What a fabulous week we have had! We are so proud of our students that represented our school at Redtrack with inter-school athletics yesterday and at St Anthony’s with the Robotics Competition too. So many students achieved personal bests and we even had a couple of students break some records as well. Our students at the Robotics Competition were very creative with their coding and demonstrated some excellent problem solving skills.

Next week we look forward to celebrating Science Week with an interactive display in our library. Each class will get an opportunity to visit the display throughout the week. The students have been asked to provide some questions they have about science which will form part of the display. We have some very inquisitive minds that will be quite inspired next week.

I am absent from school for the first couple of days next week as I am heading to Melbourne for the Australian Catholic Primary Principal Association Board Meeting where I am one of two directors from Queensland. This is a new role I have taken up this year as a representative of the Qld Catholic Primary Principals Association of which I have been on the executive team for about 4 years. The work of these organisations is very important to me as we can have the op[portunity to liaise with principals in catholic schools across our state and across our country to discuss the factors impacting education now and going forward. We also have the opportunity to interact with key stakeholders from different national bodies that are connected to the education sector to work collaboratively on matters that inform the work that we do in schools. This will only be my second meeting with ACPPA but I am thoroughly looking forward to it. There is nothing like getting perspectives from other colleagues in your own profession about the different things that excite us and challenge us to keep working to make our schools the best they can be.

Finally, I just wanted to share an excerpt from one of our Year 6 student’s writing this week. I was so impressed with this, I wanted to share it in our newsletter. She has the making of a great writer with these sorts of examples.

My Monster

By Abigail Williams

As I walked down the stone path, covered in what looked like a millennia of frost and moss, the shadows crept behind me, including my own personification of woe on the ground. The fond smell of pine wafted towards the long, cold road, coming from the almost perfect-looking mountains. I gazed down at the jagged corners of cobblestone beneath my feet, and thought of my closest friend, Georgie. His little helmet, covered in a small layer, a world of its own. His little smile, that could change hatred into love in a heartbeat. His warm body, delicate, soft and warm to the touch of my icy fingertips. If I could, I would keep him in my pockets, safe from everything harmful. I’ve had to translate everything he says through my head, but it's still understandable, even to people who don’t know sign language like me. When I reach my car, the air is still and cold, like most of my life. I open the heavy door and sit down on the padded seat. I start the engine, and it starts, just like that. One turn of a key. One movement. But it's not like I care. I’m too tired and lazy to care. The air of silence is disrupted by the car coming to life, my ticket out of the uninviting frost that is the road. It starts, I check for anyone, but of course there’s no-one. There never is, at least, not this late at night. I step on the accelerator, and speed into the night……

Please have a fabulous week.

Cheers

Penny