Dear Parents and Carers,

It was delightful to welcome all our students back last Friday to begin Term 1. There were lots of smiles and happy faces to greet staff and everyone settled into classrooms quickly and with great eagerness, ready to begin a new school term. We were also delighted to welcome 13 new Kindergarten students to join our St Patrick’s school family. A special welcome is extended to our new families-Barton, Campbell-Jaeger, Melksham, O’Grady, Smith, and Taylor families.  You are a very welcome addition to our school community. We also welcome our new staff members, Mrs Anne Saunderson, Mrs Cal Reardon and Ms Nadia Ho (School Counsellor) to our school staff. It certainly has been a great start to our new school year.

Work on our new school administration area has also started. Tom Gaskin Constructions have been working hard over the school holiday period to get the ‘noisiest’ part of the work over and done with prior to the school year beginning. The works should take around 6 months to complete so until then the main entrance way to the school will remain as the lower gate on Homer Street. Thank you to everyone for adhering to safety notices and entering via our new school entrance way.

During the construction time our school library has moved down to the Learning Hub and Mrs Hughes is busy setting up the new space. Our school canteen is also inaccessible for the time being, so we will bring you updated canteen news asap.

We are so excited that restrictions have eased and that we can once again welcome our families onto our school grounds. Please use the following guideline:

1. ALL parents are welcome to do ‘drop in and drop out’ ie drop your child to the classroom and then leave (no longer than 5 mins). You do not need to register your visit for this purpose.
2. If you require a longer visit eg admin, teacher meeting, volunteer helper etc, please sign in using our NSW Services app and use the sanitizer provided please.
3. At all times please apply social distancing and follow hygiene regulations

We have two exciting events happening this week, to welcome in the new year and term. Our 2021 School Swimming Carnival this Thursday followed by our St Patrick’s Opening School Mass on Friday. Parents are welcome to attend both events by sitting together in family groups and observing distancing and hygiene regulations. At our school Mass our School Captains, Year 6 leaders and SRC representatives will be inducted as school leaders as well as a special welcome for our Kindergarten students.

We look forward to a wonderful term ahead and wish everyone a great week ahead.

Mrs Christine Baron