Dear McAuley Families

Welcome back to Academic Year 2022.  I begin my 3^rd year as principal of this wonderful school under another cloud as COVID alters our processes again and we work to meet the current restrictions.  As always, we aim to keep our communication as factual and practical as we are able to, and, work not to bombard you with too much.  Any important communication will always be sent via Compass as an email whilst our Face Book page will deal more with quick messages and “social” media.

Yet again our staff have rallied to be well prepared for any eventuality and to make our beginning of school as smooth and as “normal” as they can.  I thank each and every member of staff for their resilience and energy and assure you that things have started extremely well at McAuley.

The current restrictions have been notified to you and are basically the same as we ended last year with visitors and events restricted.  It’s hard to build community keeping people out but I know all of our families are speaking so well of our school around the area and I thank you for that.

Each day you will receive a notification of any reported positive COVID cases identified by Year level.  At the time of writing we have not had an exposure at school and I thank each family for being vigilant and testing at home.  Please be assured of your information remaining private. 

You only need to notify the school if one of your children tests positive and we suggest that you perform the RAT twice a week – on Monday and Wednesday morning if that suits your family.  Early days are showing very little impact on our classes and I hope and pray that this might continue.  We are working closely with our neighbouring Catholic Schools and CE to have contingencies in place should the situation change.

Yesterday we welcomed 17 new Kindergarten students as they begin their educational journey here at McAuley.  There was a great buzz as each student unpacked with their buddies in the classroom.  Only a few tears – mostly from mums!  Please be assured you have made an excellent choice in selecting our school for your family.  Counting our New Year 7 starters we welcomed close to 30 new students spread across every year level as we began this week.  Thank you all for your trust in our school and welcome to our community.  Our K-10 enrolment this week is 337.

There will be quite an amount of information elsewhere in this Newsletter to get things going for the year in a sensible and organised way.  Be sure to reach out to your child’s classroom or PC teacher should you have any questions or difficulties.  It’s important to build family routines now as we get back to school.  Please encourage your children to use diaries, calendars and online tools such as Compass to be organised and on track.  Spend some time at home each evening planning and organising as well as reading and completing “screen free” activities being active and moving.  This lowers stress and aids our mental health and overall wellbeing.

Congratulations to our Counsellor Mel who welcomed a baby boy in January.  We have access to a Catholic Care counsellor two days a week this year and will notify families of contact details as soon as we are up and running.

In the meantime, stay safe and thank you again for your efforts to get “back to normal”.

Mary our Mother… Look after us.

Eamonn Moore - Principal