Building Update
Speaking to many parents and family members, the consensus is that it has been amazing to see how quickly the wall panels have gone up allowing us to picture the size and what the ‘Caritas Building’ will look like. Mossop Construction are doing a great job to keep the building work moving forward in a timely manner. Several classes took the opportunity to see the positioning of the panels in action which was a wonderful moment for them as they see their future classrooms being built.
Thank you to Matthew Bell (Ella and Jacob’s Dad) who owns IRMcon Fencing who has installed a new fence between our property and that of one of our new neighbours. IRMcon will continue to install more fencing for the school soon. Matthew has done a fabulous job and I encourage you to consider IRMCon for any fencing works you may be needing and supporting businesses owned by parents in our school. We will soon update our Parent Business Directory once again, but you will find the current Directory on our website.
Mid-Year Reports: Children’s effort is crucial
Your child will be bringing home their Mid-Year Reports next Tuesday. This will be an opportunity for you to spend time with your child to discuss their learning. Your child will receive an academic result and a result for effort. Both are important; however, I ask you to pay particular attention to your child’s effort. This is an indication of how dedicated and committed they are towards their learning. If your child has a result in the higher effort end, I encourage you to share how proud you are of them. If your child has a result on the lower effort end, I encourage you to set some goals with them to shift that along to the higher effort on the scale for their End of Year Report.
At Whitefriars Catholic School, we encourage our children to work hard and try their best. We help children to understand that learning is challenging but, with persistence and effort, they will learn and thrive. We acknowledge children who have received six or more outstanding efforts in their report by presenting them with a Certificate. This is not easy to achieve as, not only the class teachers make this effort, but also the four specialist teachers.
Michael Head’s Retirement at the end of 2022
Michael Head, who is the class teacher of one of our Year 5/6 classes has written to the School Board advising that he has decided to resign from his teaching position at the end of this year to enable him to have time to pursue other interests and spend more time with his grandchildren.
Michael has been a teacher since 1978 and he is currently completing his 44th year of teaching in Catholic Schools. As a teacher at our school, he has been contributing to this school community since 2002 so he is currently completing his 21st year here.
I take this opportunity to thank Michael for his contribution to Whitefriars Catholic School and Catholic Education and wish him well for the rest of the year. He should be very proud of all of his achievements and success as a caring teacher.
Book Donations
We are always happy to receive donations of children’s books that can be used in the Playgroup/Transition Room, shared areas, classroom, and library. If you have books that your children no longer use, I encourage you to consider donating them to our school which will broaden the range of books children read.
Uniform Donations
Last week I was able to help a family with several $50 Lowes vouchers which I was able to buy using the money raised through the second-hand uniform donations. As the cost of living continues to rise, it is wonderful the way our school community supports one another to help with costs of school uniforms. I encourage you to keep donating any school uniforms you no longer need.
Thank you for being such a generous community. St Mary of the Cross Mackillop would be proud of all of us.
Kind regards
Frank Congedi
