Dear Families,

I hope everyone had the chance to take advantage of the public holiday last week, and I also hope you had the opportunity to watch the terrific spectacle put on by Richmond and Geelong.  Winners are Grinners, but the game if not the season offers many life lessons for us all.  Not many of you I guess took time to notice the coach's address at Richmond's Best and Fairest function.  Normally a black-tie Crown Casino type function, this year's ceremony was a vastly different event - no ceremony, no fancy food, no corporate guests.  The social media posts were really interesting, and far from the PR managed offerings we would expect to see.  Dimma's speech to the players compared their season to an actual attempt by climbers to conquer a particularly challenging summit in the Himalayas.  2020 as a year has been awfully challenging to the players and a hurdle much larger than the two hour game of footy against the Cats - but they did get through it and have walked away with a win.  In a very similar way we all have faced the drama of 2020, being up to our eyeballs in Remote Learning as both parents and staff.  In my eyes every student, parent and staff member is a premiership hero!

A long term plan has been to construct new play spaces for our children and while my talk of the recently finished building project was around the administration facility, in the background a new playground piece was a key objective.  Earlier in the year I shared with the parent group a few concept ideas - and this week the construction of a great new addition was installed.  The new equipment is in and ready for use next week, and serves as a great reward to our students for their efforts during the challenges of 2020.  We know it will be well used and will complement the landscaping plans both the school and parish have for this area of our shared site.  Part of the funding for this project comes from the parent fundraising that has been done over the years and we acknowledge the often unnoticed coordination done by busy parent volunteers as well as the support of families buying hot cross buns, pies and raffle tickets.

This week we have been given further permissions around sacraments (Eucharist & Confirmation), photos and camps.  Notices will be going home thick and fast so if you have students involved in these year levels please keep an eye out for communications from the school.

Finally, a reminder that Monday is a STUDENT FREE DAY and Tuesday a PUBLIC HOLIDAY so we will see everyone back on Wednesday next week.

Take care,

Dave