Dear Families,

What a wonderful way to start the day, enjoying the warm sun on our faces and welcoming in more and more students.  Today we start the return of classes from Year 3 to 6 so it feels like we are so close to being back to normal.  Unfortunately we hear of other local schools being closed and we hope that the systems we have in place we reduce the impact of having to have a school closure forced upon us.  Families, sporting clubs, business and industry have many things to deal with and schools are no different.  As a school and personally I have had many obligations handed to me that I have minimal and no choice over which can be overwhelming and time consuming.  Can I thank those in our community who continue to reach out and offer even the simplest of positive feedback and gratitude.  It is really appreciated.

With our return to onsite learning the staff are looking forward to taking advantage of this term to put in place an exciting few months of engaging opportunities and to drive learning across the curriculum.  We will be heavily focused on the 3R's as we always should but also working within the guidelines to continue to look for moments of joy.  We will probably be on the lookout for people to help us out deliver these things and at the moment site visitors and contractors look like needing the follow the same guidelines as staff (eg.masks, vaccinations).  Fingers crossed we keep hitting the various milestones that drive  the relaxations of the various restrictions in place.

Throughout the year we have put in place various learning interventions across all year levels.  We are thrilled to announce that we have been able to secure funding to add further staffing this term to help support students and staff across the school.  Mr.Jed Foenander has started work this week and he may be familiar to some families as he completed some teaching placements at Lumen Christi as well as worked as a casual LSO until he graduated as a teacher in 2020.  Jed is a local lad who spent time as a teacher in Sydney this year until interrupted by COVID and he has landed back in the Latrobe Valley.  We are thrilled that this sliding door moment appeared and we were able to secure Jed so are able to put further support around our students as we try to take advantage of onsite learning this term.  Welcome Jed!

Finally, our school song WE SHINE has a lyric that over the years I have highlighted - I may have even sadly got the students almost chanting it like yellow-n-black!  The song asks us to BUILD THE KINGDOM just as Jesus challenges us to do in the Gospel.  Being a kingdom-builder requires us all to contribute to the place and people around us, acting fairly and loving tenderly.  How great it is to welcome our little kingdom-builders back onsite ..... we are so glad to have you back filling our classroom and playground with joyful noise.

Have a great week.

Take care, Dave