Dear Parents and Carers,

Over the school holiday period, I reflected on what term 3 had brought us and what had been achieved. Importantly, I started to consider what I was grateful for. In doing this, I was immediately struck by the enormity of what families, students and teachers had to navigate during the remote learning period.

What may have seemed impossible at the beginning of the term soon became ‘the possible’ and it is the resilience of our community that I am truly inspired by.  The term resilience refers to “the ability to successfully manage life, adapt to change and stressful events in healthy and constructive ways”. Our community has been incredible throughout term 3 and will no doubt continue to be until our return to face to face teaching. I’d like to remind our students that in NSW no other group of students has ever navigated for this period of time what you have. This is the reason you should be incredibly proud of yourselves, not for being perfect but for being the best version of yourself on each day in your learning. 

Parents, thank you for supporting your children and our teachers during this extraordinary time. It has been wonderful hearing from you and the support and feedback has been invaluable. There is much to celebrate!

Finally, I’d like to publicly thank our teachers for being adaptable to change and pivoting to a mode of delivery that can be challenging to say the least. We have continued to search for solutions to challenges that ultimately allowed us to ensure that learning remained an expectation. Your commitment to the students and families in your care has been exceptional.

I truly hope that over the holiday break you were able to reconnect and recharge. Reconnect to the things that bring you great joy - a book, new series, physical activity, your pet or the environment. The sunrises are something special to experience at present. Reconnecting involves really taking the time to check in with yourself. This is how we're taking time and space to pause, reflect, and inspire creativity and motivation.

Recharging both your physical and emotional batteries by maintaining your positive sleep routines, letting go of the things that have been challenging during the term (sitting for long periods and staring at screens) and connecting yourself with positive actions that are uplifting and ‘stop the drain’ on you.

COVID 19 Updates and Reminders:

Please find below an excerpt from the communication that was sent home in regards to the return to school roadmap.

Students will return to face-to-face learning in the following order:

• Week 3 (18 October 2021): Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 12
• Week 4 (25 October 2021): All other Years

From 18 October 2021, our school will be under Level 3 Plus restrictions.

Parent Information Sessions (Please note the change in dates due to the changes to return to school dates) 

COVID Health Order Requirements

All children must stay home if they are showing any cold or flu like symptoms and families must continue to comply with public health orders if they are a close or casual contact.

Students Requiring Supervision

If you require supervision for your child please complete the form for Week 2. This assists the school to adequately staff the school site to safely supervise children. Thank you for your cooperation.

Building Update

The building works has been coming along nicely, it has been very exciting to see the build progress slowly but surely. Once the students return to school there will still be minimum disruption, however ironically the remote learning and lockdown time has benefited the building project! If you drive past you will see the new curved wall that will become the new ‘hallway’ through to the classrooms and this week the lift is being installed. I can not wait to be able to share the finished product with the school community.

Book Week Celebrations

As previously shared we were hoping that we would be able to celebrate Book Week once we were back onsite in Term 4. All students are asked to come dressed as their favourite book character on Friday 19 November. We are pleased that the students will be able to celebrate and acknowledge this day together with their class mates. 

The theme for Book Week 2021 is ‘Old Worlds, New Worlds and Other Worlds’. St Michael's will be celebrating Book Week on Friday 19th November. 

To celebrate this wonderful occasion we are inviting all students from Kinder to Year 6 to come dressed as their favourite book character or around the theme of '’Old Worlds, New Worlds and Other Worlds”.  

Some ideas.. 

Old worlds.. gangsters, flappers, hippies, Ancient Egypt, rock and roll, dinosaurs, victorian, biblical, gladiators 

New worlds.. space, futuristic, Aliens, astronauts  

Other worlds.. Witches, dragons, mermaids, monsters, dragons, unicorns, fairies

*No props to be brought in during our book week celebration. 

Mrs Belinda Hughes - Principal