Dear Parents and Carers,

Congratulations to our Year 3 students who made the Sacrament of Penance (Reconciliation) for the first time yesterday. The students were very well prepared by our teachers and parishioners who have supported them over the last four weeks. It was wonderful to be part of the celebration and participate in this sacrament with our students and teachers. Each student received a special Medal of Forgiveness to commemorate this first step towards the Sacrament of the Eucharist (First Holy Communion). 

A special thank you to Father Patrick for guiding and supporting our students throughout the sacrament.

Tomorrow is a Pupil Free Day. On this day, our staff will be participating in a spirituality day - 'People of Ritual’ and with Gary Quinn from the Catholic Education Office, Wollongong. Our prayers, meditations and learning will focus on being People of Ritual who live the gospel values of Jesus’ vision.

PUPIL FREE DAY -  FRIDAY 27 SEPTEMBER

In relation to staffing, I would like to congratulate Mrs Leonard and Mrs Thatcher on their appointment to the role of Acting Middle Leader in the absence of Mrs Perre (Maternity leave) for the reminder of the year. Mrs Leonard and Mrs Thatcher will be responsible to and for Kindergarten and Year 2 respectively and we welcome then to our Leadership Team. Whilst undertaking these leadership responsibilities, Mrs Bower will be supporting KG and 2B. We also welcome Mrs Anglea McLeod to our staff and Team Kinder. Mrs McLeod is replacing Mrs Connelly (recently retired) in supporting the Literacy and Numeracy learning in KB and KG. We welcome Angela to our school community.

Mrs Lyndall Warmington will officially hang up her apron after several years of dedication and commitment to our school community as Canteen Coordinator. Lyndall,  has served the St Columbkille's with great distinction during this time to ensure that our students have a healthy and and available canteen. I would like to sincerely thank Lyndall for her effort and energy that she has poured into the canteen, selflessly giving up family and personal time on many occasions to ensure that the canteen was open.

Lyndall would like to thank all the volunteers that she has worked with throughout her time as our Canteen Coordinator. We look forward to seeing Lyndall working in the canteen as a mum to Emma, Sam and Max.

Thank you to Tanya Coughlan for accepting the role of Canteen Coordinator. We look forward to working with Tanya through the reminder of the year.

On Wednesday 23 October our five-year Cyclic Review will be held.  The last review being in 2014. The  Review will focus on the following six questions:

• What are our school’s main features and challenges since the last Cyclic Review?
• Where is the school in their current School Improvement Plan (SIP)?
• Where are we now and how did we get here?
• In what ways have we engaged the school community with our improvement journey?
• Where do we need to go from here?
• How will we get there and how will we know when we get there?

The Cyclic Review panel will consist of Catholic Education Office, Wollongong personal and will involve Father Patrick and Father Geoff, along with our Leadership Team, Student Council Representatives and members of our parent community. A report will be made providing us with recommendations moving into the future.

On Monday 21 October we will be conducting our final parent session - Understanding Our Boys: Technology at 7:00pm in the MD Hall. Our guest speak will be Mark Woolley - Educational Officer (Technology) from the Catholic Education Office, Wollongong. 

Thank you for what has been an amazing term with our students experiencing an enormous range of celebrations and events. We are extremely fortunate to be part of such giving and caring school community.

Enjoy the time with your child/ren, travel safe if holidaying and we will see you on Monday 14 October for Term 4.

Take care

Mr Brad Colquhoun – Principal