Holy Week Celebrations 
This week the children have been involved in a number of Easter Liturgies. As part of these liturgies the children were given the opportunity to hear and reflect on the Easter story and in doing so learn about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Easter is the most important and significant time in the liturgical calendar of the Christian church. It is a time where we as Christians re-call the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is central to the Christian faith. By sharing the Easter story with our children, we are inviting them to reflect on the true meaning of Easter and trying to help them understand that there is more to the Easter story than chocolate eggs. By reflecting on the story of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection at Easter we are inviting children to connect with our faith tradition.

As a Catholic School community, we are called to help children to be people of hope and love. One simple way we can do this, is by being a community of people who radiate God’s love in our world by being human beings who demonstrate a commitment to respecting and valuing the dignity of all people and who provide children with an atmosphere of love, belonging and positivity. This Easter I encourage you to make time for your family and spend valuable and joyous time with those who you love, renewing and strengthening your relationships.

I would like to thank Rita Campbell and Jenny Mittiga for their organisation of the Easter Liturgies. I would also like to thank our Year 2 students, the children from 4B and our Year 6 children who were part of presenting the Easter story to our children.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our families a Happy and Safe Easter.

Thank you Julie Parsons
I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to Julie Parsons for all of her hard work at St Pius X School over the last 35 years. Julie is the longest serving staff member at St Pius X School and her dedication to our school community has been unquestionable. Julie’s sound financial management skills have put St Pius X in the very strong position whereby we have been able to undertake the large building projects over the last few years, but at the same time we have still been able to achieve great staffing levels as well as maintain high quality programs and resources. I have only worked with Julie for just over 2 years, and I have quickly come to realise the love she has for St Pius X community. Julie is a person of very high integrity whose work ethic is unquestionable. I will personally miss having Julie on staff and I wish Julie and her husband Terry all the very best with their retirement.

On Thursday 4th April we will be having a School Assembly where we will farewell Julie and this will be followed by a shared morning tea for Julie. I encourage all who are able to attend this event to do so as we celebrate the career of a remarkable person.

Condolences
I share with the community the sad news that Amy Raymond’s husband, Shane, passed away unexpectedly earlier this week. Amy is a teacher of one of our Year One classes and I ask that you keep Amy and her 3 daughters in your thoughts and prayers throughout this very tragic time. Shane is also the uncle of Eddie and Jack who attend our school. We offer our sincere condolences to the Raymond family during this very difficult time.

Sports Day
On Thursday 11th April we will be celebrating our annual Sport Day event at Bridgestone Athletics Centre on Frost Road at Salisbury. This promises to be a great community event and the children have been practising for their events and will be working on their chants in the coming week. Permission forms have been sent home on the SZapp and parents who need their children transported to the venue from the school are reminded that they need to book a seat on the bus ASAP so we can finalise our bus booking.

We hope that you are able to join us for what should be a very fun and colourful day. A full program of events will be sent home via SZapp next week.

Swimming Carnival
Over the last couple of weeks we have had a number of children participate in both the SAPSASA and Catholic School’s Swimming Carnivals. These events provide children with an opportunity to compete in some competitive, yet friendly competition against other schools. Well done to all children who have committed to swimming training after school over the last few weeks and who participated in the carnival. I would like to thank Angelo Zamparelli and Basia Jedrzejczak for their time and efforts in training the swimming team. Without the dedication of these staff members, the children may not receive this opportunity. I would also like to thank Cassandra Figg who undertook a lot of the behind the scenes admin work which made the carnivals possible.

God Bless

Ashley Keane