WELCOME:

This year we have the great pleasure of welcoming to our school community:

• Mrs Natalie Shelley - Natalie comes to Good Samaritan as our Religious Education Coordinator. Natalie has extensive teaching experience with her last appointment being at St Columbkille’s in Corrimal. Natalie will be teaching Year 5 in 2020.
• Mr Anthony Nash - Anthony comes to Good Samaritan from the Archdiocese of Sydney. Anthony also has extensive experience in a number of the Archdiocesan schools with his most recent appointment being at St Joseph’s in Moorebank. Anthony will be teaching Year 3 in 2020.

We also welcome a number of new students and their families to Good Samaritan.

We hope that the experience of Good Samaritan is a positive, faith-filled and enriching time for all.

Coronavirus:

The NSW Government has requested that children who have visited China in the past two weeks not attend school or childcare services until 14 days have lapsed from their date of departure from China. 

Anyone who develops a fever, cough, sore throat or shortness of breath within 14 days of travel to Hubei Province or contact with a person with confirmed coronavirus, should immediately isolate themselves from other people, contact their GP or local emergency department or call the healthdirect helpline 

1800 022 222.  

 Bushfire Advice:

As  we return to school we understand that students may want to talk about what they have seen, their experiences or what they may have heard through the media. To ensure a consistent response from the school, the points below are what staff have been briefed with. As parents, you may also wish to use these in conversations with your children.

Listen and acknowledge students’ concerns - Accept the child’s responses, reactions and feelings. Don’t tell them to ‘stop being silly’, or to ‘be brave’. 

• Talk about how people have helped eg: raising funds, giving of material possessions, volunteering to assist etc How do you feel when you see this happen?
• Maintain a sense of hope, optimism and safety
• Talk about the men and women who are here to protect us RFS, emergency services, WIRES, volunteers and the ADF
• Talk about how special nature is and how it is our responsibility to protect it because humans need a healthy planet
• Talk about the moments of kindness and care that have been shown to the people and animals affected
• Where teachers are concerned about a student’s response they will always seek advice from the Leadership Team and inform parents of their concerns
• Remember that there may be immediate, short term and long term responses to the crisis 

Immediate: Information about how to deal with and manage distress in the immediate days and weeks after the event.

Short-term: Information that may be useful in the first few months after the fires, which focuses on recovery and prevention of serious adverse mental health impacts that often occur as a result of bushfires.

Long-term: Information for how to manage the longer-term impacts of the bushfires, including when children and young people are experiencing post-traumatic mental health challenges (for example depression, post-traumatic stress disorder other anxiety disorders), as well as information for how to prepare your learning community for the disaster anniversary and a future disaster

Kindergarten 2020 Start Date:

Over the past week Kindergarten students have come to school for an appointment where they have completed the Best Start assessment. The Best Start Kindergarten Assessment  developed by early learning experts in the NSW Department of Education. The Best Start Assessment is not a test. Its purpose is to help the teachers gather information to guide the teaching of the children. During the assessment the teachers look at the children’s early literacy and numeracy skills, knowledge and understandings.

Kindergarten will begin as a full cohort tomorrow, Thursday 6 February. 

School Start Times:

Thank you to all who have made the adjustment in arrangements to ensure that the children are not at school before 8:20am. Supervision begins from 8:20am. CatholicCare OOSH provides care before school supervision begins and after school supervision concludes. 

CatholicCare have vacancies available.

Parent Information Evening

The 2020 Parent Information evening will be held next: 

Wednesday 12 February from 7pm.

The format for the evening will remain the same, following the favourable feedback that was received in 2019. However an extended time will be given for each session. 

Therefore, 3x30minute sessions will run throughout the evening. You may attend any one of the sessions that suits your schedule and, if you have more than one child, you are able to attend each child’s class within the one evening. All sessions contain the same content.

Session times are:

• Session 1 begins at: 7pm
• Session 2 begins at: 7:35pm
• Session 3 begins at: 8:10pm

The evening will conclude at 8:40pm.

Thank You:

The children have arrived at school looking refreshed and ready for the new school year. Many thanks to all our parents and carers for the way in which the children wore their school uniform with pride. They are the living example of what it means to be a Good Samaritan boy or girl when they take care of their appearance and their uniform. Your guidance in this is very much appreciated.

Uniform, Equipment and Belongings:

The beginning of the school year is a great opportunity to ensure that all school uniform, equipment (pencils, pens, etc), belongings (bags, lunch containers) are labelled with your child’s name. We aim to have minimal lost property this year but we can only return those items lost when names are clearly marked on all uniforms, equipment and belongings.