Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to all our students, staff and families. It was wonderful to see everyone back at school last week ready for a busy term of learning. We look forward to seeing our families at school and at various events throughout the term.

During the holidays, many of our students and staff participated in the ANZAC march in Braidwood. Congratulations to Cara L and Sam P, our Prime Ministers, who did a reading during the ceremony and thank you to Trish Young for donating the wreath. Last Thursday, our school reflected on the significance of ANZAC day with a very moving prayer reflection presented by Jade Crispin and Year 3.

Last Friday, St Bede’s hosted the Northern Regions Cross Country Carnival. All our children who competed tried their best with Tom E and Charlie H being selected for the Archdiocesan Carnival. A huge thank you to Katie Tooth, our Sports Co-ordinator, for her impeccable organisation of the carnival and our many parent volunteers who assisted either in the canteen or as officials. A special thank you to our parents who transported equipment to and from the showground, prepared the grounds or provided the yummy home baked soups and treats on the day!

As communicated via email on Monday, NSW Health Safe Wayz program is going to provide a Parental Information Session on Thursday 15th May 2025 at 5:30pm. This will be held here at St Bede’s. Please email your attendance to amy.doszpot@cg.catholic.edu 

Safe Wayz aims to

• prevent harmful sexual behaviours from occurring.
• intervene early when sexualised behaviours first emerge.
• help children understand and address the behaviours in safe and supportive ways.
• identifying sexualised behaviours and seeking help early can prevent further harm, both for the child engaging in the behaviours and other children who may be impacted. Early support can help improve a child's outcomes. With support, almost all children resolve these behaviours.

The design of the Safe Wayz program follows recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It takes a public health approach: preventing harmful sexual behaviours occurring, intervening early when sexualised behaviours first emerge, and enabling children with harmful sexual behaviours to access assessment and counselling.

Each year during the month of May, we commence our enrolment period. Open day tours will be conducted by our school leaders next Tuesday from 9:30am to 11am and from 3:30pm to 4:30pm. If you know of any students who are turning 5 by July 31, 2026, and/or interested in enrolling at St Bede’s in other year levels, please encourage them to come along to an open day session or to contact the school to arrange a tour.

Today I attended the Veolia Mulwaree Trust Grants presentation at Goulburn, with Rachel Farley and Kristi Morrison, to receive a grant of $45,000 towards our new Infants Playground. We thank Rachel for applying for the grant and Kristi for her assistance. Plans are well underway to have our new equipment installed. The designs have been submitted-so watch this space for more information!

Happy Mother’s Day to all our beautiful mothers, grandmothers and special persons in our lives. In appreciation of our mothers, we will be hosting our Mother’s Day breakfast tomorrow. There will be egg and bacon rolls available and refreshments. This will be followed by a liturgy prepared by Kinder and Year 6. We hope to see you there!

We will also be holding our Mother's Day Stall tomorrow at 2pm. Gifts are $6 and payment can be made via Qkr!  

Have a great week!
God bless