Filter Content
- From Francine ...
- Mary MacKillop
- Joseph - Update
- Ticket Link
- School Improvement Review - Term 3 2021
- Take Home Packs
- Costume and Rehearsal Information
- 100 Days of Prep
- E-Safety Webinar
- Welcome and Congratulations to our new family, the Abdelmaleks!
- Feast of the Assumption
- Book Week 2021
- Extend - Snapshots and News Bites
St Mary of the Cross, her official name now, is a unique saint for Australia. Though both her parents were born in Scotland, their eldest child was born in Melbourne in 1842, three years after the arrival of the first priest in the Colony and five years before Melbourne became a diocese. Her family really was pioneer stock. Her parents were devout Catholics but their marriage was not happy and Mary left at the age of 18 years to be a governess to her cousins in the Portland area. From there she went to Penola to teach in a little Catholic School. The highly educated priest, Fr Julian Tenison Woods, himself a convert, encouraged her in a religious vocation and with the idea of gathering like-minded young women to start schools for the Catholic children scattered in the bush areas of the colony of South Australia.
The work developed and received approval from the Bishop of Adelaide. We all know the story of the growing opposition to Mary, encouraged by the jealousy of a few priests, as well as the inconstant direction of Fr Woods. Mary survived excommunication, and frosty opposition from some bishops, who objected to her firm determination to have one general superior for what had become the Sisters of St Joseph and to practise a level of poverty which was thought to be impractical.
In all the difficulties, Mary was supported by the authorities in Rome, including Pope Pius IX. (I want to stress this point, because in the popular mind Rome is so often regarded as oppressive or myopic in governance). After Mary moved the central headquarters of the Sisters to Sydney she was always supported by the archbishop, Cardinal Moran. She lived to see the work of the Sisters all across Australia and in New Zealand as well, not only in education but also in nursing and the constant care of single and vulnerable women in colonial society and people in poverty.
Her surviving correspondence, about 1000 letters, together with contemporary accounts, including Cardinal Moran’s panegyric at her funeral in August 1909, reveal a woman of profound spiritual insight and practical sense, warmth of personality and determination of character. At some stage in our lives I am sure that we have all met people like St Mary MacKillop who display these and other attractive and compelling traits of character which demand admiration and imitation. Sanctity comes in varying degrees. It is not impossible to achieve and it may be closer to us, in our own lives and the lives of others. Remembering St Mary on her feast day, let us set to work seriously on being God’s saints, whom he loves.
Fr Brendan Hayes.
As you can imagine the constant back and forth of lockdowns along with Covid restrictions on public gatherings has impacted both our rehearsal times and performance plans for Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat.
As a result of reduced audience capacity in our performance venue and the chance that we may in fact be in lockdown, we have decided to try for the following format.
We will continue to rehearse when we can and prepare the show for a performance - but we will not be performing it at Logue Hall.
We will have the show filmed professionally and air it according to the rights which we have purchased which are to record for a viewing. We are not allowed to film and keep the recording of the show or to sell copies of the film. We are allowed to film it to view.
We will be filming at the beginning of week 9 (Monday 6th September) with a view to having an edited version ready for viewing by the end of the Week 10 (Friday 17th September).
We will then organise an outdoor live 'concert version' of the show to take place on our basketball court when we are allowed. Parents will have the opportunity to see the live version obviously with some tweaks allowing for the change in setting.
I know you will understand the change of plan and I ask that you to continue to buy tickets as this new format will in fact cost more to provide than just performing it outright.
Whilst on ticket costs, a concert done properly costs a lot of money to produce and we set ticket prices simply to help subsidise these costs. Thank you all for your excitement around this production, to Ruth McGurk and the team for their tenacity in the face of disruption. We are, despite everything, really looking forward to this significant moment of our school year.
As previously mentioned, we encourage you to continue to purchase tickets in order to assist us with subsidising the cost of filming the production.
To purchase tickets please visit: www.trybooking.com/BSYLE
School Improvement Review - Term 3 2021
The second stage of the review (The SIF Review) will be held either onsite or remotely on Tuesday 24 August 2021 and Thursday 26 August 2021. Our entire staff has been very involved in this big process but a special message of gratitude has to be given to Irene Archer (Policy and Projects Leader) for her work in this space.
"THANK YOU MISS ARCHER"
- To satisfy legitimate expectations of government and sector authorities about accountability for the outcomes of schooling
- To assist schools and teachers to improve student outcomes.
The framework incorporates the following four accountability components:
- Assessing school improvement progress via completion of the SIF Rubric and engagement in MACS School Review every four years
- Planning for improvement via a four-year School Improvement Plan (SIP) and subsequent Annual Action Plans (AAP)
- Reporting on progress via an Annual Report to the School Community
- Managing risk and compliance - verification process/audit of the Minimum Standards for School Registration and Other State and Commonwealth Requirements for Catholic Schools
School Improvement Framework has two dimensions :
Improvement: The review supports self-reflection and assessment of performance and growth in school improvement and informs planning for future growth. Post review, schools will work closely with their Regional Learning Services team to set their future improvement agenda, grounded in the school's next School Improvement Plan (SIP).
Compliance: an audit/verification process of the Minimum Standards for School Registration and other State and Commonwealth Requirements is conducted for all schools engaging in the process of school review.
Take Home Packs will be available for collection from the Art Room tomorrow afternoon.
Friday 13th August 2:00pm - 3:30pm
Monday 16th August 8:00am - 9:00am
These packs are for all students from Prep to Year 6 and will be required for Monday's 9:00am session.
Costume and Rehearsal Information
ALL Students in Prep, Years 1, 2 and 3 should now have purchased their black leggings. For those who have not sent these in as yet, they are to be put in a named plastic bag. As soon as we are back onsite everyone should have their leggings ready.
Home Rehearsals
It is now imperative that students - particularly those with major parts - rehearse and revise at home. To assist with this, there are several videos posted as ‘activities’ on SeeSaw that all students can watch, dance and sing-along to.
These videos cannot be shared with others or posted on social media, but will ensure our students feel confident, capable and excited about their parts!
Happy singing!
Ruth McGurk
The e-Safety Commissioner has organised a free webinar, designed for parents and carers of primary school children.
There are two dates available, and all you need to do is register. I have attached a flyer that includes all the details below.
Please see the following website for more information: esafety.gov.au/parents/webinars (you will need to copy and paste it into your browser).
Welcome and Congratulations to our new family, the Abdelmaleks!
We would like to take this opportunity to welcome Fr John, Sherry and Andrew to the OLOL school community. Andrew is in Year One, in Miss Ross' class, and joined us at the end of Term 2.
We would also like to congratulate them on the arrival of their beautiful baby daughter and sister, Joy, who was born on Friday 30th July.