Dear McAuley Families

The College Captains and Vice-Captains (sounds good doesn’t it?) attended the 100 Year Anniversary at St Mary’s Batlow on Monday.  We all enjoyed a lovely celebration of the establishment and continuation of a commitment to offering a Catholic education to the local area.  It was pleasing to see so many in attendance and to note that there are connections to the families of the original 8 students still attending St Mary’s.  Happy birthday to them!

We continue to work on the design and construction/delivery of new learning spaces for 2024.  During the break I met with the architects, engineers, and team to look further into the Primary School BGA project.  As you know, this project involves the demolition of the administration block and K/1/toilet block and the re-development and construction of new classroom, admin and facilities areas.  The Community Council were shown the concept plans at a recent meeting and Lyndal McKay as CC Chair has been able to offer some good local knowledge and ideas as we continue to plan and cost for this future project.

We also have on order 4 more transportable classrooms for the Secondary Campus.  These rooms to be known as “T3, T4, T5, and T6” will provide further general learning areas for our expanding Secondary students as we move to a K-12 College next year.  Thes buildings will be placed adjacent to the McAuley Gymnasium and will be a much welcome addition to our timetabling and teaching programs. The flow on of this project will also lead to the provision of upgraded facilities for our Primary Industries and Agriculture Area located behind the Food Technology Area.

These upgrades will assist us in offering a broad, practical and varied curriculum to our students who are working hard with our expert staff to build and enhance our great school.

As advised in the last Newsletter we are reaching capacity in many classes across the school.  Wait lists are being opened in Years 1, 2, 3, 4 and 9 in 2024.  Please continue to advocate and encourage applications from families keen to join our terrific school.

Please also be aware we are recruiting for teaching staff in 2024 with an active campaign via Catholic Education, “Teachers on Net” and “Seek”. 

Should you know of anyone interested and qualified please encourage them to apply for the advertised full time, permanent positions in both Primary and Secondary.

We hope to be able to shortly announce our new Assistant Principal (Primary) who will join our staff in 2024. These are exciting times for our community as we continue to grow and establish new traditions and reinforce the outstanding culture that exists in our school.

Mary our mother, Look after us.

Eamonn Moore

Principal