Dear families,

We are halfway through term three already and our school community has been blessed with many special moments that bring faith, joy, and learning together.

We started our week with our annual Book Week Dress up Parade. It was a colourful, imaginative and fun filled parade. Thank you to all the families that attended, we really appreciated your cooperation and support. It was wonderful to see the array of costumes and so many creative home made costumes, what a talented community we have!

Last weekend we celebrated our first St Lawrence Community Pilgrimage to St Patrick's Cathedral to celebrate the feast of St Lawrence, it was such a special day, I have included an article about it in the newsletter. The following day Monday 11 August we held our Mass at school to celebrate our Patron Saint, St. Lawrence. The Mass was a very reverent event and our Faith and Mission did a wonderful job leading us.

Our Year 6 students have had a big week of preparation for their Sacrament of Confirmation next term. They took part in a faith formation day on Tuesday and returned to school with their families Tuesday night for a Family Faith Formation evening. I would like to acknowledge and thank the families that joined us for this evening. It is wonderful to see families valuing the sacrament and sharing the preparation journey with us.

Today we were host to a number of schools as we held the Grade 4 Maths competition at St Lawrence. It was a wonderful event, our students were fantastic hosts and the team that supported Mrs Italiano did a terrific job, assisting the other students, acknowledging their efforts and helping with the different events.

Looking ahead, we are excited for our upcoming Neon Disco, run by our Parents in Partnership, which will take place on Friday next between 6:30pm and 8pm. Tickets will be available at the door and Neon products will be available to purchase at school during the week.

We are also looking forward to celebrating our Father’s Day Breakfast on Friday 5th September from 7:30–8:30am: dads, grandfathers, and special father figures are warmly invited to join us for breakfast with their children, followed by Father's Day Mass at 9am. Our Father’s Day Stall will be held from 10am. This is a lovely way for students to choose a small gift for their dad or father figure.

We are all getting very excited as we begin the countdown to Shrek Junior the Musical. Next week our first dress rehearsals will take place at school, during the day on Tuesday for cast blue and on Wednesday for cast green. We will be taking photographs for the programs, which we will be selling on the night. Each week we are so impressed by the progress we see in the character's confidence and abilities. The excitement is palpable among the cast. It is great to be able to provide opportunities for the children to shine not only in learning, sport and visual arts but in performing, singing and dancing as well. Only 4 weeks to go!

The leadership team have been preparing data and reports for our school review which begins at the end of this term and continues into term 4. This has been a wonderful way to reflect on our growth and strengths and to plan our next steps. I will be inviting famileis to take part in the review conversations in week 1 of next term please watch out for communications on Compass if you are interested in taking part. This term we also have our annual MACSSIS surveys. Surveys are randomly distributed to 100 families. If you do receive an invitation to complete the survey we would really appreciate you taking the 15-20 minutes to complete it. Please watch your emails around 1 September.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Take care and God bless,

Trish Mulhern