Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to Week 6 and the halfway point of Term 1. The past week has certainly thrown some challenges our way, with positive COVID cases being detected and becoming a reality for our school community to work around. A huge thank you to our wonderful families for accurately reporting positive cases and for keeping unwell students at home. We know that isolating your whole family for 7 days, has many challenged beyond the school environment but we are grateful to families for complying with the current health orders to enable our school community to make decisions that support all learners in the safest way possible.

We look forward to welcoming our Year 5/6 students back from Remote Learning on Thursday. Thank you again to our Year 5/6 parents and students for taking on Remote Learning at such short notice. We will continue to monitor student attendance over the coming weeks. Please note that we may be required to make decisions at short notice for other classes, if deemed necessary.

Parents should have received notification of the new school regulations as announced by the NSW Government last week. St Patrick’s will take on these new regulations once we have reached a safer point in our current COVID environment. Cohorting, twice weekly RATS testing and mask wearing will all cease over the next few weeks. Parents will also be welcomed back on school grounds with COVID safe practices in place. We look forward to a more relaxed return to regular school practices in the near future.

This week is a special week in the Church calendar as we begin our annual Lenten journey. Ash Wednesday Mass will be held at 7.45am in St Patrick’s Church and all parents and parishioners are welcome and encouraged to attend. The students will have their own special Ash Wednesday liturgy at school at 9.00am with Fr George administering the blessed ashes in a COVID safe format.

I will be attending the Catholic Leaders Retreat next week in Bowral. Mrs Wilson will be in charge during my absence.

Please keep in your prayers those affected by severe flooding in Northern NSW and Queensland and for the people of Ukraine. We especially pray that our world leaders will draw on compassion, strength and wisdom to guide their choices and that peace and justice remain the focus for all in our world.

Christine Baron

Principal

St Patrick, Pray for Us