Dear Parents, Carers and Friends,

I hope you have all enjoyed a wonderful summer break and that the children had a great first week back at school getting to know their new teachers. We are looking forward to welcoming all parents to our Open Classrooms next Monday, February 17^th (Week 3) so you can meet the teacher, have a quick chat and see what your child/ren have been doing since starting school. Following the Open Classroom, we are also holding a ‘Think U Know’ session for parents. This session is valuable, providing information about helping your child/ren stay safe online. If you would like to attend and have your children with you, we will provide staff to watch them in the library while you attend the session.

We ended Week 1 with a very successful School Swimming Carnival, and I thank all the parents who volunteered to help on the day. Your help was greatly appreciated, and the carnival would not have been a success without it. This year St Gregory’s will also be running the upcoming Northern Regions Swimming Carnival on Thursday February 20^th. We wish all our successful swimmers all the best as they move to this next level. Notes will be issued to all students who have made it to the Northern Region Carnival later this week.

To help get things off to a good start following are some beginning of year reminders.

School times

The school supervision times are as follows:

8:30am - Morning supervision begins. Parents should not drop children off prior to 8:30am.

3:30pm – Students should be collected before 3:30pm each day.

Students should not be at school outside these times.

If you need care outside of these times, please book into TeamKids before or after school care. 

It is very important for students to be at school on time as their learning starts straight away so, please try your best to have the children at school before the bell. This year, Years 5 and 6 will commence the day at 8:55am with their Spelling Mastery lesson these lessons are very fast paced and finish by 9:20am at the latest so being late will impact the students learning and the lesson flow.

LATE ARRIVAL or EARLY COLLECTION

If your child arrives to school after 9:00am they should be signed in at the front office Compass portal by the adult delivering them to school. Parents collecting students early must proceed directly to the front office and sign their child out. The printer will issue a slip which can be handed to the classroom teacher upon collection. For safety reasons, students will not be released from the class to parents/carers without a sign-out slip.

BOTTOM GATE – Kiss and Ride Zone

The MacQuoid Street ‘Kiss and Ride Zone’ is designed for quick entry and exit to minimise congestion and risk. We would like families using this pick-up area to use laminated surnames on their car sun visor to speed up the process. The idea is they will be flipped down as the car approaches and the teachers can call the students and get them to the car quickly. If you didn’t receive a laminated surname card or require one this year, please advise the front office. 

To make this flow as smoothly as possible all cars need to wait in the line and when the cars in front leave, the first car should proceed to the far end just past the school driveway. No cars should be passing other cars and popping into empty spots. It should flow in a smooth line. Although you may need to wait a few moments, by filling up from the front we are able to load more cars at a time and it will be faster overall. I thank you for your continued support in improving this afternoon flow. 

Drivers will stay in the vehicle to make this a quick pick-up process. If you need to get out of the car to buckle children into seats, please park and collect your child rather than using the drive through lane.

LOWE STREET AFTERNOON PICK-UP

Patience and consideration for others is imperative when collecting children at the end of the school day from Lowe Street and we need to ensure the safety of all the students. To help us to ensure that no student leaves the gate unaccompanied we need to ask parents to leave via the main school gate or the back Drover’s gate. No parents should be entering or exiting via the bus gate. Please support us in this vital safety process to ensure the safety of your child as well as all other children.

COMPASS PARENT PORTAL

The Compass Parent Portal allows you to interact with the school and access up-to-date information. This is the platform you will use to communicate with your child/ren’s teacher, book parent-teacher interviews, give consent for excursions, enter absent notes, view school reports and receive communication from the school. It also has a calendar with all the school’s event date for the year. This will be added to and kept up to date all year. Please contact the Front Office if you are having any difficulty accessing Compass. 

School Visitors

For safety reasons, all parents or carers coming onto school grounds (outside of regular drop-off and pick-up times) need to go via the sign the Front Office and sign in.

School Uniform

Please see the attached information on school uniform.

 A reminder that running/sports shoes are to be worn on sports days only.  Black leather school shoes are to be worn on non sport days. 

This jubilee year is a special year in the life of the church and the theme of the year is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. Based on Romans 5.5, 'Everyone knows what it is to hope'. Pope Francis wrote ‘For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope. God’s word helps us find reasons for that hope.’ With the commencing of the school year and the jubilee year let us join together in prayer for hope and may we all be inspired by the words of Archbishop Prowse, ‘Where there is no hope, put hope and you will find hope’.

Dear God,

Fill our hearts with hope as we begin this new school year.

May the light of Your love guide us through every day.

Let hope be our anchor in times of doubt, reminding us of Your unending love and

Help us to inspire hope in all those we meet.

Amen

I am looking forward to working with you and your children to this year.

Have a blessed week.

LIBRARY TIMETABLE FOR TERM 1 

Macquoid St: 

Mon: 6G, 6R, 2R, 2B

Tues: 5G, 3G, 3B, 3W, 3R

Wed: 5R, 4R, 4W, 2G

Thur: 4B, 6B, 5B, 2W, 4G QEHIL23

Lowe St: 

Mon: 1S, KG, 1B

Tues: KS, KR, 1G

Wed: KB, KW, 1R, 1W 

OVERDUE BOOKS FROM 2024

Please remember to return any overdue books from last year. If your child has lost the book or it has been damaged, please email the details to: natalina.ireland@cg.catholic.edu.au. 

Books are borrowed for a period of 2 weeks. If your child/ren have not finished their book within that 2-week timeframe, please bring the book to the library and ask for it to be renewed. If your child does not return their books, this will impact how many books then can borrow each week during their class library time. Lowe St Student can borrow UP TO 3 books, and students at Macquoid St can borrow UP TO 5 books. This includes any books that they want to read at their desk during class-time.  

LIBRARY BAGS 

All students in Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 MUST have a library bag if they would like to borrow books for home. 

Religion is part of our identity as a school. This year is a very special and exciting year, occurring every 25 years, the Jubilee is a year-long period of special significance for Catholics across the globe. The concept of a Holy Year has deep roots in the history of the Catholic Church, and is centered around pilgrimage to Rome, spiritual renewal and the forgiveness of sins. This year our Jubilee motto is ‘Pilgrims of Hope.’