Hi everyone and welcome to a new school year. I can’t believe it’s 2021! A big welcome to our new students in our Reception classes as well as our new students in other year levels coming from other schools, many from other states. It is great to see so many new faces eager and happy to start their learning process. We also have a new staff member this year, Tania Montin who will teach our third Reception class. Tania is well trained in Early Years, and she has fit into our community seamlessly. It’s been great to get to know her better and I am sure that you will value her contribution to our student’s education and our school.

This year we welcome back Matt Richards. Matt is back to help us make the most of our Apple products and continue our development and learning from the past three years. Matt works with staff and students, and has made a positive contribution to how we think about and use IT. Matt and I have some exciting experiences planned for our students so stay tuned.

Our school has now rolled out our planned hardware classroom integration. As it stands now, we are 1:2 iPad in Rec-Year 2, 1:1 iPad Year 3-5 and the Year 6s are using Macs. These iPads have added keyboards so that students can still learn important typing skills with the added flexibility of being portable. This year we will add typing skills to the curriculum to help the students become more confident and faster at typing.

This year I have joined the Ecology Committee at the Catholic Education Office. The committee is full of teachers and leaders from other schools as passionate as I am about caring for the environment and our common home. The Catholic Education team is looking for ways make our schools more sustainable and have the goal of developing moral, compassionate and ecologically aware students.

A warm welcome to our new families who have joined us this year. We hope you have a great time at St Joseph’s Kingswood and that yours and your child’s experience here is a positive one. As you would know from time-to-time things do occur that might be less than ideal. If there are any issues or concerns or you just want to chat, please feel free to see Phil or myself at any time. We are here to make sure you and your children have the most rewarding time possible and we love working with parents to make sure this happens.

Good luck everyone for the remainder of the year. I hope you have a fantastic 2021 with many lasting positive memories.

Take care,

Jamie