Dear Parents/Carers,

Well-we finally made it! Where has the year gone? We have many wonderful memories to reflect on across the year as we navigated our way out of Covid and the many restrictions that came with it. The last two weeks has been exceptionally busy with the Year 6 Graduation, end of year mass and finally today, the Presentation. It was wonderful to see so many of our families at all these events.

Tomorrow, we have our final awards assembly at 2:20pm in the Hall when we all get to view the Year 6 power point which Ms Crispin so cleverly prepared and say our final farewells to our beautiful Year 6 students. Not only do we say farewell to our Year 6 students but we also say a fond farewell to the following families who have supported our school in so many ways over the years: Horwood, Moore, Richardson, Royds, Grenfell, Patel, Schmidt-Liermann, Sheridan and Carroll. We say thank you and farewell to our students and families leaving St Bede’s and we are certain you will remember with fondness the time that you spent here with us and the many friendships that you have made. We especially wish our Year 6 students the very best as they head off to High School at Trinity Goulburn, Braidwood Central School and Canberra Grammar.

Earlier this week we had chaos and mayhem as we moved classes in preparation for the commencement of the building refurbishment in 2023. We would like to say a HUGE thank you to Rene Robertson, Amanda and Troy Vardanega, Kristi Morrison, Andrew and Paul Robinson, Kahla Harton and Kate and Dave Ellis, who volunteered their time on Monday morning in the rain to assist with the moving. We thank to the Vardanega family for providing us with the mini skip to assist with the end of year clean-up and Troy Vardanega and Derek Tooth for organising a shipping container to transfer the sports equipment. This move has been huge and none of this would not have been possible without parent assistance.

Next year we will see the demolition of the Year 2 and 3 old classrooms and the commencement of new K-2 classrooms and break out areas, a refurbishment of the Year 5 and 6 classrooms, demolition of old storerooms, a new office block and sick bay and refurbishment of the existing front office and Principal office into a teacher workspace. We apologise in advance for the inconvenience that this may cause but we look forward to these new spaces.

Today we had our transition day where all the students had an opportunity to spend some time between recess and lunch with their 2023 teacher. We welcome Mrs Michelle Scott who is the Year Two teacher replacing Mrs Johanna Barling. We sadly farewell Mrs Jennie Marsh and Mrs Lois White who are retiring although Jennie is going to continue to do casual teaching at St Bede’s next year and Lois will return as a volunteer. We wish Johanna all the very best at St Gregory’s Queanbeyan and we are certain you will be welcomed and as loved as you are here. We also say farewell to Alex Shain and thank him so much for his contribution at St Bede’s. We will get an opportunity to officially thank Alex next year as he is away waiting for the birth of their new baby.

Finally, I would like to thank our amazing teachers who work tirelessly to support our beautiful students and families and our support staff who do so many things that parents don’t see to look after our students. We especially thank our Community Council who give so much of their time to support and advise the school-Amanda Vardanega (Chair), Anthony Haraldson (Secretary), Jayne Foster (Treasurer), Richard Bunn (grounds maintenance), Bec Thistleton and Marita Fuherer (canteen and parent representative), Brother Brian (Pastoral Associate) and Shaye Cooper (Staff representative) and Fr Mick and Brother Brian who do so much to support our school with prayer, faith development and pastorally.

We wish you all a safe holiday and may you find the peace and joy of Christmas. We look forward to seeing you all back at St Bede’s on Tuesday January 31.

God Bless