Dear Parents and Carers of Good Samaritan,

As the children have come back to face-to-face learning we have concentrated on their social emotional learning and readjustment to school routines.  The children had a really good week last week with obvious signs of enjoying being back and learning  together with their friends. The  comments we have heard from the children about school have been really insightful. One comment that has stayed with me was from one of our older students who said: 

‘I thought  I didn’t like school … until I couldn’t go!’

This reinforces the idea that we can tend to take things for granted until we can’t do them. The same could be said for people - until they’re not  around or we  can’t see them we don’t really know how much they mean to us.

Mark’s Gospel reminds us of the greatest commandment - to love the Lord our  God with all of our heart and soul, the second is that we must love our neighbour as ourselves. There are no greater commandments than these. 

In our Catholic school, we view the social and emotional learning of the children through a Gospel lens. We are called to teach the  children to  understand themselves, to love themselves and to understand and love others. 

This graphic outlines the  skills that are focused on during social and emotional learning sessions.

Research tells us that when children have the skills and awareness needed to function well socially, then learning becomes so much easier. Mark’s Gospel tells us that Jesus knew we cannot do it  alone - we need our neighbour there to support and understand us as well.

As we journey together through the week, with Jesus, let us also think about how we can love our neighbour in our adult hearts and minds,

Toni Sillis

Principal