Dear Parents and Caregivers

With only a month until Christmas, this weekend we enter the season of Advent where we celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. In 2019, I was very fortunate to spend three weeks in Jerusalem at Easter, and one of the most memorable things I did was to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which was built near where they believe Jesus was born. It saddens me greatly to watch the news every night and see the troubles going on in that part of the world. Remembering that the main focus of Jesus’ ministry was healing and forgiveness, I can see why he lived in such a troubled part of the world where his message is so vitally important. This Advent, I ask you to continue to pray for peace in our troubled world. Also, as get move closer to Christmas, many students like to exchange cards with each other. Whilst we don’t have a problem with this, we ask that parents/students don’t exchange any food items such as lollies/candy canes as we have a number of students in the school with food allergies and we don’t want to put their health at risk.

Awareness/Compassion Reflection If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

Occupational Therapist A little while ago, I announced that from the start of next year, we have our very own Speech Therapist on staff. I am now happy to announce that we will also have our very own Occupational Therapist on staff as well. Alice Storer has accepted the position here for two days per week. Both Alice and Alana (our Speech Therapist) will do our Kindergarten screening and will then be able to follow up in an ongoing way with our students, staff and parents. This is a very exciting initiative and it will be a steep learning curve as no other Catholic school has done this yet. Again, I ask parents to be patient as no doubt there will be a lot of students who will need this extra support and it will take some time to get to all of them. The big advantage of course is that both ladies will be members of staff and there will be no extra cost for parents.

School Fees At the Annual Community Meeting this week, we announced that there will be no increase in your school fees for next year. This decision was endorsed by the School Advisory Council and then approved by CEWA. We understand that the economy is tight at the moment, and you are reminded to contact either myself or Steve Tucker, our Finance Manager, if you run into any financial difficulties. Hopefully, this decision helps you to some degree.

Thanksgiving Mass/Concert Night This is one of our major events for the year and all parents are invited to join us on Thursday 30 November from 6pm for Mass on the oval. All students are requested to meet in their classrooms at 5.30pm. The Christmas concert will start straight after Mass. A note will come home with all the details so please make sure you know what is happening as it will be a big night and you won’t want to miss out on any of the action.

Reports The end of year reports go live around 4pm on Monday 4 December. This gives you the opportunity to meet with the teachers throughout the week if you have any questions. I have read them all, and as usual, I was very impressed with the standard of our students’ learning this year.

Transition to New Classes On Wednesday 6 December at 9.00am, our students (except the Year 6s) will get to meet their new teachers for 2024 along with their classmates. Please note that it is a very complex and long process sorting our class lists for the following year, and once they are finalised, we don’t like to make any last minute changes. By just moving one student, it can throw the whole list out, and cause further issues. All lists will be posted outside all classrooms from this time for parents to look at.

Yours sincerely

Laurie Bechelli