Newsletter 6

Dear Parents and Carers

Welcome to Term 2! We hope you all had a happy and Holy Easter and had the opportunity to enjoy a break from the routines of school and experience some quality family time together. The start of a school term can be a challenging time where we struggle with getting back into the early mornings, library bags, homework, notes, and various activities that schools provide. It is important that this time remains as calm as possible and that we give our children some time to adjust. Early nights, a decent breakfast and healthy snacks and lunches will all help with this. It is also important to allow children to make mistakes and to learn from these mistakes. Primary schools are fantastic environments for learning for life and it is very difficult to learn without having the confidence and safety to try new or challenging things, even if we make mistakes. Be calm in this transition, encourage your children to have a go and allow them to make mistakes so they can grow, build confidence, and develop resilience.

Thank you to the families who attended the Parent/Carer/Teacher Interviews on Monday. These conversations are an important opportunity for students to see the strong partnership between home and school in supporting their learning and growth. When children see respect, collaboration and shared high expectations between parents, carers and teachers, they are more confident learners and are better able to achieve their full potential.  We encourage you to discuss the insights from the meeting with your child and to set a meaningful learning goal together for this term.

This morning, we celebrated our McAuley faction feast day with a Year 1 – 6 Mass followed by some buddy activities. Catherine McAuley was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1778. Dedicating her life to caring for the poor, particularly women, Catherine opened the House of Mercy in 1827: a facility built to house and educate poor women. In 1831 Catherine made her Profession of Vows and created the Order of the Sisters of Mercy. At WCPS, McAuley faction is associated with our school values of Faith and Service.

Faith

We believe in God, self, and each other.

We are active participants in our Catholic community.

Service

We aim to live like Jesus in our actions and words.

We work together to care for and help others.

Our gym is named after Catherine McAuley and scanning the QR code on the signage at the entrance will give you insights into her life and vision.

On Friday, we will acknowledge ANZAC Day with a prayer service led by our Year 6 students.  ANZAC Day is a commemoration of the landing of Australian and New Zealand forces at Gallipoli on the 25th April, 1915.  We reflect on the impact of war, conflict and peacekeeping operations in Australia’s history and pray for those involved in wars, their families and for peace.

A reminder that supervision is provided for students from Year 1 to Year 6 before school from 8.10am and after school until 3.20pm. If arriving at school before 8.30am, children are requested to sit in the central courtyard area until teacher supervision commences. Please ensure students are not on-site unsupervised outside of these times unless participating in an organised activity. Students involved in organised activities are to be supervised by parents if they fall outside of supervision times. Parents with children in Kindergarten are required to accompany their child to the classroom in the morning from 8.30am and collect their child from the class teacher at the end of the school day. Students in Pre-Primary are required to be brought to the classroom from 8.30am and collected in the afternoon. Alternatively, they may use the drive through on Barradine. All school play equipment is out of bounds before and after school. Little Buckets provides before and after school care services on site. Their details are available on our school website on the following link: https://whitfordcatholicps.wa.edu.au/wcps-families/out-of-school-hours-care/

At the end of last term, we farewelled Fr Tri. Fr Tri has been Assistant Priest in our parish for the last year and has been key to helping our students and community celebrate masses and liturgies.  We thank him for his commitment to our school and parish and wish him well for the future.  Fr Errol is our new Assistant Priest and we look forward to welcoming him into our community.

In the lead up to Mothers’ Day, the P&F will be hosting the Mothers’ Day Stall on the 5^th and 6^th  May and our Mothers’ Day Breakfast will occur on the 8^th May.  We have many mothers, grandmothers and mother figures in our school who give their absolute best for the benefit of our children.  We look forward to welcoming all mums, grandmothers and mother figures to our Mothers’ and Grandmothers’ Day Breakfast.

All families are welcome and encouraged to join us for the WCPS Family Mass on Saturday 2^nd May at 6.30pm in the church.

Best wishes and God bless