching ‘Learning diversity in Catholic schools is enacted through an inclusive pedagogy and a commitment to uphold the rights of all to be: welcomed, valued, acknowledged, and actively engaged in education.’ (Horizons of Hope Diversity Foundation Statement CEM)

Our vision is to integrate life and the Catholic Faith through the inclusive and holistic development of students. In partnership with the wider community, our students will strive for excellence and acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes that ensure lifelong learning, empowering them to contribute to the global community. Because our students are immersed in a rapidly changeable, globalising world where scientific and technological growth dominate, we cannot keep educating our children according to past pedagogical models and methods.

‘As technology advances, we are challenged to collaborate with schools and lead new pedagogical models for learning and teaching, incorporating new technologies in the classroom and providing new learning spaces to meet the needs of students.’ (Horizons of Hope CEM)

At St Anthony’s in order for every person to flourish and be known, we are journeying to re-imagine our learning environments and pedagogies so that personal and social learning, critical thinking, ethical understandings, creativity and initiative are the common dispositions across the school. Where purposeful data is the only data. Our student vision of high expectations means that our students know the purpose for their learning, what success and failure looks and feels like and how persistence, courage and grit can drive their learning forward.

Student led 3 way learning conversations are the most empowering way for our learners to articulate this to family and educators. Dojo as our family engagement, positive behaviours sharing tool and e-portfolio tool also articulates learning into homes.

Go gently and as always, if you have any feedback, questions or ideas we’d love to hear about them. Positive feedback drives our work forward. Positive interactions drive our work forward.

God bless

Patrika Rowley

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