Message from the Principal
Next week we will welcome back our whole College community and we are really excited to see all of our students!
I know that it may take some time to get back into the usual routine of school and home, for both students, their families and the staff, but I am confident that if we take each day gently with each other we will be able to do this.
To support this, we are encouraging all staff to use the time next week to ensure that work covered during the remote period has been completed and more importantly understood.
I believe that some things will fall back into their usual pattern:
- friends catching up and laughing;
- bus lines with this familiar phrase – “have a good weekend miss”;
- the birthday girl clutching the gift of flowers from her friend;
- the rush to get to class on time or in the gate before it closes;
- the diary brimming with homework.
These lovely small things are the stuff of our normality.
There will be some ‘new’ normal things too, like hand sanitiser and desk sanitiser and posters encouraging the regular washing of hands and social distancing. These will be part of our new normal for some time to come.
There will be things that we have learnt and will keep that support good communication like Zoom and things that support great eLearning like Google classrooms, girls working at their own pace, utilising videos for instruction and the use of formative assessment.
Some things remain on hold however including many of our physical activity and sport activities, whole College assemblies, carnivals and camps. While we are looking at alternatives, the reality may be that some of these will be have to be cancelled this year. Should this happen, I am sure that the collective creativity of our students and staff will ensure that others things will arise to fill the gap.
For me, the most significant thing that is unchanging are the powerful relationships within our College community, within our own families, and our need for human connection, things that Angela Merici identified within her own time as well.
There will be many lessons that will come from our experiences as a College and more broadly as a society and I am hopeful that it will be our Serviam spirit that will ‘colour’ our response to these lessons moving forward.
You may be interested in this recent article How will we look at each other when we meet again as providing some insight into some of these lessons.
Friday 22 May at 4.30pm – Q&A with Mr Tony Farley- Executive Director of Sydney Catholic Schools
Sydney Catholic Schools Executive Director, Tony Farley, in collaboration with the Connect newsletter, will be live on Facebook today to answer your questions about the return to school plan and how SCS intends to keep schools COVID-safe.
St Ursula’s Parent Zoom
Thank you to over 130 parents and carers who joined me for our second Parent zoom last night.
Some clarifications from this meeting:
- The Library will continue to be open from 8.00am to 4.00pm each day except Friday when it closes at 3pm.
- Homework Club will begin again in Week 7.
- Extra curricular music groups – band etc will not recommence until Term 3.
- The walking club which leaves the College at 7.30am each Thursday will begin again next week.
A few reminders
- School will finish at 2.45pm each day during Week 5.
- Year 12 Parent / Teacher Conferences will be taking place via Zoom on Wednesday 27 May from 3.30pm until 7.30pm. If you have made a booking via Compass you and your daughter will start receiving emails over the next couple of days with links to these Zoom meetings.
Finally, one of Angela Merici’s most used words in her writings was ‘insieme’ – which means together.
We have pulled together remarkably well over these last couple of months and it will only make our community stronger and wiser. I am very grateful to each of you for your support and for being part of this wonderful College community.
I am looking forward to next week.
God bless each of your and your loved ones.
