Good and gracious God, just as the angel Gabriel reminded Mary she was God’s highly favoured one, may we always see ourselves and one another as highly favoured,   and called to bring the good news of God’s love to birth in our world. 

(Feast of the Annunciation, 8th April)

Dear Parents and Friends,

Term 1 has been an absolutely wonderful start to the school year, featuring whole school masses and prayerful encounters, quality learning experiences for our students, our fabulous P&F Fete community event and extensive professional learning for our teaching staff. Thank you to our hardworking teachers and support staff for their commitment to working in partnership with our parents to support our students in their learning growth. 

Students return on Tuesday 30 April, as Monday 29th is PUPIL FREE DAY. Our staff will have a Professional Learning Day with a focus in the new English 3-6 Syllabus.

I wish all of our staff, students and families a safe and restful school break. 

ANZAC DAY DAWN SERVICE IN HELENSBURGH ~ THURSDAY 25 APRIL

Each year our school community, along with the Parish, is invited by the Helensburgh RSL Sub-Branch to attend the ANZAC Day Dawn Service at the Helensburgh War Memorial at Charles Harper Park.

Student leaders lay a wreath and the ANZAC AWARD is announced and presented to a Year 6 student.

The Service begins at 5.45am. We hope that you can attend.

School ANZAC DAY Service

Our School ANZAC Day service will take place on  Wednesday 1st May at 2.15pm on the Top Cola. Parents, grandparents and friends are warmly invited.

Term 2 2024 Parent Planner 

This is a handy two page parent calendar for your fridge or home noticeboard! Simply print and and have it handy for your day to day reference. Any updates and changes will be posted either via Compass, the website calendar or as reminders on our weekly Infographic posted on our school’s Facebook page. All dates can also be found on the Parent online Calendar accessed also on our school’s website. Please note the two PUPIL FREE DAYS are Monday 29 April and Friday 5 July.

ENROLMENTS FOR KINDERGARTEN 2025

The 2025 Kindergarten enrolment period is still open. The school holds a strong reputation within the wider community. It was delightful to have the opportunity to speak briefly at one of our local preschools, Kids Corner. Parents who have a child beginning in Kindergarten next year, including families with younger siblings, are asked to ensure they finalise their enrolment application in the first week of Term 2. Enrolment interviews will commence from Week 1 of Term 2. Enrolment is online, and can be accessed via our school website. School Website 

TELL THEM FROM ME SURVEY- TERM 2

Next term from 29 April to 24 May, all schools in Wollongong diocese will survey the voice of parents, staff, Parish, and students in Years 4-6 via the 'Tell Them From Me' survey. The survey will provide important feedback which continues to inform our work in designing improvement priorities that are responsive to the needs of our school community. More detail and links will be provided after the holidays.

Professional Learning

High quality professional learning for teachers is a priority to ensure improved teacher practice that leads to improved student growth. Recent professional learning undertaken or other professional commitments by our staff this past fortnight includes:

Every Blessing,

Milena Colussi
Principal

Project Compassion 2024

Over the Lenten period Holy Cross has supported the work of Caritas through Project Compassion. Thank you for your generous donations, from our mufti day and Project Compassion boxes we raised over $834.75. This money will go towards supporting the work of project compassion to make sure all people can have a bright future. 

Mothers Day Liturgy - Save the Date -

Please see the attached flyer regarding information for our celebration of Mother’s Day at Holy Cross.

An Invitation to Sunday Mass

Holy Cross Parish would like to extend a warm invitation to all our beloved school families to join us for Mass on Sunday mornings at 8:30am. 

Attending Mass as a family is not only a wonderful opportunity to strengthen and nurture our faith but also a chance to deepen the bonds that unite us as a parish, school and a wider community. 

Some things you may not know:

• Sunday Mass goes for one hour, 8:30 - 9:30am. 
• We regularly gather for morning tea and a catch up afterwards. 
• Every second week we have a children's liturgy which enables our kids to build some great friendships and learn about their faith.

We look forward to welcoming you and your family at our next Mass as we come together to celebrate the gift of faith and the joy of community.

Excursions this year

Excursions form one part of your child’s learning experiences at Holy Cross. The opportunity for students to be immersed in an excursion visit that is connected to an area of their learning helps to build their understandings in a practical, first hand and experiential way. Your child’s class will have their class teacher and an additional teacher on staff or from the Leadership team attending, as well as one of our support officers. 

ASSEMBLIES

Term 2

Our fortnightly school assemblies during Term 2 will be held on Monday afternoons at 2.35pm. 

Week 2 - Monday 6 May

Week 4 - Monday 20 May (Year 6 Sharing)

Week 6 - Monday 3 June (Principal Awards)

Week 8 - Monday 17 June (Kindergarten Sharing)

Week 10 - Monday 1 July (Principal Awards)

UNIFORM

The change from wearing Summer uniform to Winter uniform officially begins in Week 3, Term 2, Monday 13 May. Up until this date, there will be a transition period whereby students have the option of wearing either summer or winter uniform as appropriate for the weather.  

Please Note:

½ zip polar fleece jumper with school logo can be worn under School Jacket or under Sports Jacket on cold days or by itself with the Winter or Summer uniform.

To assist with the change over of uniforms, Claudines will have a pop up shop in the school library on Thursday 2nd May at 2.30pm (Week 1 of Term 2) where winter uniforms can be purcahsed or ordered.  A Compass reminder will also be sent at the beginning of Term 2.

Library News

PREMIER’S READING CHALLENGE (PRC)

Our PRC Champions for this fortnight are: 

Year 4 – Dominic

Year 6 – Jake, Amelia, Mattia & Mikaela

CONGRATULATIONS to you all for completing the challenge!

STOCKTAKE – SENIOR FICTION

Each term at Holy Cross, mandatory Stocktakes need to occur. Each Collection needs to go through Stocktake every 3 years – this is where we need to account for every resource in a Collection. This term it was our Senior Fiction Collection and I was able to account for all but five copies (out of 528 copies) – this is a great result.

There are two reasons for this outcome:

1. our students are being mindful to make sure that all books are borrowed and returned – in other words we have had very few that go ‘missing in action’; and
2. our Library Warriors are making sure the books are being placed in their correct Collection – they really are brilliant at sniffing out a book that doesn’t belong in the Collection they are looking after!

Well done Holy Cross and keep up the good borrowing and returning work!

SCHOLASTIC BOOK CLUB ISSUE 2 ORDERS

I have been notified by Scholastic that Issue 2 orders are on their way.

NEW BOOKS NOW AVAILABLE…

Late last year, our P&F gave money towards buying books for the Library. We have some which are now ready for borrowing – all the following were student requests:

‘Football Superstars’ series – Martens Rules (Non Fiction Series)

‘Ninja Kid’ series - Hypno Ninja  (Popular Fiction series)

Pusheen the Cat’s Guide to Everything  (Non Fiction)

Pokemon - Ash and Pikachu’s Adventures  (Fiction)

Incredible History – Wonders of the World  (Non Fiction)

As always, I would like to express my sincere thanks to our P&F for supporting our Library and our wonderful parents who cover the books!

Stayed tuned for more titles next term…

Happy reading everyone!

Sue Murray
Library Coordinator

The Da Vinci Decathlon 

On the 9th of April, 16 students from Holy Cross competed in the Da Vinci Decathlon, which was held at the Illawarra Christian School. The Da Vinci Decathlon is an academic competition designed to challenge and stimulate the minds of school students. We had to be there at 7:45 am so it was a very early start for all of us. There were 20 schools, and over 300 students competing this year.This year’s Da Vinci decathlon topic was “Technology and Innovation”. The day was super fun, exciting, and also extremely challenging. There were 10 challenging disciplines ( subjects ) to compete in:

English: Where you had to write a short story (200-300 words)

Maths: Where you had to solve mathematical equations 

Science: Composing a procedure text for creating reusable energy with waste

Ideation: Where you have to make a solution to a real world problem

Art and Poetry: Composing a poem along with a piece of art with a 3 dimensional aspect

Creative Producers: Where you have to perform a short dramatic performance (1 min)

Engineering: Where you create a project that has a moving aspect

Cartography: Studying and identifying maps 

Legacy: About Leonardo Da Vinci 

Codebreaking: Where you have to decipher codes

All of the disciplines linked to technology and innovation, including things like AI ( artificial intelligence ), futuristic inventions, and reusable energy. Completing some of these disciplines were exceedingly challenging, especially in engineering, ideation, and codebreaking. At the end of the last session, there were small fun quizzes and questions to solve as a team before finding out the final results.  This year's Da Vinci decathlon was a fulfilling experience and a day of extreme thinking, having fun, and being creative!

These were the 2 teams:

Year Six (Right photo)

Emma B -  “The best thing about the Da Vinci Decathlon was the outstanding teamwork from my fellow team members and l would do it again with my amazing team.”

Emma M- “I loved it because it was challenging and it was good working as a team.”

Amelia - “It was a day of hard thinking and being creative! I had lots of fun!”

Amos- “It was really fun but a lot of the questions were hard to answer.”

Jimmy- “I loved it! It was fun but challenging”

Maya - “ It was amazing, it was challenging and fun!”

Mattia - “ I thought it was really amazing and it was great working as a team”

Mollyrose- “I thought it was really fun and I had a great time working together” 

Year Five (Left photo)

Jesse- “I think the day went very well and I had a lot of fun. I would definitely like to do it again. All I can say is I loved it.”

Lachlan- “I thought the day went really well, I think we worked well as a team and I can say on behalf of everyone, we all had a lot of fun. I would definitely like to do it again next year.”

Sophia - “I really enjoyed it!”

Vida - “I felt good and happy and I had a lot of fun”

Indigo - “I loved working as a team and I felt really challenged. I would love to do it again.”

Ally -“ I loved the activities but they were intense”

Sage -“ It was really fun and I enjoyed the experience”

Lee - “It was a very fun experience and challenged me, which I enjoyed.”

SPOTLIGHT ON MATHEMATICAL LEARNING

This term our Kindergarten students have been working hard on understanding and representing numbers. We have been using a variety of manipulatives (Hands on materials) to show how amounts and collections can be represented and to deepen our knowledge with verbal reasoning (being able to explain our thinking and working out). We have learnt how to use rekenreks, an arithmetic frame that assists us with visualisation and combines features of a number line and counters.

Mikaela, Year 6, successfully auditioned for the Ballet Blanc Youth Company, a shire based classical ballet training program, earlier in the year. 

Over the past month, Mikaela and her fellow company members have been working hard in rehearsals that will continue into the school holidays, preparing for a performance of Cinderella. This has been a great opportunity for Mikaela to experience what a professional company could be like and she is looking forward to the performance.

Cinderella will be performed on Sunday 21st April at 630pm at The Pavilion Performing Arts Centre, Sutherland 

Link to tickets

https://premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?eg=GROUPS&ep=GROUPS&sh=BBYCIND24&v=SUE