Welcome back to Term 2. I hope that you all had some time over the Easter break to enjoy some rest and relaxation. While we have certainly had a wet week, it has been lovely to see all our students again.  Over the break, our teachers participated in a Diocesan gathering with all teachers from across our Diocese called ’Encounter’. We all had the opportunity to engage in keynote presentations and workshops around our faith journey. The presenters challenged us to deeply reflect at times about the different ways we encounter God in our lives, in the everyday, in our joy, in our struggles and in community. We were reminded about the importance of a relationship with God and the commitment required to build and maintain that relationship, just as we do with any other good relationships in our lives. The Encounter gathering was a great source of personal renewal for myself and I hope that it was for many of our staff too. It was also a wonderful opportunity to reflect on our school community and consider the way we encounter God. This has already been a source of much discussion and I look forward to building on our faith journey together.

Over the last couple of days our leadership team has met off site so we could engage in some uninterrupted work in preparation for our verification this year and to reflect on current practices to identify areas for improvement or consolidation. One of the things we plan to introduce this term is a leadership retreat for our Year 6 students. Now that we have a full-sized group, we have identified opportunities for them to have some added responsibilities. We will share more about this in the next few weeks. 

We have also decided to have a deeper, more specific whole school focus on each of the areas in our Way of PEACE. This term we will be looking for:

Persistence- Developing good manners- saying Please and Thank you

Empathy- Understanding our sense of the other- saying Sorry

Accountability- Put things where they belong- school and classroom resources

Care for Community- Aiming for a litter free school. Yes we will still have rubbish but it will all be in the appropriate bins

Engaged- Demonstrating gratitude with participation in prayer before meals.

Students will still be acknowledged for demonstrating other examples of Persistence, Empathy, Accountability, Care for community or when being particularly Engaged, especially within their classrooms but these are our whole school focus for this term. Hopefully we such a difference in our school by fulfilling these expectations that we can set all new goals for next term.

Uniforms

Please be reminded that the school uniform needs to be worn as expected. I have spoken to a number of students wearing their sports shirts with skorts instead of their sports shorts. I have also noticed a number of students not wearing school shoes as expected (before they all resorted to wet weather shoes which is fine). School shoes need to be all black joggers (laces or velcro is fine). With the cooler weather starting, it is also timely to consider a school jacket too. Other jumpers are not acceptable.

Anzac Day Liturgy

Thank you to all those families who were able to join us for our ANZAC  Day Liturgy this morning. Special thanks to Petty Officer Adam Pownall who was our guest speaker. It always adds to our service to have members of the Australian Defence Force in attendance. I hope to see many of our families at the ANZAC Day March on Sunday and that you all get to enjoy a long weekend.

Have a great week.

Cheers

Penny