Dear Families

It seems like I just drafted last week's newsletter and here we are quickly at the end of another week.  I trust you all had an enjoyable long weekend and experienced some success in any Cup Sweeps you entered.  I hope the extra days were a chance to re-create and re-charge for the countdown to Christmas.  I took time to reflect on my plans, professionally and personally, for the rest of the year and it was interesting what inspirations and impacted my thinking.  Sunday's Gospel provided a strong starting point .....

One of the scribes came up to Jesus and put a question to him, ‘Which is the first of all the commandments?’ Jesus replied, ‘This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.’

As we emerge from the restrictive nature of the past two years we have the opportunity to embrace so many more joyous opportunities with family and friends, while we also need to consider the vulnerable in our Australian society who have been more impacted through the pandemic.  As a military historical buff I also can find learnings from our country's history.  31st October 1917 saw the Australian Light Horse adapt and overcome as they participated in the Third Battle of Gaza, depicted in the Australian movie The Lighthorsemen.  The famous charge on the township of Beersheba (interestingly in Israel, the birthplace of Jesus) is forever remembered for our soldiers' bravery, ingenuity and work ethic.  When the time came they just got on with the job at hand.  What a great message we can share with each other as we take advantage of the opportunities ahead in the next two months.

As we hit close to the half-way point of the term it is important to acknowledge all the hard work done by both students and staff since our return from Remote Learning.  The classrooms are continuing to be busy places of work, while the staff should be commended on the way they are living our mantra of 'Every teacher makes every minute count for every child'.  With the continued support from families we hope we can continue to drive home every opportunity for learning for our children.

Behind the scenes we have also been undergoing our 2022 preparations and in a sense we are looking forward to wishing 2021 goodbye, then quickly embrace the opportunities that await us in the new year.  Next week we will be having a special guest onsite, with Mrs.Darby joining us on Thursday 11th November to spend time with the staff and be introduced to the children at our Remembrance Day Service.  I am in regular contact with Sally and we both have mixed emotions of both excitement and nervousness as we prepare to lead new schools in 2022.

We are anticipating that we will receive clarification this week about easing of restrictions so please take a look at the information provided in this newsletter.  Unfortunately we have had experiences taken from us these past two years but we look optimistically towards 2022, while also squeezing in some fun and joy into 2021.

Yours, Dave