Newsletter 11 – 27 July 2023

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Welcome back to what is set to be another exciting and busy term. Let’s just hope that Term 3 doesn’t fly by quite as quickly as the previous two. It is always such a joy to see our students walking onto the school grounds after the holidays, seeing their beautiful smiles and hearing all about what they got up to over the past two weeks. I have to say, most of our students had a much more exciting holiday than I did!

NAIDOC Week

Our students thoroughly enjoyed the NAIDOC celebrations last week. In addition to completing various activities in class, students from Kindergarten to Year 6 participated in an incursion run by Greg Nannup. Greg shared local Aboriginal dreamtime stories with the students and modelled how they used natural items like reeds to make rope.

On Friday morning, we were incredibly fortunate to have Cyril Yarran perform a smoking ceremony and lead us in a Welcome to Country. A smoking ceremony is a traditional Aboriginal custom which involves the burning of native plants to produce smoke. The smoke cleanses the area and wards off bad spirits from the people and the land. Students, staff, and parents gathered around Cyril as he added wet leaves to a wooden dish containing coals. As students made their way to the undercover area, walking through the smoke, they added some leaves to the dish and inhaled the smoke to cleanse their bodies. Our Pre-Primary students then led us in a NAIDOC Liturgy. They read ever so beautifully and were extremely excited to have students and guest from Clontarf Aboriginal College join us.

Special thanks must go to: Mrs DeLuca for coordinating our wonderful NAIDOC celebrations; to Greg and Cyril for sharing their Aboriginal culture and customs with our school community; to the Principal Mrs Frances Haji-Ali, Daniel, Gill, Mandy, and students from Clontarf Aboriginal College for joining us on Friday and continuing to journey with us. Thank you also, to our parents who took the time out of their busy schedules to celebrate with us, particularly our families with Aboriginal heritage.

Mrs Keightley

Mrs Keightley will be leaving us at the end of next week to go on long service leave, followed by maternity leave. We will greatly miss having Mrs Keightley in our school and are ever so grateful for all her work as both Year 1 teacher and Assistant Principal. Our Year 1 students and families gave Mrs Keightley a heart-warming send-off last Friday, with Mrs Mo presenting a tear-jerking movie capturing all the wonderful attributes Mrs Keightley possesses and the sheer joy she brings to the students at St Pius X. Hearing the students speak so fondly of Mrs Keightley even brought me to tears. We wish Mrs Keightley and her husband Jordan every blessing as they prepare for this next chapter of their lives and can’t wait to meet baby ‘taco’.

QCESR & Principal Review

This week, our school is undergoing a review, known as the Quality Catholic Education School Review. Between Tuesday and Thursday, there will be a panel of five representatives from CEWA who will be interviewing staff, students, our P&F Executive and School Advisory Council as well as examining our processes and school performance data. The feedback obtained from this review will enable us to refine our practices and will contribute to whole school improvement.

In addition to the above, as I am in my third year of principalship, the Principal Review process will also be taking place during this time. I am looking forward to the feedback I will receive at the conclusion of this process; it will assist me to continue to grow and develop my leadership skills in the capacity of Principal at St Pius X.

 School Climate Survey

Next week, our staff, students and a random selection of parents will be invited to complete the School Climate Survey. The survey provides selected parents with the opportunity to share how things are going for them and their children. Feedback provided will be anonymous and will assist us to make informed decisions about how we can improve our school. Please keep an eye out for your invitation from NSI Partnerships which will be emailed to a handful of parents from each year level.

Sickness

With so many viruses circulating through our community, it is really important that students are encouraged to practice good hygiene habits:

• Sanitising or washing hands with soap before eating.
• Covering the mouth and nose, with the inside of the elbow, when coughing or sneezing.
• Staying home when you are unwell.

Given we have some immunosuppressed students and family members within our school community, it is essential that children who are unwell are kept home until their symptoms clear. I realise it is inconvenient when children need to stay home, particularly when you yourself need to go to work, however the only way to curb the spread is to keep children home when they are sick.

Please note that the recommended isolation time for COVID positive individuals is five days. If children have gastro, it is important not to send them to school until a full 24 hours have passed since their last bout of vomiting or diarrhoea. The following link provides guidelines around isolation time for various viral/bacterial infections:

Health WA

Wishing you a gentle end to the week,

Melissa Vranjes
Principal

This week, St Pius X Community celebrated NAIDOC Week – a celebration of our First Nations people, both Aboriginal and Tiwi Islanders.

The theme this year was ‘For Our Elders’ and our students were fortunate to be involved with several activities throughout the week.

Kindy – Year Six students attended an incursion from Indigenous Tours WA, with Noongar man Greg Nannup, telling stories about the local area, and showing artefacts that depict how Aboriginal people used the local land to survive.

On Friday, Noongar man Cyril Yarran led us all in a traditional Smoking Ceremony, to ward off bad and bring peace to our space. The Pre-Primary students then led the school in a liturgy involving prayer, song, and art to thank the Aboriginal Elders for their contribution to our land.

We thank our First Nations families for attending as special guests, Clontarf leadership staff and Year Nine students, First Nations staff, Cyril Yarran and all involved.

Chelsea De Luca
Pre-Primary Teacher

On Wednesday this week, the Kindy children had a visit from The Hospital Familiarisation Program (HFP). This program enables children from kindergarten and pre-primary to learn about medical equipment and different aspects of hospitalisation in the safe and familiar environment of the classroom.

The Kindy children had a chance to play with the hospital toys, books and puzzles as well as play doctors and nurses.

Have a look at all the fun we had while we were learning!

Mrs Kucan
Kindergarten Teacher