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Our wider community have certainly demonstrated resilience over the last couple of weeks in dealing with the unexpected fire events. As we send this newsletter, there are more fire events impacting our communities. I thank our parents and carers for responding quickly to our message for an early pick-up of students.
Events such as these are a timely reminder to make sure parents have access to the school communication App - Compass School Manager. Compass allows us to send push notifications and emails to our families about events and attendance. Without this App, communication between home and school is not effective and I encourage all parents to make sure they have this App installed and are logged in on their mobile devices.
Thank you for your understanding in relation to postponing our Family Fiesta. I know that a dedicated group of our parents have been working hard to create a social event for our families and I hope we can gather at a time in the near future to relax and allow our students and families to share some downtime together. Many of our parents prepared food for the evening and I hope they know how much we appreciate what they have done.
Public Speaking Success
We are very proud to say that all of our entries in the Manning Region Public Speaking Tournament were celebrating their successes last week and will advance to the Diocesan level of this competition in Newcastle. Xavier Laurie won in Early Stage 1, and Oscar Yeates, Baran Zanjana and Jocelyn Reardon were second-placed for the Stages 1, 2 and 3 sections.
Sporting Success
I was delighted to watch online and hear about the successes of our two Yr 6 students representing our school at the State Athletics Carnival this week. I would like to acknowledge how proud we were of both Jonathon Botros and Latrelle Wilson. As an aside, it was wonderful to witness the joy of their peers as they watched them compete through the heats via the online link.
Staffing
I am pleased to announce that Sean Hassett and Finlay Mackay were the successful applicants for the recently advertised teaching positions and will commence as permanent full-time teachers in 2020. Sean is currently employed at St Joseph's Taree and Fin has been working in a temporary capacity at Holy Name this year. We are very excited to welcome these extremely dedicated and professional teachers to our team - congratulations to them both! We may have 2 other temporary teaching appointments for 2020 and will advertise these as soon as possible.
2020 Plenary Council
Last year, a group of Holy Name parents participated in the first stage of the Plenary Council process called 'Listening and Dialogue', where the question 'What is God asking of us in Australia today? was the focus of our sessions. The submissions from these sessions have now been grouped into 6 themes and a process of 'Listening and Discerning' has begun. The following question and themes for discernment are the focus of current sessions being offered in our Parish.
How is God calling us to be a Christ-centred church that is:
- Missionary and evangelising
- Inclusive, participatory and synodal
- Prayerful and Eucharistic
- Humble, healing and merciful
- A joyful, hope-filled and servant community
- Open to conversion, renewal and reform
If you're interested in joining a session of 'Listening and Discerning' on one of these themes, please contact me at school or via email brooke.schumann@mn.catholic.edu.au .
Canteen 2020
I am currently putting together an advertisement for the provision of a canteen menu for Holy Name School in 2020. The advertisement will call for Expressions of Interest from local businesses and will be advertised locally and via social media. Please pass this information on to any businesses you think may be interested.
Kinder Transition
Together with some of our support staff, Mrs Townsend, Mrs Maloney and I had the pleasure of working with the Kinder 2020 students today while Mrs Monks and Mrs Praschinger took part in the Grandparents Day celebrations around the school. It was a fabulous opportunity to get to know these students and I must say, I was impressed with the way the group adjusted to the changes and settled to complete the activities prepared for them. I get a sense this group of students will transition well at the start of next year.
St Clare's Newsletter link
I have attached a link to our St Clare's High School newsletter for your interest. St Clare's welcomes our students for transition and educational opportunities and it's always great to catch up on their news.
Please take care over the weekend,
Brooke Stephens
The opening four weeks of this term has been extremely busy with groups of students participating in excursions, involving engaging in learning experiences.
Year 6 students Indigo, Isabel, Hannah, Latrelle, Kobi, Will, Dylan and Jonathan attended a STEM workshop at St Clare’s High School last week. These students were introduced to a project that they will continue to work on in groups over the next month at school. They will create a five-minute video presentation demonstrating their research which will be shown at a Peer Support Day at St Clare’s later this year, where all Year 6 students from the Manning Region will be in attendance.
Ethan, Jed and Jack have been busy learning in the Virtual Academy this year. The Virtual Academy is an online program to provide highly gifted learners the opportunity to learn with like-minded students from across the diocese and is guided by a specialist teacher. These boys recently attended a Graphic Design workshop in Maitland, where the boys learnt new skills that will assist them to put together their research projects over the next few weeks. The boys will practise delivering their projects to their peers over the next few weeks, before sharing their learnings in Newcastle later this year. The boys are to be congratulated on their persistence shown in this challenging learning environment this year.