Hi everyone,

Wow, what a whirlwind we have had this year and already we have reached the end of our second year. As this is the last newsletter for the year, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our school community for all that you added to helping us work towards the school we aspire to be. We have many wonderful families who contribute so much in terms of volunteering with various events or attending P & F Meetings or working on our School Board. It has been a challenging year for many families too, especially considering the floods at the beginning of the year. For many of us, this was such a long time ago now, but for too many others it is still a daily reality getting back on track from that time. 

As a school community we have grown considerable not just in numbers but also in developing our own identity and we are certainly starting to be considered very positively in the wider community. Next year we officially double in size from our first year. In our first year, we had seven classes, next year we will have 14 classes and this flows through with numbers of children doubling from our first year and our staff too. Next year our class teachers will be:

Prep Bilbies- Mrs Charley Favalli

Prep Platypus- Mrs Caitlin Smith

Prep Koalas- Miss Jess Smitt

Year 1 Echidnas- Mrs Lizzy Christie

Year 1 Possums- Ms Kandis Orr

Year 1 Wallabies- Mrs Gabby Torrens

Year 2 Curlews- Miss Pierina Massatto

Year 2 Lorikeets- Mrs Ros Baumann

Year 2 Kingfishers- Mrs Laura King

Year 3 Kookaburras- Miss Cienna Jewell

Year 3 /4 Emus- Mrs Rhylie Matthiesen

Year 4 Dragonflies- Miss Samantha Garbutt

Year 5 Turtles- Miss Meghan Durnford

Year 5 /6 Crocodiles- Miss Rebecca Curley

Music- Miss Adriana DiBella

We also welcome a number of new school officers including Domenic Figg, Tayla Bolton, Dana Kern, Amanda Ackland, Jess Lemmon and Sharni Wight. April Hanson will also be joining Belinda in the Tuckshop more officially on a Friday.

Next year we will be introducing another specialist lesson in Technology and we are currently advertising to fill this role. Mr Christie will be in the office full-time as we have a number of initiatives we’d like to roll out. 

One of those will be the PEACE Initiative where we will be drawing on the Benedictine motto- ‘Pax- ora et Labora’ meaning Peace, Pray and Work. We will break down the word PEACE to focus on the attributes that contribute to a harmonious community- Positivity, Empathy, Accepting, Caring, Engaged to highlight how each of us can contribute every day to making the world a better place. 

Essentially, we now have 4.5 days of school left with school finishing on Friday at 12.00pm. This last week is one of celebration starting with our End of Year Liturgy and Rite of Passage for our Year 6 students on Monday at 9.00am. We hope to see as many of you there as possible. On Tuesday, we will have our Step Up/ Transition Day where all students will gather in their new class with their new class group for the morning session. Please note that Miss Meghan Durnford in Year 5 and Miss Samantha Garbutt in Year 4 will not be able to be here that day due to prior commitments but the classes will still have a Step Up Experience. We are looking forward to our O’Holy Night on Wednesday 4 December at 6.00pm where each class will share some hymns or Christmas Carols they have been learning. All in all, a lovely finish to the year. 

Please enjoy a wonderful break. Best wishes to all our families who are moving onto new adventures. May the Christmas season be merry and full of joy for you all.

Cheers 

Penny