Hi All

Can you believe that we are at the half way mark of Term One already?

I would like to start my newsletter article by offering my gratitude to the St Pius X School community. To be honest I don’t feel that my feet have really touched the ground yet and I am still learning a lot about St Pius. However, what I have quickly come to realise is how lucky I am to be part of such a wonderful community. I have been grateful to all of the staff for the manner in which they have managed the start to the school year and how well they have settled the children into a learning routine.

I am also very grateful to the parents for your patience and flexibility in adapting to the ever changing COVID regulations and the impact that these directions have on our school operations. Your support of our staff has been wonderful.

Finally I would like to thank our wonderful students. I have been made to feel so welcome by all of the students. I told the students at the beginning of the year that my aim was to learn every name in the school by the end of 2022. I can say that the children are definitely holding me accountable to this statement, but are also being very patient and forgiving when I forget their names or when I need to ask them multiple times in one week to remind me of their name. They are wonderful group of children and I am looking forward to getting to know them better as the year progresses.

School Board:
Earlier this week I sent out a letter to every family about nominating for the School Board. I would like to really encourage any parents who are interested in being part of the School Board to nominate for this role. I believe that the next few years are going to be very exciting times at St Pius and the School Board will play a vital role in providing further direction and insight into the ongoing development of the school. The only qualification you need to be on the School Board is a desire to help shape the school into a great learning and social community for your child. Please consider nominating for this important role within our school community.

Year 6 Top Presentation:
Last Friday we had a short ceremony where we presented our Year Six students with their senior leadership tops. It was great to be able to welcome parents back onto site for an outdoor celebration and morning tea. I know that the Year 6 children enjoyed having their parents as part of this celebration. I would like to thank all of our teaching and admin staff who helped to put this celebration together.

Celebrating our 60^th Year
As mentioned in my last newsletter article, 2022 marks the 60^th anniversary for St Pius X. As part of this year, I would like to explore some different ways to re-engage our community and look for ways to bring parents back onto our school site and involve parents in school activities (COVID restrictions permitting). As part of our first School Board meeting last Monday night we discussed a number of community ideas for our 60^th Anniversary. Some of these ideas included:

• Time Capsule opening ceremony
• Mother’s and Father’s day breakfast (COVID Permitting)
• Celebrating our theme day with a difference (whole school picnic).
• Family Quiz Night
• School Concert event
• School Gala Day (we would need community support for this)
• 60^th Anniversary dinner
• School open mornings

These are just some of the many ideas we discussed. In the coming weeks we will send out a survey to all families, seeking your input into the types of activities that we might be able to celebrate together as a school community. I am hopeful that as the year progresses, life may return to some sense of normality whereby we can host events with full parent participation, which I know is something that has been missed by many parents over the last couple of years.

Sporting activities resume:
It is wonderful for our children to be involved in extra school based sporting activities again.

Since the beginning of last week we have seen basketball competitions resume with over 12 teams participating in extra curricula basketball.

We have also seen Tennis lessons start with a professional tennis coach for all of our Reception to Year 4 students as a result of funding we have received from the Federal Government as part of the Sporting Schools program.

Bike Education lessons have also commenced for our Year 4 students.

We also have a number of children trialling for our upcoming swimming carnivals.

I would like to thank Angelo Zamparelli for all of his hard work and time in setting up all of these experiences for our children. Angelo gives up a lot of his own time to ensure that the children at St Pius have access to wonderful sporting opportunities.

I would also like thank Deb Madgen and Basia Jedrzejczak for supporting Angelo with the Basketball and swimming.

A big thank you also must go out to our parent volunteers who are coaching our basketball teams this year.

It is wonderful that our children benefit from these opportunities.