It is hard to believe that we are in the final days of the school year and soon we will break for a well-earned rest. The last 8 days of school are filled with celebrations, presentations, clean ups and last-minute preparation for the 2025 school year. We will continue to wrap up the learning for this year so that students and staff can make a smooth transition to learning when they return in 2025.

The Annual Awards presentations will take place on Wednesday 11 December with the Infants and Primary presentation in the church at 10am and the secondary awards at 12 noon. All students are expected to attend in full school uniform. The Front Office staff are currently contacting parents if their children are receiving an award. Please call back asap if a message has been left from the school. All Kindergarten students will receive an award at the first session and our Year 10 students will receive their report package at the secondary presentation. We hope that parents will join us to celebrate the achievement of our students.

This Friday will also be the Year 10 Graduation Mass and Dinner. The Graduation Mass will begin at 11.45am with the traditional handprint ceremony and then the official photos will begin at 3.30pm at the front of the school front office. The Dinner will begin at the S&C Club at 7pm with the presentation of the graduating class. This is an alcohol-free event.

Our Primary building refurb is progressing well and the rain has held up some of the work on the verandah. We are also waiting on delivery of some of the doors and fittings. It is possible that we will begin the new school year in the convent space and transfer over to the new classrooms in the first couple of weeks of February. It will definitely be worth the wait and we are excited to be in our newly completed learning spaces.

At the conclusion of this year we will farewell several staff who are retiring or moving on to new adventures. Mr Tim Mahon and Mr Peter Turner will retire after long and illustrious careers and decades worth of teaching. We will acknowledge their contributions at the Award ceremony this week. We have been blessed to have such passionate teachers care for our students and share their wisdom, skills and time. We will also farewell Miss Brooke Thompson. Despite only a short time on staff, Brooke has been an important part of the Infants team and we know that she will have a fabulous career as a teacher. There will be other teachers who will be acknowledged on Wednesday as they shift roles.

Last week we were privileged to have Kirra Pendergast visit our school and speak to our students and staff about the best way to stay safe online, the new ban, dangers on the web and different uses for AI. Kirra connected very well with our Stage 2 students and they learnt so many new ways to protect themselves. Our Secondary students also had the benefit of Kirra’s expertise and wisdom. Our Year 9 students actually requested an additional Q & A with Kirra because they had so many questions. The staff met with Kirra in the afternoon and were challenged and inspired by her wisdom, knowledge and experience. They learnt a whole raft of different strategies to stay informed. Our Parents session was only little but the parents in attendance discussed the challenges for parents today to stay abreast of all the developments and different ways that they can stay connected to their children and allow them to develop the ethics and responsibilities around online use. Next year we will make available all of the different resources and ‘cheatsheets’ that Kirra includes with her programs to help us all help our children navigate this space.

The expectation remains that all students are at school for the remainder of the school year. Our last day is 18^th December. If your child is not going to be at school please make contact with us to update our attendance records.

Next Tuesday 17^th December will be the End-of-Year Celebration including the Primary Advent liturgy and the GOLD Award presentation. We will welcome our new students for Kindergarten 2025 and present them with a new school hat. Please join us in the church at 10am to celebrate the year that was 2024.

Over the coming days we will endeavour to send updates about all the events that are happening in the run down to the last day.

Remember the reason for the season and there is always a reason to be kind.

God Bless

Ms Nicky Trinder

Principal

~Tickets available from the Front Office~