Today I attended the catholic staff breakfast that acknowledges staff who have provided 30 and 40 years service to Catholic Education in WA. Mrs Kathy Young was awarded a thirty-year service award this morning for her dedication to St Kieran Catholic Primary School over that period of time. This will be Mrs Young’s last year at the school and we will be celebrating her contribution to our school towards the end of the school year. Mrs Davini has also advised us that she will also be retiring at the end of the school year. We will acknowledge both these wonderful servants to our school community at our end of year celebrations.

This week, staff spent time retraining in First Aid and CPR on the Pupil Free Day. A number of new techniques appear each time we complete training including the use of glad wrap in the treatment of bandaging and burns. Training staff in both the theory and practice of first aid is extremely important for our students and everyone who is a part of our school community. Hopefully, we don’t have the need to exercise our reviewed skills on the children in our school.

Staff also reviewed this week our use of MJR (Making Jesus Real) in our school, trying to revisit simple but powerful messages that enhance our school and those in it.  We as a school want everyone to be WEST people who are Welcoming, Encouraging, able to say Sorry, able to say Thanks and not EAST people who are – Excluding, Argumentative, Sulking, Talkback (to teachers and parents etc). Ask your children if they can explain what these type of people are and how they are trying to be a WEST person at school and at home.

We welcome two new teaching staff for Term 4. Miss Keiralee Davis who will be working with Years 4-6 in the Arts program on a Monday and Tuesday and in Year 4 as the class teacher with Mrs Hart, from Wednesday to Friday. We also welcome Mrs Kate Lovell who will be working with PP-Yr 3 on a Monday and Friday again in the Arts learning area. We also have two new Teaching Aids for Term 4. Miss Ariel Tresham and Miss Haylee Smith have joined us working with our children with our special needs team.

We continue to review school events in light of Covid and earlier today welcomed parents of students who were receiving certificates at our first whole school assembly. We will continue to invite parents whose students will be receiving certificates for the remainder of the term and also continue to include their photos in the newsletter.

Later this term our Pre Primary to Year 5 students will be completing swimming lessons at the Tuart Hill Swimming Pool which is currently leased by Servite College. We appreciate the work gone into ensuring this can take place and the significant time and money that can be saved using the new venue. Further advice will be sent out soon regarding current swimming levels and instructions for Week 7 and 8 of this term. The reduction in cost for swimming will be refunded to parents with a remittance being sent out over the next few weeks.

With funding from Bankwest, the Telethon  Kids  Institute has developed  cyber safety educational app designed to keep parents and carers up to date with trusted,  tailored information to help them teach their children to interact safely online. The Beacon app is the result of a decade of WA research on children’s technology use, cyber safety and parent behaviour.

The app aims to provide parents and carers with knowledge and skills to help children thrive in a digital world by building their capacity to support children to use digital technology in a positive way.    The  App delivers reliable information backed by research and behavioural science, as well as ideas, strategies, and personalised support. 

The “Beacon: Cyber Safety” App is available to download now for both iOS and Android.  You can read more about the app here.

Enjoy the weekend.

Peter Cutrona   
Principal