SCHOOL NEWS
Award Assemblies
Our school assemblies in Term 1 will be held fortnightly on Monday afternoons beginning at 2:30pm. Any change to the time will be communicated to parents via Compass.
- Wk 11: Monday 7 April- Principal Awards
IMPORTANT DATES
2025 School Photos
School photos will be held in Week 11 of this term on MONDAY 7th April.
PUPIL FREE DAY Friday 11 April 2025.
Term 1 Environmental Highlights
Term 1’s environmental initiatives started off with a great BUZZ with our own Mr
Bōdy conducting a Mini Bee Incursion at lunchtime in the library.
A big THANK YOU goes to Mr Bōdy for sharing his Bee knowledge, equipment and of course delicious honey with students.It certainly was informative, as well as a wonderful finger licking experience!
Recycling with SIMPLY CUPS
Holy Cross is now a proud Simply Cups participant and encourages paper cup
recycling at school. Simply Cups is a wonderful resource for our school to educate our students and wider community to be more environmentally conscious and foster lifelong learning. You may have seen the collection units in use at the fete and now more permanently in key locations on the playgrounds, alongside our existing recycling bins already in place. When using the SIMPLY CUPS collection units, please follow the directions on the units and only place empty cups into the collection bins. No plastic cups or other drink containers like poppers to be placed into these units, so that cross contamination does not occur. Please use the other general waste or commingled bins for other waste products.
Well done to Mr Wong for being caught doing the right thing at the Fete.
CLEAN UP HOLY CROSS DAY
Responding to Pope Francis’ Laudato Sí to Care for our Common Home
Every year Holy Cross participates in the National Clean Up Australia Campaign. We organise a closed school event on the Monday after the School Fete. This year the date fell on Monday 17th March.
Schools Clean Up Day is a fun and engaging way to teach students about the responsible disposal of rubbish, resource recovery and the repercussions of rubbish dumped irresponsibly in the local environment. After the school fete, we noticed lots of plastic cups and other rubbish on the playgrounds.
Every class participated in making a Holy Cross in the clean-up process. The students put on the gloves provided by the Clean Australia Campaign, marched around the school picking rubbish up and putting it into the biodegradable garbage bags. Then after the big clean up, the WEN leaders sorted the rubbish into the correct recycling bins.
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All the students did a great job beautifying our school grounds once again and their great team effort reinforced the concept that, "You are never too young to make a difference!” A big thank you for the wonderful school team effort and getting on board to clean up our beautiful little school.
FOGO Bins
At Holy Cross, each class has access to a FOGO bin, which are the small, green-lidded bins that are designed to collect food scraps, diverting them from landfill and turning them into compost. The term FOGO is an acronym for Food Organics and Garden Organics.
After the morning Crunch and Sip, students are encouraged to 
put their food waste into the FOGO bins.
At Lunch One, the allocated FOGO student monitors then places their class bin on the table outside the Student Office entrance for collection by the School Support Officer on duty before the end of Lunch One.The FOGO bins are then emptied into the Subpods Compost bins. Compost worms and microbes live inside our Subpods and turn all the materials we feed them into rich compost. Our Subpods also act as the 'growth hub' for our vegetable gardens. FOGO bins are lined with disposable biodegradable liners, which can be replaced as required by the WEN students.
2025 Newly Commissioned Eco-Ambassadors
On the 20th of March, our enthusiastic and newly selected Eco-Ambassadors, Jenna, Zoe, Zara, Mila and Seraphina attended the Primary Student WEN Day at St Brigid’s Gwynneville, where they were immersed in a day of ecological formation, inspiration and action. Ecological and spiritual formation on the day gave the students strategies to build their own capacity so that they can be leaders of ecological actions in their schools. The students were commissioned as Eco-Ambassadors and presented with WEN badges.
Before the event, the students had to create their own individual name tags utilising
recycling/repurposing principles. These environmentally unique name tags were then used as an icebreaker and talking point with students from other schools.
The students participated in a day of fun eco-themed activities, workshops, networking and ideas which has motivated them to develop a new passion for caring for and protecting the environment in creative and practical ways.
For one of the eco activities, the students had to create a, "No Sew T Shirt Bag", using an old t-shirt. The purpose of the task was to repurpose an old piece of clothing and upcycle it into something useful, like a bag.
Our newly commissioned 2025 Eco-Ambassadors composed Holy Cross’ new Creation Prayer which will be used at our environmental celebrations and liturgies, especially throughout our Season of Creation in September.
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Creation Prayer
Creator God,
Friend to all living things.
The beauty and complexity of the Universe is in your hands.
You who have bought everything into being from the “Big Bang”.
You gave us a world of beauty and splendour.
Transform our hearts and minds to help us care for our common home.
Please forgive us for the times we have not cared for your creation.
We are grateful for your enduring love as we seek environmental justice for our world.
Amen.
What the new Eco Ambassadors students said:
On the 20th of March, we were excited to be commissioned to become the new Eco Ambassadors for 2025. We are now part of an existing great student WEN team that were commissioned last year and have been driving all the great green initiatives that are already happening at Holy Cross.
We are also part of an even greater team, Wollongong Environmental Network, where we all work together to promote Pope Francis’ Laudato Sí and care for our common home.
We have some new ideas that we would like to put into action this year, such as:
- making sure every day at school has waste free lunches
- creating beehives for Stingless Native Bees
- reducing even more waste created from the canteen
- using Fogo Bins on the playground not just in the classrooms
- selling produce from our Veggie Patch to school community to raise funds for to purchase new plants and equipment for our vegetable gardens
Stay tuned for our new green action that we have planned for Holy Cross over the next two years.
Thank you for supporting our ecological conversion journey, as well as any new green initiatives planned for HCH this year and continuing to promote ecological conversion by your actions.
Mrs Barbuto
and Primary Student WEN Team