Dear St John the Apostle families,

Over the past three days I have had the opportunity to participate in the annual Principals Retreat. Our Archbishop led us through a time of reflection and prayer around the theme of Mercy. Such opportunities to work closely with other Principals and to spend time in quiet thoughtfulness have been rare in recent years. As a Catholic School Principal these times are a welcome opportunity to centre on what makes our Catholic schools so distinctly unique and bring that to bear on our service to our communities.

Meet and Greet Sessions

I hope you've enjoyed the opportunity to meet your child's teacher over the week. We're really looking forward to the opportunity to have parents on site again. There is nothing like face to face meetings for both parents and teachers.

Those parents who didn't have the opportunity to meet due to staff absences will be notified soon of when they can meet their child's teacher.

RATs

The next batch of RATs have been sent home today. This batch are for use in the next two weeks. Please continue to use these regularly with your child. They have been an important and effective strategy for reducing the spread of COVID within the school and we've been very fortunate to not have many cases in recent weeks.

Next week is family week. Occurring in Week 7 each term we dedicate this week to slowing down the pace for families and do not provide homework or other school based demands on families of both staff and students. Following on from a long weekend I encourage everyone to choose one activity to do with your family that helps build part of your family story.

God bless,

Matthew Garton