Thank you all for such a great start to 2025, especially with the weather we have had. As always there is so much to squeeze into a term. Mrs Chappel and Fr. Joby led a wonderful celebration for our opening Mass, with a lot more in store with Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and St. Patrick’s Day on the horizon. We have sports galore on offer, with Rugby & Netball coaching sessions and Gala Day, not to mention all the Peninsula tryouts and our Cross Country Carnival on Friday 21st March. Mrs Vipiana and a group of volunteers have made sure that Friday Tuckshop is delicious as always. Amongst all this, we even managed to engage in our learning, thanks to our amazing teachers and school officers that put so much work into planning, preparing and delivering engaging lessons to our students.

School Annual Improvement Plan (SAIP)

Each year we have key focus areas of improvement, and the following are our SMART goals for 2025:

Goal 1 - By the end of the year, we will have built capacity in staff as facilitators of Christian Meditation with students to enhance the personal and communal experience of prayer and spirituality, increase skills for wellbeing, and support a positive school community through the implementation of a school-wide approach to meditative prayer practices in classrooms.

Goal 2 - By the end of 2025 all students will have demonstrated growth in literacy and numeracy.

Student Absences

We will be working on improving our attendance rates as one of our school wide goals this year. Our attendance goal is to have zero unexplained absences. Our unexplained absences currently sit at 7.4%. If your student is away for any reason, please contact the office. If you do forget to let us know, you will receive a SMS notification that your child is absent. Please contact the school upon receiving these messages, as it lets us know your child is indeed safe at home and you are aware of their absence. Cairns Catholic Education has a system wide goal that 90% of our students attend school 90% of the time. Over the last few years this has been quite a difficult goal with the interruptions and restrictions we have been impacted by. Our attendance rate to date for 2025 is 90.7% of students that have attended 90% (or more) of the time. This is fantastic and exactly where we want to be.

Strategic Directions Survey

As valued members of our school community, your insights and perspectives are essential in shaping the future strategic directions for Catholic Education Diocese of Cairns (CEDC). This survey aims to gather your thoughts on our current initiatives, identify areas for improvement, and explore new opportunities for growth and innovation. Your feedback will help us create a more effective and supportive environment for both students and families. Thank you for taking the time to share your valuable feedback!

Parent / Carer Survey  https://survey.cns.catholic.edu.au/n/YLJua1D

Sports Uniforms

The Uniform Committee has been working through the process of looking at a new Sports Uniform for St. Clare’s. This is a very lengthy process, and the Uniform Committee is aiming to have some designs for consideration later this semester. If you are experiencing difficulty purchasing Sports Uniforms, please contact me via email - principal.tully@cns.catholic.edu.au. We may be able to help. With that being said, if you have any Sports Uniforms, in good to fair condition, that you no longer require, please consider donating them. You can drop these to the office.

A reminder that any photos taken by parents & carers, at school events, such as Assembly, Sports Days and Free Dress, can only include your own children. Do not share/post any photos that contain students other than your own.

Volunteer Training

Have you completed volunteer training?  All parents assisting with sport training, tuckshop, sport days, transport, excursions, classroom assistance etc need to complete the training found on the Catholic Education website. Go to: https://www.cns.catholic.edu.au/our-school-communities/parent-engagement/volunteer-training/

Important Safety Reminders

Children must not walk through the car park area unless accompanied by an adult.  Parents must meet children at the ramp to walk them to the car. Do not call your children to your car or into the carpark as this is unsafe. Please also note that children need to be accompanied by an adult when crossing Mars Street. Staff will not let children cross Mars St to a parked car on the opposite side of the school.

Parents using the pick-up zone on Mars St. are asked not to leave their cars to assist children. If your child requires assistance to get in the car, please park elsewhere and walk over to collect our child.

The street in front of the two schools in Mars Street has signs that indicate u-turns are prohibited. Please adhere to this as it is for the safety of everyone.

Sent to the Principal's Office

I have already been fortunate to have students sent to my office to show me some of their outstanding efforts and achievements. It is such a delight for me to share in the success of our students and see some of the wonderful things that our teachers do each and every day. Keep an eye out for a ‘Sent to the Principal’s office’ card to see if your child paid me a visit.

I will be taking some Long Service Leave from Thursday 27th March until the end of Term 1. If anything urgent arises during this time that you need to contact me for, please direct your questions to Sharon Chappel or Chris Edwards.

Blessing for the weeks ahead,

Karran Burzacott

Christmas Appeal Update

We are pleased to share that after the donations made by St Clare’s families in our annual St Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeal, 38 hampers were delivered to those who struggle in our community. Thank you for your generosity in helping those in need.

Christian Meditation

During 0 Week, the staff of St Clare’s spent a day with Ernie Christie, gaining experience in Christian Meditation. Ernie has implemented meditation practices across all schools in the Diocese of Townsville and we hope to implement similar practices at St Clare’s throughout 2025. At the heart of Christian Meditation is the simple practice of being still and silent, while focusing on one’s own breathing and chanting ‘maranatha’ (Aramaic for Come Lord, Jesus). Our aim is to build up the ability for our students to meditate for one minute per year of age by the end of the year (ie. 5 minutes for a 5 year old). There are many benefits to regular practice of meditation including strengthened faith and relationship with God, positive wellbeing, engaging in communal prayer and developing a greater sense of the Fruits of the Spirit.

Shrove Tuesday

On March 4, we mark the importance of Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent. This has traditionally been the day when all of the sweet food supplies like sugar, butter and eggs were used up, in anticipation of fasting from tasty foods during Lent which starts the next day.

Our Year 6 Stewardship teams will be kicking off the first of their fundraisers for Project Compassion with a pancake breakfast. There will be pancakes (50c each) with a variety of toppings available, along with juice ($1) between 8.00am and 8.30am on this day.

Jubilee 2025 - Did you know?

Tradition dictates that each Jubilee is proclaimed through the publication of a Papal (or Pontifical) ‘Bull of Indiction’. The ‘Bull’ is meant to be an official document, generally written in Latin, bearing the seal of the Pope, the shape of which gives its name to the document itself.

In the past the seal was usually made of lead and bore, on the front, the image of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, founders of the Church of Rome, and, on the back, the name of the current Pontiff. Later an ink stamp replaced the metal seal, which, however, continued to be used for more important documents.

 

With Blessings,