Hello everyone and welcome to Week 7! I hope you are going well after the sweltering heat we’ve had recently.

Last week Mr Bratt, Mrs Lambourne, Mr Schultz and I took the Year 5s and 6s down to Kingswood Oval as part of the Clean Up Australia Day initiative. It was great to see how engaged and determined the children were to help look after our planet by cleaning up the rubbish in a space in our local community. We found a lot more rubbish than we anticipated and left the oval and playground sparkling clean.

On Thursday I was fortunate to supervise the Year 6 Knockout Cricket Team, held at Aldgate Primary. All of our students represented St Joseph’s Kingswood with pride and were respectful of each other and their counterparts. I commend Lily Henry for participating on the team, regardless of being the only girl – and hope she encourages others to join in and play cricket too (and take a similarly great catch to get someone out). Special mention to Hunter McMurtrie with the first catch of the day and Sebastian Shaw who batted well and couldn’t be dismissed. A big thanks to Tom for coming out and coaching the team with great gusto. Stay tuned for more results from this stellar team later this term!

In other news, I will be away for a little bit towards the end of this term. In week 9 I am heading to Sydney for a retreat based on the life of Mary MacKillop. This is run by the Sisters of St Joseph at Mary MacKillop Place in North Sydney. This promises to be an enlightening and valuable trip. We have been warned to use our phones as little as possible so if nothing else it will be a welcome distraction from the busyness of emails and phone calls. And, much to my wife’s delight, I will be heading off to Finland in week 11 for a 2-week study tour in Helsinki. As you may know Finland has one of the best educational programs in the world so it will be fantastic to see what they are doing so well and bring some of their ideas back here to Kingswood!

Take care,

Jamie