From the APRE desk

Welcome back to Term 3!

I hope you had a chance to enjoy a change of pace over the break. Over the holidays I read “The collected regrets of Clover” by Mikki Brammer. It tells the story of Clover who has the unusual but, I think, privileged role to be with people as they pass away. It is beautifully written in that Clover records lessons learnt from each person's life; regrets, advice, confessions and adventure. It made me think about letting our children, and ourselves, to seek new adventures, try new ideas, make mistakes and learn from them. As you get older, which experiences have you learnt the most from? When reflecting on this book, it confirmed to me that by offering different opportunities to our students allows them and us to grow, but we do need to be brave.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” Nelson Mandela. I hope this term we continue to support each other to be brave and celebrate in our triumphs together.

We welcome Bishop Ken Howell to our Catholic faith community as the Bishop of Toowoomba Diocese. Thank you to the Yr 5 & 6 students (Jimi King, Charlotte Franklin, Sia Luck, Rose Stead, Hari Vinod, Joe Black, Aya Doherty and Ellie Smith) who represented SSPS by attending Tuesday’s Mass and welcoming guests.

This term sees a busy start with our school community celebrating Catholic Education Week (beginning Week 3, Monday 24 July) where the theme, “Planting seeds of Hope”. This is a state wide celebration with a number of events to be held across the week including our whole school Mass on Monday 24 July, a day of Music with Andrew Chinn on Tuesday 25 July and Student free day/Staff Bishop’s Inservice day on Friday 28 July.

Andrew Chinn worked as a classroom teacher in Catholic Primary Schools in Sydney, Australia for nearly twenty years before moving into his full time music ministry. Andrew has visited more than 1100 Catholic primary schools, performing in 3000 concerts across Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada sharing his music and his faith with children, teachers and parents. He has released 12 albums, 5 DVDs and 6 picture books, which are used widely by teachers and catechists in the faith development of children. In recent years he has developed the Butterfly House, an online RE Resource.

Each class will attend a Music workshop with Andrew and in the afternoon, the whole school will come together to perform in a concert in the Mercy Centre from 1.40pm – 2.45pm. All welcome!

Pastoral care at SSPS – Know someone going through a difficult time, who needs a helping hand? You can let us know via the link on the Sentral App! It’s a convenient and confidential way you can let our team know if we can support a family in our school community. You can access the link here https://forms.office.com/r/4ZsEgvRxsM

Have a great week and thanks for reading!

Ann-Maree Ward