Dear Parents and Carers,

Hope that you are well and you have been enjoying the past few weeks.

This Saturday and Sunday many of our Year 3 students will be celebrating their First Holy Communion. We thank Fr Patrick, St Columbkille's catechists: Kelly, Anna and Millie and teachers - Mrs Griggs, Mrs McLeod and Mr Lowrie, for their support in  preparing the children for this sacrament of initiation. Thank you to the parents and grandparents who have supported their child in their ongoing faith development and formation throughout this time.

We would like to announce our School and Vice Captains for 2023.  It is a wonderful achievement for each student and their family. We look forward to announcing the remainder of the Student Leadership teams in the Week 8 Newsletter.

Congratulations to the following Year 5 students:

• School Captains:  Livinia McLuskey and Claude Vincent
• Vice Captains:     Alissa Bishop and Dominik Raschilla

Staffing for 2023 has been finalised. Teachers are currently putting together classes for next year and students will transition with their new teacher/s and classes on Tuesday 13 December 2022. Please refer to the SCC Staffing for 2023 article attached.

Congratulations to Mrs Gaffney on successfully gaining a full-time permanent teaching position at St John's Bosco School, Engadine next year. She has been part of the SCC community for 7 years. Mrs Gaffney has supported many of our students with their learning across several grades and has been a Leader of Sport during this time. We thank Mrs Gaffney for her genuine care, kindness, love of learning and teaching, along her connection to our students and their families - thank you for being such a supportive, invested and compassionate staff member. We look forward to celebrating Mrs Gaffney's time at SCC and wish her every success, happiness and joy moving into the future. 

Both Mr Lattimore and Mr Lowrie have achieved their Teaching Proficiency accreditation from NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). It is a wonderful achievement and with the support of Mrs Perre, they have been dedicated and commited to fulfilling the NESA requirements.  We wish both Tom and Adam a successful and rewarding career in the teaching profession.

Our final Parents & Friends meeting for the year was held on Tuesday evening. I would like to take the opportunity to sincerely thank our P&F Executive  Nicky Bishop (President), Sarah Foster (Vice-President), Pina Martelozzo (Vice-President), Kelly Saveski (Secretary), Rosie King (Treasurer) and parents who have supported the P&F. Collectively, your unwavering dedication, generosity and commitment to our students, staff, parents and grandparents throughout the year has been greatly appreciated and always welcomed. P&F inspired events including the Colour Run, Discos and Mothers/ Fathers Day Stalls have been highly successful and most enjoyable. We look forward to another sensational P&F year moving into 2023.

As one of our School Review and Improvement focuses, we have been working on revising our school's vision and mission statements, along with our core values. Facilitated by Gary Quinn from Catholic Education Diocese of Wollongong (CEDoW) and in consultation with students, staff, parents and parish, we have reaffirmed and commitment to our current vision statement and core values, and realigned our mission statement with a contemporary lens. We are expectational proud of and dedicated to the school community that is St Columbkille's and will continue in both word and actions to live out our vision, mission and core values each daily.