Dear Families,

I wanted to start by thanking you for your support of the school during what has been a challenging year and for the way you all supported one another. While we would have preferred not to have gone through everything this year, we have all banded together and I believe become stronger because of it. From the issues with our oval, to the COVID closure, to the most recent vandalism of our church, our community has shown immense resilience and strength.

As we move closer towards 2022 we can see that many of these issues have been or are being resolved. Our church has been cleaned and it was wonderful to be able to attend Mass there last Sunday.  While we were not able to kneel, it was heartening to be able to be back in so quickly. We were finally able to welcome students back to school and teach face-to-face, and we were even able to hold some of our usual end of year events. If anyone has driven past the school over the last two days, you may well have seen trucks full of clean soil being dumped into our new ELC garden beds. This is the initial phase of our PFAS remediation, with the remainder of the oval to be remediated shortly.

With 2021 drawing to a close, we sadly have to farewell a number of staff members and families from our community. Ms Kayla Larkins, Mr Scott Troldahl and Mr Rohan Heffernan will be moving to other schools, Ms Candice Liu will be starting a new adventure and Mr Al Robinson who will return to work on programs with Marymead. I wish them all the very best and wish them well in their new endeavours. We also have a number of families leaving us this year, many of whom have been with our community for quite some time, as their youngest or only child graduates from Year 6 this year. I wish the following families all the very best and encourage you to stay in touch: Andreatta, Barnes, Black, Cheong, Cole / Haycroft, Crook, Cvecic, Dickson, Dunbar, Forka, Gardner, Haycroft, O’Brien, Pazzona, Piper, Smith, Sverd-Billerwell, Toumoua, Wilding and Withers.

We welcome Mr Matthew Smith to our school and welcome back Mrs Danielle Roberts for 2022.

Your children will have had an opportunity to meet their new teacher and class today. I thank those families who emailed me or spoke to me earlier this term regarding specific requests, we have been able to accommodate most of these requests. If this was not possible, your child’s current classroom teacher will have spoken to you at the time they formed the classes.

Finally, I would like to wish our Year 6 students, who leave us at the end of this year, all the very best for their future endeavours. They and their families were not deterred by the quick change of churches for the Graduation Mass and we thank Fr Simon and the St Matthew’s community for allowing us to use their church for our ceremony.  Fr Tom congratulated the students and families for their resilience and courage and wished them all the very best. Unfortunately, we were only able to have two family members in the church, so I have included my speech in this newsletter for those who were unable to attend. You will be fondly remembered, and I hope we will be able to have regular visits from you in the future.

When I came to sit down and write this speech, I had a bit of a look at last year’s for inspiration. In some ways, I could have just copied and pasted the speech from last year and simply changed the names of the teachers. It mentions zoomed meetings, remote learning and the dreaded COVID word, all things we have continued to deal with this year. But that would not do justice to everything else you have been through this year, nor to the way as a group you have stepped up to support one another through one of the most challenging years yet. Yes, once again everyone had to quickly move back to online learning, our morning whole school meetings went back to MSTeams, I continued to get dressed up into ball gowns and tiaras for the Principal’s awards. But this year you also had to quarantine, remote learning lasted for a lot longer, when we returned, you were restricted to parts of the playground on a rotational basis, buddy catch-ups were reduced to only what was necessary and looming over all of this was the ever-present possibility that we would have to quarantine again. 

It would have been easy for you to just throw your hands in the air and just give up. To sit and wallow in self-pity, to only worry about yourselves and how all of this impacted on you. But you didn’t do this, you looked for ways you could support one another, for ways you could look after other students in the school and ways you could support your teachers. Only yesterday when I let you know about the terrible vandalism of our church, some of you were asking whether you could help out in any way. This selflessness is what has defined the actions of some many of you in this year 6 group.

When we started the year, I spoke to you about teamwork and invited you to be ‘the glue’ that holds the team together. You had a chance to tease me about my favourite NBA team the Wizards, and also about how old I was because I still referred to my favourite player, Michael Jordan as though he was still playing, and you taught me a bit about the new stars I needed to learn about. So, I’ve taken your advice and learned a little about the Lakers and the great Lebron James. Here is what I have learned…

I was the same age as you when LeBron James was born - I can see some of you already doing the maths to work out how old that makes me. He had to overcome many challenges early on in life but never gave up. Over the years he has been likened to the great Michael Jordan - and given that at 36 he is still going strong, he may eventually hold the title of best player in the history of the game without challenge.

In his NBA Finals Most Valued Player acceptance speech he spoke of the importance of team and that he always looked at how he could support his team and that he felt he had really accomplished something when he was able to help other players shine. When asked “What was the most important thing for him as a player” he said “I put myself, my body and my mind in a position to be available for my team. The best thing I can do for my teammates is to be available”. LeBron James knows he needs to be at his best, all of the time for the sake of his team.

He spoke of the great partnership between him and Anthony Davies, he said “it’s easy, there’s no ego, we want the best from each other every single day, on and off the floor. To be able to put him where he is means more to me than anything.” LeBron James is the epitome of a team player, looking at ways he can support the other players on his team and help them to shine.

This characteristic goes beyond the basketball court. LeBron James is also very outspoken in relation to social justice issues. He has spoken out against racism and discrimination.

What many of you may not know is that LeBron James is Catholic and, like you, went to Catholic School. His schooling, and his ongoing faith in God, has shaped him as a person on and off the court. His support of many charities, his outspokenness about social justice issues and his openness about his prayer life all come because of his early years in Catholic Schools and his family nurturing his faith and love of Jesus. So, I will leave you with one of my favourite quotes from LeBron James, one that encompasses everything that Jesus is and everything we need to aspire to be and my wish is that you take this with you as you embark on your next adventure at high school and then beyond. “We need to continue to push against everything that is not love.”

I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and look forward to seeing you again in the new year.

Take care and God Bless

 
Leah Taylor
Principal