A Message from Bishop Greg Bennet

Dear Parents,

It is hard to believe that we are at the end of the year already!!  I would like to take this opportunity to thank all families for your support throughout the year and we hope that you have a very happy and holy Christmas period.  

Congratulations to all of the staff for their superb efforts throughout this year.  2022 has thrown some enormous challenges at us and the staff have regularly gone over above to ensure that the many varied learning opportunities are offered to the children. We are very blessed to have the professional and dedicated staff here at St Catherine’s and I hope that they all have a relaxing break over the holiday period.

At the end of the year we will farewell Nerida Byrden (REL), Monica Henshaw, Rebecca Cramp, Carly Williams, Peter Pizanias, Cameron Witt, Elisha Langdon, Chris Maggs, James Meagher (Tutor), Julia Roy (ESO), Julie Dines (Canteen) Kim-maree Rice-Sunderland (Canteen) and Margaret DeSantis (Canteen).  We thank them for all of the efforts they have put in at St Catherine’s and we wish them all the very best in the future.  We also wish Laura Thorne well on the upcoming birth of her baby, and Rachel Long who will be taking 12 months leave to visit her family and return to New Zealand.

It is with pleasure that we will welcome Karla Giuliano, Nicola Finch, Sarah Watson, Bethany Peterson, Claire Faulkner, Vanessa Keenan,  Nicola Bailey (ESO) and Dorina Barrett (ESO) onto the staff. They are very excited to become a part of the St Catherine’s community and I am sure that they will be made to feel welcome by all. We also welcome back Jasmine Bentley who will be returning from maternity leave and Gabrielle Mifsud after 12 months leave. As Thea Woodhead will be on Long Service Leave for Term 1, we would also like to thank Lexie Weber for stepping into the Grade 3 space until Thea’s return. 

Unfortunately, as I write this newsletter, I am at home with COVID so I won’t have the opportunity to physically say goodbye to the Grade 6 students at their Graduation tomorrow night.   On behalf of the whole school I thank them for their years at St Catherine’s and we wish them all the very best for the next phase in their lives. 

Grade 6 Graduation

Our Grade 6 students will Graduate tomorrow night at 6pm in the St Francis Xavier Hall.

Family Picnic

The weather was not favourable to us at all over the last few weeks and we had to cancel the Family Picnic.   We know that this was extremely disappointing, however, it was unavoidable. A big thanks to Claire Culpitt for the work that she has put in preparing the children and then coordinating the back-up plan video.  The video was emailed to all families via PAM yesterday, it will be resent tomorrow due to exceeding Video sending limits.

Meet Your Teacher Day 

On Monday the children had the opportunity to meet their 2023 teacher.   The students thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity and are looking forward to the New Year already.   As I wrote about in the last newsletter it is important that as the adults in their lives we are positive about this change as the children take their cues from us.  Supporting them through change helps to build their resilience.

Prep Transition

Last week our 2023 Preps enjoyed the last of their Transition Days.  It has been great to have them in the school, and a delight to see the excitement on their faces.  We are looking forward to having them as full members of the school community next year.  

Last Day

Tomorrow is the last day for the students.  School concludes at 3.10pm.

2023 School Leaders 

As voted by the 2022 Grade 4 and 5 cohort our 2023 student leaders are:

School Captains: Charlie Ellis and Rishika Chandra 

School Vice Captains: Marley De Guzman and Evan Danny 

House Captains 

As voted by our staff, our Student Agency Community Engagement (SACE) leaders for 2023 are:

Jett Pathiraja, Kayla De Kauwe, Sena Park, Kahlon D’Rozario and Isabel McCarthy. We congratulate all our 2023 Year 6 captains and look forward to their leadership at St Catherine’s. 

Reports

Semester Two reports will be released later today in PAM. You will receive a notification via this platform to advise they are ready to view. 

School Gate Opening Time 2023

To allow us to cater for the new EBA that Catholic teachers in the Diocese of Sale have entered into for 2023 we will be opening the school gates at 8.30am next year, not 8.25 as we have this year.

Important Dates - End of the Year Arrangements