Dear Families,

This week I will be attending the Catholic Leaders day and Principals Retreat in Bowral. On Wednesday Principals work with Senior Officers at Catholic Education and experts in the Science of Learning to further develop Catholic Education’s plan for Teaching and Learning across the Archdiocese. Our retreat, held over Thursday and Friday, will be on the themes inner and prophetic leadership. Carmen Myles will act in my absence.

As we enter autumn we will start to see cooler mornings but still have the beautiful sunny days Canberra is known for. Many children will take off their jumpers mid game on the oval and leave them behind once the bell goes. Teachers do gather the jumpers at the end of each break, but if they don’t have names on them, it is very hard to get them back to their rightful owner. Any labelled items of clothing will be returned, but anything without a name will stay in lost property for a week, before being washed and put into our second hand uniform pool. So, please label all clothing so we can return it to your child. If you do need to buy additional jumpers, or other uniform items, we currently have a very healthy supply of almost everything.

On Tuesday and Wednesday next week we will hold 10 minute goal setting meetings with parent and students. This is also a good time for teachers to talk about what they are noticing about your child’s learning in the classroom and parents to talk about the specific learning needs for your child. Instructions on how to book these meetings are in this newsletter. Please take a few moments to log in to book in a time to meet with your child’s teacher. This can also be done through the sZapp tiles. Due to COVID measures, most parents will be asked to wait outside the external door of your child’s classroom for your meeting. Year 2 and 3 Blue parents will wait inside the main building near your child’s classroom. If you are a parent of a child in Year 2 or 3 Blue, we ask that you only enter the main building just prior to your allocated time and leave as soon as your meeting is over. We will post the CBR app at the entry to each classroom.

One benefit of COVID for many parents was the introduction of before school drop-off and the cementing of end of day pick-up procedures. Many parents have commented on how convenient this is and how they appreciate teachers supervising and assisting this drop-off and pick-up. We know that some of you prefer to drop your child to the courtyard. If you do this we ask that you are mindful of where you are parking so as not to put children who are being dropped off in danger. If you are parking we ask that you use the gravel car park first. If the gravel car park is full then you may park on the basketball courts on the side furthest from the school building or in front of the cricket nets. Please do not park on the basketball courts closest to the school building. We also ask that those parents who arrive early not drive onto the basketball courts until after 2.50pm. The basketball courts are still used for sport lessons until this time. And remember, the speed limit is 10km/h as soon as you enter the driveway.

God Bless