Welcome to all our families.  It has been a wonderful first week back, and the smiling faces of the children attest to this.  It has been lovely to see so many parent faces in the Hall in the morning and afternoon also.  Your positivity adds to our parent community and assists the children to be ready for a great day of learning and engagement in class.  Thanks also, for remembering not to attend classrooms as we prefer to all gather in the morning.  This also allows our teachers to complete their final preparations ready for the day.  If you need to chat to your teacher, please send them an email to make a time that suits for a chat.

Afternoon PickUp Times - Sport in the Hall

To assist with the smooth transition of students leaving the school in the afternoon, we do have our Preps and Year 1’s coming to the hall a little earlier.  Our Year 2’s will also be escorted to the hall in the afternoon.  We do ask however, that parents and carers be mindful that sport lessons are taking place in the hall until 2.50pm.  There is no need to be at school from 2pm each day, and we do need to have the hall space available for classes to engage in learning.  If you do need to arrive a little early, we ask that you be respectful of the hall as a learning space and keep to the sides.

Please also remember that supervision starts in the Hall each morning from 8:00am.  Obviously as the new year starts, everyone is trying to settle into routines and get settled.  We urge parents/carers looking to drop students off in the morning to not do so until 8:00am, as before this, it is unsupervised and unsafe for our students.  Please also note that OSHC is licensed to use this space in the morning until 8:00am, and as such, we need to keep this area as free as possible for OSHC.

Building Project Update

We have received the final approvals from the Diocese to proceed with our final building stage.  We are awaiting the final sign off from the Queensland Catholic Education Commission.  Once all paperwork is collated, we anticipate works for the final stage to commence this term - hopefully only a few more weeks.

Playgrounds

We are looking forward to Urban Play returning to complete our new Tower Playground at the back of the Teal/Orange Blocks.  We are confident that the Year 3 - Year 6 students will enjoy this space.  Our wooden fort outside the Yellow Block is currently closed ready for some maintenance works to take place.  Our Year 2 and Year 3 students are able to access the Early Years Precinct and the Top Ovals for play at break times whilst we await this maintenance.

Dogs on school grounds

We are blessed this year to have Mrs Barb Salisbury, our Guidance Counsellor, onsite full time this year.  Ms Barb also has a Therapy Dog Companion - Honey, who will be working alongside her and visiting students/classes.  As part of Honey’s very strict accreditation, we are unable to have additional dogs on site at school.  Your support in adhering to these accreditation guidelines is appreciated.  There is further information in the newsletter about Honey for you to read.

Many blessings

Ros