What a fantastic community!

Thank you to our St Aloysius families who made all our Get to Know You activities so successful over the past week. Our Kindergarten children and their families set a wonderful example by turning up to Whitewater Park in Chisholm in great numbers last week. I hope you saw the photos in The Maitland Mercury last Tuesday.

Thank you very much to our St Aloysius Kinder teachers for 2014 Gabi Lawler and Jane Pearce for the exciting day they planned for our 2015 Year 1 students at Our Lady of Lourdes Tarro on Tuesday. Thank you also to Anthony Weir, the Principal of St Joseph's who drove the bus for the students from his school.

Most of our Year 2015 2 - 6  students attended the Get to Know You Day at St John's Maitland on Tuesday and spent the day with the newly appointed 2015 St Aloysius teachers. Everyone had a wonderful day making new friends and talking about our new school.

We capped off a wonderful week by sharing a BBQ together at St Mary's Maitland on Thursday evening. Thank you very much to one of our Dad's Andrew Cornwall who organised most of the night as well as the Food Tech Assistant Tania Cullity who had our food cooked and prepared beautifully.

This week our Bishop approved our school motto and uniform. We have a sample of the girl's summer uniform and the boy's shirt will be complete when it has the crest embroidery. Unfortunately, I am unable to upload the coloured version of the crest but will do as soon as possible.

St Aloysius are very excited to have been appointed to our school and I will introduce them in my next blog.

Wishing all families a safe and enjoyable holiday.

A Memorable Week!

This week commenced with the much anticipated arrival of our fourth grandson Oliver Jack Fern in Brisbane. It was hard waiting for the weekend to travel up north to visit him.

 

Amazing Teachers!

 

A panel of four spent three full days interviewing more than 20 amazing teachers wanting to teach at St Aloysius in 2015. After much deliberation we made our recommendations and are looking forward to introducing our new staff to the school community after all the processes and clearances are complete.

 

Kindergarten 2015!

 

We finished the week with a wonderful gathering of over 150 people for Afternoon Tea in Whitewater Park Chisholm. Most of our Kindergarten students for 2015 and their families were able to attend. The children even lined up for their first school photo which we will publish when we have Photo Permission forms signed by all families. This was a wonderful opportunity for parents and children alike to make some new friends as members of our school community.

 

Next week.

 

Tuesday September 16 - our Year 1 students for 2015 will be spending the day together at Our Lady of Lourdes Tarro. Thank you to the current St Aloysius Kinder teachers at OLOL and St Joseph's - Gabrielle Lawler and Jane Pearce for their wonderful work with many of these students in 2014 and for their organisation for next week's 'Getting to Know You' day.

 

Thursday September 18 - our Year 2 - 6 students for 2015 will be gathering at St John the Baptist School Maitland to get to know more about their new school and new classmates. We hope some of our 2015 teachers will be able to take part in running some of the activities on this day.

 

Thursday September 18 - our first family BBQ will be held in the grounds of St Mary's Campus, All Saints College. We are looking forward to the opportunity for our families to meet and make some new friends and connections. We also hope to be able to present our new school uniform to the school community on this evening. Families are reminded to please RSVP for this event if they haven't already done so.

New Zealand School Visits

This week I travelled to Auckland to visit some schools known for their success in meeting the needs of 21st century learners.

Thank you to Sarah Martin and her team at Stonefields School for sharing their time and expertise. Stonefields opened in 2011 and is a wonderful learning environment.
Have a look at their school at http://www.stonefields.school.nz/

I also visited Hingaia Peninsular School and enjoyed learning from the Principal Jane Danielson about the exciting journey their school has been on since opening in 2012. Learn more about this school at https://sites.google.com/a/hp.school.nz/hps/home

These photos are from these two amazing schools.

Building Progress despite the rain!

Despite having record rainfalls in August our buildings are still progressing well. The foundations were being poured today for the fourth and final building in Stage One - the second set of four classrooms. The Multipurpose building is getting close to completion and internal painting has been completed.

 

 

 

Work on the Chapel and Hall is now not affected by the weather as the roof has been completed.

 

The first building housing our Kinder and Year One classrooms is also taking shape.

 

The Story of our Crest and Motto

We have been working on the design of our St Aloysius school crest and options for our school motto since the middle of June. Sr Marie Hughes provided us with a booklet produced when St Aloysius Hamilton closed in 1984. It captures a lot of that school’s history including their opening year of 1915. (We are opening 100 years later).

 

After researching St Aloysius and his related symbols, Jesuit symbols, crests of other St Aloysius schools, crests of other recently opened schools, the environmental and Aboriginal history of the area, the Mercy sisters (and the copyright on their cross), Caroline Chisholm and the educational brief for our school, we summarised some possible options for our school crest.

 

The options included:

St Aloysius – but not necessarily his symbols of the lily and the crown. His family crest and his role as the patron saint of young people

The Jesuits – their main symbol of the sun as on Pope Francis’ shield

Previous St Aloysius school crest- which incorporated a star

The Mercy cross – or similar recognising the work of the Mercy sisters in establishing Catholic education in the region.

The concept of mission and service as portrayed by St Aloysius and Caroline Chisholm – maybe the motto, heart, radiating rays

Caroline Chisholm – the name of the new suburb - service, reaching out, social justice

Our Location – Hunter River, Morpeth, Spotted Gum (which was the predominant tree of the local forests)

Aboriginal heritage – the traditional owners of the land, the wedge tail eagle is seen as the protector of the local people

Colours – blue, green, teal – to represent the school design as ecologically sustainable

Our 21^st Century learning journey – river symbol?? Learning together, lifelong learning, collaboration – representing the modern pedagogical focus of the school

 

Colours - Our school uniform colours will be teal, navy & white. Navy and white were part of the original St Aloysius school uniform. These colours will form the basis of the crest used on uniforms but more colours will be incorporated in our formal crest used on signage, stationery, badges, advertising etc

 

However, we were also aware of the need to keep the crest as simple as possible so could not include all these concepts.

 

Sr Dorothy created some initial images for us. Her ideas included:

·         A curved cross, southern cross, gum leaves & blossoms, journey/path which could be a symbol of life-long learning/faith journey

·         The pathway as water, representing the Hunter River, the sun, and a different cross – not the Mercy cross (for copyright reasons) but a different cross representing a new beginning

·         Gum leaves used to create a cross, sun and water

·         A stylised sun representing the Jesuit symbol

·         Dotted lines to represent indigenous culture

 

 

We originally tried to work the quote from St Aloysius (It is better to be the child of God than king of the whole world) into a motto – maybe living and learning as children of God

However, since then the hymn “We are called” has inspired us with possibilities as a motto. It's broad enough to include all sorts of callings - e.g., we are called...to care for the earth; to be the best people we can be; to be compassionate to those who are suffering, etc.

This motto also encompasses St Aloysius’s calling.

 

Sr Dorothy became too busy to continue on our crest but has offered to paint our school cross and include images we are unable to include in our crest. We have since had a parent who is a graphic designer do further work on our crest. A number of options were taken to the last Project Implementation Committee meeting for discussion and suggestions from this meeting were incorporated into a final design brief.

 

This design incorporates a cross, river symbol, gum leaves and part of the Jesuit sun emblem. This design has been sent to the Bishop for approval before final stylising is completed. As soon as we have a design concept approved we will share it with our community.

Watch this space!!

 

School Building Update

Despite the rain this week the builders are very pleased with the progress of our school. Additional crews have commenced working on site which enables work to be done concurrently on all buildings. The Multipurpose Building has had the most work completed on it. This will be our temporary Admin building until Stage 2 of the project is completed.

Substantial work has also been completed on the Chapel, Hall and Canteen.

 

It is wonderful to also see our first block of classrooms well underway as well as the connecting walkway.

 

 

 

 

School Visits

Over the last couple of weeks I have visited some schools that utilise a similar learning framework  to how St Aloysius will be operating from 2015. It was exciting to see students so engaged in their learning in these non traditional learning spaces. The teachers were also keen to share their experiences working in these learning environments. The photos below give an idea of some of the furniture possibilities we are exploring for our new classrooms.