Dear Parents and Carers,

As we come to the end of Term 1, I wish to extend my gratitude for the community that we are all a part of. With the easing of restrictions that have allowed parents and families back in the school grounds - to a greater extent - we are reminded of the role all of us adults play in this community in supporting the spiritual, wellbeing and academic needs of our students so that they can reach their fullest potential.

On behalf of the staff, I wish to extend our appreciation for your support and understanding as we have adapted various procedures this term and we look forward to working in partnership with you to continue to support our students to be the best people they can be. 

During this Holy Week, we are reminded of the joy and the suffering of Jesus’ life. The Easter Story is a time to focus on the importance of forgiveness, compassion and salvation. I wish all our families a Holy and Blessed Easter break and I pray that you will all be able to spend some time celebrating the true meaning of Easter with your loved ones.

Kaylene Duffin
Principal

Holy Cross Parish Holy Week and Easter Events 

Easter Mass - Term Two

Easter does not stop after Easter Sunday. In the Catholic Church, Easter runs for 50 days up to Pentecost when the apostles received the Holy Spirit. As a school community, we will be celebrating Easter on our return to school in Term Two. To celebrate, an Easter Mass will be held at 9:15am on Wednesday 21st April at the Holy Cross Church. At this Mass Fr Paul will be blessing all of our Year 6 students as leaders of our school. Parents are warmly invited to come and join in this celebration. 

House Colour Hero to support the work of Project Compassion

Thank you to the Holy Cross community for your donations to support Caritas and their 2021 Lenten Project Compassion. When you donate to Project Compassion you are a hero as the money raised supports those all around the world who are less fortunate than ourselves. Yesterday the Holy Cross community raised $208. Thank you for your donations. 

ENROLMENT FORMS FOR 2022

Enrolment forms are now available at the

school office for Kindergarten 2022

Enrolment forms are due to the school office by Thursday, 1 April, 2021

Respectful Relationships, Child Safety and Human Sexuality Education

Catholic Education, Diocese of Wollongong has recently launched a new framework designed to strengthen the culture of respectful relationships within our schools. Titled, Life to The Full, the framework is focused on respectful relationships, child safety and human sexuality education in a Catholic context. This framework informs an integral component of our strategic plan this year. 

Our Bishop, Brian Mascord and Director of Schools, Peter Hill, have composed a letter to parents to share and explain this significant framework.

Staff Professional Learning

Professional learning is the formal or informal learning experiences undertaken by teachers and school leaders that improve their individual professional practice, and a school’s collective effectiveness, as measured by improved student learning, engagement with learning and wellbeing. (AISTL Australian Charter for the Professional Learning of Teachers and School Leaders).

Recent staff professional learning:

19 March - Social and Emotional Learning Workshops - Friendly Schools Program

All class teachers 

25 March - Assistant Principal Meeting

Mrs Jennett 

Teaching Reading Strategies in Years 2-6

Mrs Baker, Mr Bõdy, Miss Facci, Mr Whitehall, Miss Costello, Mrs Barbuto, Mrs Baker 

30 March - Collaborative Professionalism Meeting

Updating Student Data - Grammar 

All Class Teachers 

Holy Cross Facebook Page

You may have noticed a few more posts on our Official Holy Cross Facebook Page lately! We would like to encourage you to 'like/follow' our Holy Cross Facebook page to view photos and notices regarding events happening at our school and to promote open and productive dialogue. 

Just a reminder, the link is: www.facebook.com/holycross.helensburgh 

I would also like to take this opportunity to again mention the CEDoW Social Media Policy. We will be only promoting positive interactions online, and the standards/expectations that we will be upholding for all members of the school community using social media is that we respect the dignity of each other at all times. The link to this policy is www.dow.catholic.edu.au/socialmediapolicy and the Social Media Statement/Standards (this statement is also available via our Facebook page as per the policy requirements). 

Social Media Policy Parent Flyer: 

An important reminder that the photo consent form you have signed this year does include online publications (such as our website and social media) and the school will be following what each child's photo consent form says in regards to posting on the official school Facebook page.

   @holycross.helensburgh

Mrs Natalie Baker, Facebook Administration

Term 2 School Assemblies

Canteen

Wollongong Environmental Network (WEN) Day

Last Friday, Mrs Barbuto accompanied our Year 6 Waste Warriors Team consisting of Kai, Jacob, Charlotte and Claire to St Paul's Albion Park.

Here is a recount of the day from our Waste Warriors:

'We had a fun car trip down to Albion Park with Mrs McWiggan, when we arrived we met Mrs Barbuto and registered.

We kicked off the day with morning prayer and acknowledgement of country followed by some ice breaker activities.

During the morning session we were introduced to Jack Berne who raises money for the farmers in drought through the charity 'A fiver for a farmer'. He explained his vision and told us we are never too small to make a difference.

After morning tea we created our reusable bags using old t-shirts, we then worked together and wrote a prayer about God's Creation which we will be sharing with our school community.

After lunch we wrote some environmental initiatives we could work with in our school community and we shared them with other schools. One of our great ideas is to start to use reusable lunch order bags for the canteen at our school!

We finished the day with a prayer and we also received our WEN badges to become official ambassadors for the care for our common home. We traveled back home with Mrs Buckley.

We thoroughly enjoyed this day! Thank you to Mrs Barbuto for giving us this opportunity.

Kai, Claire, Charlotte & Jacob, Year 6

Gardening Club

Year 4 – Honey, I ate honey!

In Week 8, Year 4 investigated how honey is made as well as what other bee products there are, like wax. Students enjoyed having a ‘honey taste-off’ for Taste and Sniff where they got to try four different honeys - Citrus, Manuka, Darkes Forest honey, and Southern Highland honey; and discovered how different areas produce different tasting honey. Students also got to feel and smell what real beeswax is like. Week 9 was all about putting everything they have learnt into practice, students revisited what makes a great bee habitat and then planned a design to ‘make and build’ this week (Week 10). There are some fantastic designs from this class and Rod and I can’t wait to see them built!

Lunchtime Gardening Club – Rain, Worms, Ants and Bionic Bunnies!

Week 8 brought with it an incredible amount of rain which meant over thirty Gardening Club members headed indoors to check out some documentaries around gardening techniques – all member requests of course! Before we began, a ceremony was needed to congratulate Pippa, Bella and Stella on becoming Leaders. Gardening Australia provided a clip around worm farms as our students wanted to get our existing farms up and working. But we also learnt that we can get a worm farm going in the actual garden – students very excitedly discussed how they could make this happen once they got some sunshine on a Thursday! Week 9 they got their wish with the shining sun and we were able to get out into The Patch. Students quickly discovered what ants do when there has been lots of rain – they move on mass! Members also saw first-hand the devastation that, what we termed ‘bionic bunnies’, can do – our pea and snow pea crop which was around 3-4cm high had been completely munched downed to the ground. Unfortunately, these bionic bunnies have worked out how to jump into our raised gardens so our produce now doesn’t stand a chance. Members got together for an ‘emergency meeting’ to have a discussion around what to do. Luckily, we are able to do their collaborative suggestion – the netting we had purchased for the fruit trees will now be used to net the gardens. What we did get to harvest was a couple of mini pumpkins – I will be cooking them up so members will get to have a taste in Week 10.

Stay tuned to see what we get up to next.

Mrs Sue Murray, Coordinator

Baseball Grand Final

On Sunday the 28th of March, my team (The Wollongong Cardinals) and I played a baseball grand final. My team and I won the grand final with a final score of 12-2. During the game I hit the ball all the way to the outfield and got 3 runners home. I have also been selected for the Illawarra junior baseball state cup team, and we will be playing a tournament during the school holidays.

Liam - Year 6

School Term Dates - 2021 

• Term 2 – Monday 19 April - Friday 25 June
• Term 3 – Monday 12 July - Friday 17 September
• Term 4 – Tuesday 5 October - Friday 17 December
  
  

Confirmed Pupil Free Dates - 2021

Term 2 - Monday, 19 April

Term 3 - Friday, 17 September

Term 4 - Thursday & Friday, 16 & 17 December