From the Acting Principal

Term 3 Week 4

Parents and Carers,

Thanks to Norah, Dina, Clare and Liz for looking after the school in my absence for the first part of the week. You know you have a good team when most of the community doesn’t even notice you are gone. I spent from Monday to Wednesday in Hobart, at the Australian Primary Principals Association conference. The event was attended by approximately 450 primary principals from all parts of Australia. I was part of the 14 member North Eastern Melbourne Catholic Principals contingent who travelled over. 

We heard from a range of outstanding speakers. Simon Breakspear contended that whilst educators, leaders and schools are overloaded, in our commitment to improvement, we seem stuck in an additive mode. Through drawing parallels to gardening methods, Simon suggested looking at pruning programs and activities. We need to consider the power of doing less, but better. 

Nathan Wallis presented how the brain works and the impact of building positive foundations in the Early Years. Focusing on how the first 1000 days of a baby's life play a critical role in defining later outcomes for our children and for their future. 

Dr. Michael Carr-Gregg, one of Australia’s highest-profile psychologists, offered many practical, evidence-based strategies to prevent burnout in staff and leadership, including the latest in self-care, stress management and healthy lifestyles. These are only a few of the many great speakers we were privileged to hear from and as a lifelong learner, I look forward to exploring some of the concepts with the staff at school.

The parents of our Year 6 Confirmation candidates are reminded that we have a Parent Faith Formation and Information Evening in the OLHC church at 7.00pm, on Monday August 7th. This is in keeping with our Parent Initiated, School Supported and Parish Based Program. We will be joined by the parents of students from SFX Montmorency and Holy Trinity Eltham North. We take this opportunity to thank Mrs. Anne Askew who has been doing an outstanding role in supporting the school with the program, in unison with the students and Mrs. Clare Bisby, our REL. We appreciate all the work Clare does behind the scenes, to coordinate with the parish  and other schools. Confirmation will be at St Patrick’s Cathedral on Sunday October 15th.

Next Tuesday, we are hosting a Kids View Conference. Our senior school students will be joined by  student leaders from a range of other local primary schools. This is part of an annual series of social justice conferences and incursions designed to provide opportunities for Australians to make lasting change towards a socially just world.

Catherine Scerri (Executive Director of Bahay Tuluyan) will bring youth ambassadors from Bahay Tuluyan. They will share their stories, bringing an authentic voice to issues of poverty, education, social justice and the capacity for all of us to make a difference.

We have a very busy August lined up with the National Day of Action Against Bullying, Book Week, Science Week, Italian Day, Interschool Sport, School Camp and all the usual learning. We look forward to sharing the information about all these upcoming events through the next few newsletters.

The PFOL will be opening the Canteen window for recess sales as of next Friday 11th of August on an ongoing basis. Available for sale will be snack packets of Red Rock chips, Grain Wave whole grain chips, Pringles, Raspberry Twisters, Snakes, Smarties (Small 16g pkts), Yoghurt Frogs and Juicies. These items can be purchased through CDFPAY (and will be ready to pick up at recess) or can be bought directly from the window. If you are interested in helping our PFOL as a recess helper, please let us know. 

Congratulations on a great team effort last week at the Eltham District Athletics Carnival on Friday 28th July. We have five students who have qualified for the next stage of competition. Congratulations to Daisy, Jonah, Harry, Noah W and Spencer who will be invited to attend the Nillumbik Division championships on Thursday 7th September at Meadowglen International Athletics Stadium. This is the day after the Year 5/6 camp, so not the ideal preparation, however we wish them well.

As always, I encourage you to take a moment to read about all of the other exciting things happening at OLHC in the other areas of this newsletter.

Regards

Mark Pinkerton

Acting Principal

We offer our prayers for the Zanatta family on the passing of Catherine today (mum to Sarah (dec) Rebecca and Jacob (past students).  May she rest peacefully in God's loving embrace.

 

 

 

 

PFOL Pie Drive orders are now open via CDF Pay (See Page 10) Orders close August 15th

Find and connect with us

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ourladyhelpofchristianseltham/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OurLadyHelpElth  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ourladyhelpofchristians/

Please refer to our School google calendar for events throughout the year.  

Links