What a lovely week we have had with Catholic Education Week, Challenge Games and St Benedict’s Feast Day. Thank you to all our staff who make these events run so smoothly. Thanks to Nick Christie for all your work in organising Catholic Education Week and Feast Day. Thank you to Sarah Pugh who has played a big role in organising Benny’s Got Talent and to Ros Baumann, Theo Papazis, Mel Foley, Dana Kern and Stacey Toigo who supported our students at Challenge Games. Our amazing staff are what make all these extra events and activities available for our students. Thank you to all parents who have been able to come along too; we love having you participate wherever possible.

Validation

On Monday we have an external panel coming to our school to review the work we have done over our first five years as part of the Townsville Catholic Education Renewal Cycle. When we opened our school in 2018, we had our first five year School Renewal Plan in place with goals developed by parents and staff who were part of our Formation Committee. Each year we have written an annual plan based on this first five year plan but also responsive to any identified needs as we grew eg. class newsletters came from parents wanting more information about what students were doing at school and therefore we had goals around improving our communication. This year we are improving our connection to our faith by introducing Class Masses each fortnight as part of Pastoral Care, along with increasing our religious symbols around the school. 

This panel will be lead by Ross Horner, former Director for School Services at Townsville Catholic Education and will include a Principal from Marian Catholic Primary School, A Deputy Principal from Good Shepherd Catholic High School in Mt Isa, our Education Consultant, Laurence Hosking,  our Board Chairperson, Louise Costanzo and our Parish Priest, Fr Joseph Reddy.

Our leadership team will present a report based on the achievements from our five year plan, the Characteristics of an Effective Catholic School and the feedback from parents, staff and students. The panel will also speak to parents, staff and students to explore any questions they may have and will participate in a tour of the school and our classrooms.

Through the Pre-verification and Verification process we have done leading up to Validation, we have already drafted goals for our next five year plan that the panel will also review to ensure we have captured all our needs moving forward. I look forward to sharing their report with you in the coming weeks. 

Please have a lovely weekend.

Cheers

Penny