In last Sunday’s gospel, we heard about the tenant farmers killing the servants of the owner when they came to collect the harvest. More servants were sent to give them another chance and again they said no. Even when the owner (God) sent his own son (Jesus), they killed Him. The message for us is that God will give us chances but if we don’t change our ways, his message and reward will be given to those who do listen to the messengers. 

We are all settling well into our new classrooms. The students seem very happy, especially Years 5 and 6 in the brand new space. We hope you have had the chance to have a look. We will be putting up signage soon, now everything is settling down which will make everything easier to find. 

The demountable classrooms are nearly all gone from the area that will be developed into the grass playground. The civil work and the surfaces should be complete by the end of the year with the fixtures like seats, umbrellas, plantings and playground to go in after that. It will be exciting to watch it all grow and lovely to have a lot of room there next year. 

The recruitment process for the new principal is well underway with the application part of the process now closed. We expect CEDoW will be able to give us news in the next 3 - 4 weeks if not sooner. 

Pick up continues to run smoothly and we expect will still get faster once it all becomes automatic to us. There are of course some adjustments with the new classrooms. We remind you that while students are allowed to walk home, they are not allowed to walk to where you are waiting in a car or at the duck pond. We know many parents have supported the safety of the students by making alternate arrangements – thank you. We will be making contact with parents who are not adhering to school procedures in the coming weeks. We am hoping we won’t need to! 

We have had some reports of issues during the break with students using various message apps in group chats and saying quite nasty things to each other. This repeated action with a number of students targeting one is a bullying behaviour. You are well withing your rights as a parents to check what your children are saying online and can report worrying things to the eSafety Commissioner. You can also take screen shots to share with us so we can show parents what their children are saying even though it does not occur during school supervision. Remember, most social media apps are illegal for children under 13 so you can say no. And it isn’t that you don’t trust them. They need to be taught how to use social media safely in the same way they need to be taught how to use a knife to cut up an apple safely. 

Teachers will soon be working on class lists for 2024. If for any reason you want your child separated from another student, please put that in writing and send it to the office where it will be given to me. I then ensure that your requests are met or make contact with you to discuss it if there are any problems. Even if you think the school or staff already know about an issue, please put your request in writing again. That way we won’t have any mistakes. We cannot accommodate requests with regards to certain teachers. Please think about this in the next couple of weeks. 

We look forward to seeing you for all the celebrations Term 4 offers.

God Bless

Michelle Rolfe - Acting Principal

Lindsay Burns - Acting Assistant Principal

Religious Education Co-Ordinator