We welcomed back about 75% of our students yesterday for the commencement of Term 2 and it was wonderful to see their smiling faces again. I appreciate the decision parents have made as to whether to send their children back or not, but please be assured that the staff and I will continue to work with families and support them in whatever ways we can. It was great to get back to a bit of normality and see the children interact with one another. The children quickly got back into their routines and it was fantastic to see the way they swiftly got onto their learning.

During these continuing uncertain times, we pray that all families are remaining safe and well. Over the course of the past week, the teaching staff have been working hard on ensuring ongoing education is occurring for each student enrolled at our school. I am amazed at the resilience our students display, as I hear stories from teachers of class meetings taking place, work being loaded up onto See Saw or Teams and a variety of activities being completed to a high standard.

I would like to thank you all for your support and understanding in these very difficult times. This is all very new and unprecedented for us, and the staff are working tirelessly in trying to maintain normality for the children attending school, provide face-to-face learning for those still in attendance, all whilst trying to navigate a new way of providing education to our students through remote learning.

Coronavirus Update
We are closely monitoring this constantly changing situation to ensure our students and families remain safe. A pandemic plan is in place for all WA schools and is continually being updated by senior staff at the Catholic Education Office in consultation with the Department of Education, Association of Independent Schools and the WA Health Department.

We invite all families to come along for our first Sundowner of the year. It will be held outside the Canteen from 3:30pm tomorrow afternoon, with the P&F providing a Sausage Sizzle. BYO drinks and picnic blankets. We look forward to seeing lots of families come along.

As a school, we have a focus each term to help us think about others and our duty to show compassion, understanding and grace. We then try to link this focus to an outreach program to assist others in our community. This term’s focus is Compassion. We encourage the students to show this to each other, to forgive and try to understand different points of view, circumstances and backgrounds. Often there is a lot more to someone’s story than is visible on the surface and we encourage the students to try to remember and accept this.

We would like to extend a very warm welcome to all our parents, carers and grandparents to join with us as a Catholic school community to celebrate the Eucharist and receive the Ashes on Ash Wednesday, 26 February at 9.00am. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a time of repentance and renewal, of prayer and reflection, of seeking to renew and restore our relationship with Jesus and of striving to follow more closely in His footsteps. Receiving the Ashes signifies to one and all our intention to repent, to make sacrifices and changes in our lives in order to become better Christians. We would really love to see the church packed with as many parents as possible, so that you can not only share this Lenten journey with your children, but also set an example for them to follow.

Thank you to all the parents who came along to our Parent Information evening on Monday night. We hope this was an informative and worthwhile opportunity to find out about what will be happening over the course of the year in the classrooms and allow the opportunity for questions to be answered. Please remember to make an appointment to speak to your teacher should you ever have any questions or concerns.

As we conclude our school year, I feel blessed that we have managed to achieve so much and developed as a school community. So much learning, growth and development has taken place, creating students who I believe, will be valuable assets to our world. Even in this past week, our students have had many opportunities and experiences that assist in their development:

Many Christian churches in Australia, particularly Catholic churches, celebrated the start of the Advent season last Sunday. Advent is the period of four Sundays and weeks leading up to Christmas – the birth of Jesus, so its length varies from 22 to 28 days.