THE WAY (Term 2 Week 4 - 15 May 2023)
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A Beautiful Celebration of Casino’s Rich Parish History
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FOR INFORMATION
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Resignation - Assistant Director Finance and Corporate Services
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Announcements
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Release of 2023 CSSA Trial HSC Examinations - Final Timetable
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NESA Elective PD
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NESA 2023 WriteOn Competition Now Open
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HSC Showcase 2022
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Website Accessibility
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My Learning
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Positions Vacant
The St Mary's Primary School, Casino community came together to celebrate the hundred year anniversary of the St Mary’s convent building. (5 May 2023)
An amazing community celebration was held at St Mary's Primary School, Casino marking the hundred year anniversary of the opening of the historic Casino landmark, St Mary’s Primary School convent building. Parents, former staff and students poured into the school to celebrate this marvellous milestone.
The convent building, paid for by the generous local community, was blessed and opened on 5 May 1923, with 40 students and two sisters who had travelled from the St Mary's Convent of Mercy, Grafton to teach at Casino.
The morning began with a moving liturgy at the front of the convent building led by Fr Peter Slack and Principal John O'Brien, who enthralled the crowd with the history that echoed through the walls of the notable building.
‘This celebration of our convent building is less about a building and more about the foresight people had to ensure we had and still very much have a very strong Catholic Education for the kids of Casino. The Casino Parishioners were also and are still so very generous. Their money paid for this building to be built. We can never lose sight of this great generosity and the foresight of great leaders and great leadership,’ said Principal John O'Brien.
The celebration then moved to the back of the school with the blessing and opening of The Catherine Centre. This contemporary learning space was damaged in the 2022 Floods and has been revitalised to provide the students with an active and creative learning space. Students received a unique medal that was blessed by Fr Peter to commemorate the event.
This special event ended with a generous spread of coffee, tea cakes and sandwiches for morning tea and a walk through of the convent building. Quiet murmurs filled the corridors as former students relieved their time being taught and boarding in the convent school.
‘In celebrating this moment in the life of the “Convent,” we cannot but be filled with gratitude, for the generosity of the parishioners, under the leadership of Archpriest Barry. In the main, they were farmers of Irish stock who mortgaged their farms to underwrite the loans. They committed themselves to raise the £12,000 for the convent and associated school,’ said Parish Priest of Casino Parish, Fr Peter Slack.
Congratulations to the St Mary's community on the success of this incredible landmark and sharing the school's rich history.
Stewart Brown, Assistant Director, Finance and Corporate Services, has resigned. Stewart has managed Finance and Corporate Services through a challenging period in our Diocese. Throughout Stewart's tenure with the Catholic Schools Office, DLCSL experienced the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and devastating floods, and Stewart's leadership and contribution during this time are sincerely acknowledged.
We thank Stewart for his service and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.
The Leadership Team is working on an interim arrangement for this position, and will communicate this as soon as possible.
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS OFFICE - RESIGNATION
Brittany McElligott, Administrative Assistant (Learning Services), has resigned from her position with the Catholic Schools Office. Brittany commenced her position in 2021 but has been on maternity leave since October 2022.
We wish to acknowledge and thank Brittany for her contribution to Catholic Education in the Diocese.
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS OFFICE - APPOINTMENT
Shannan Human has been appointed to the position of Human Resources Officer, Tweed in the People and Safety portfolio commencing on 15 May 2023. Shannan previously held the position of HR Project Lead at Shellharbour City Council and has a strong background in Human Resources and People and Culture.
We congratulate Shannan and welcome her commitment and expertise to the position.
The CSSA Trial HSC Examinations – Final Timetable has been emailed to schools that placed an order with the CSSA. The Final Timetable is also located on the CSSA website.
Refer to the 2023 CSSA Principal Information package for all details pertaining to the CSSA Trial HSC Examinations. This package was emailed to each Principal in early February, as registered in the CSSA website by each school.
A few reminders to assist in school preparation:
- Please note again the CSSA Trial HSC Examinations Terms and Conditions.
- Examinations scheduled for ALL WEEKS must be taken at the time and date specified.
- Rescheduling of examinations prior to the nominated times is not permitted.
- All examinations including students' scripts MUST be collected at the conclusion of the examination and secured until 8.00am, Thursday 17 August 2023.
- It is the expectation of the CSSA that schools will NOT modify any examination. The one exception to this is where a topic on which a particular question is based has yet to be covered in class. In such circumstances, an alternative question should be set and presented to students on a coloured insert sheet.
- Duration of each examination is working time only. See individual examinations for reading time.
CSSA website and individual School Accounts:
- School data in School Accounts with the CSSA must be kept up-to-date by individual schools via the CSSA website in Account Settings.
Relevant personnel in CSSA registered schools should ensure that school data available and fields of information on the CSSA website is checked, updated, and completed as necessary. This will ensure that your school’s address, phone number, email address, and contact details are correct – this information is critical for communication with schools and the secure delivery of CSSA Trial HSC Examinations. Remember to click on the "SAVE" button at the end of the process.
Staff are invited to use the newly established Professional Learning Hub resources on the intranet. These resources are available for you to engage with and include some activities (which can be done independently or with a team) to support your reading on a particular topic. Throughout the year, there will be more topics added to the Professional Learning Hub page.
The competition is open to all students in Years 1 to 6, including home-schooled students. Students write an imaginative text of up to 500 words using the image as stimulus.
Teachers are encouraged to consider the stimulus image for discussion across learning areas, and to also include the competition as part of their Term 2 English program with the NSW English syllabuses. Each school/home-school can submit a maximum of 3 entries – one entry per Stage of learning (Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3).
Apply via the online entry form here. Entries close at 4.00pm on Friday 16 June.
The Lismore Diocese HSC Showcase celebrates and captures the talents of our 2022 HSC students, reflecting their creativity, innovation, technical skills and conceptual development. These projects represent the culmination of months of diligence and commitment by students, planning and designing, developing their skills and applying them to the task of creating inspirational and engaging works.
Spotlight On …
St John’s College, Lismore (Dance)
Student: Leia Golding
Title: Young and Beautiful
Statement: Young and Beautiful is about the fear of losing one’s identity whilst exploring the struggles of growing up and moving on to inevitably find your sense of self.
A Website Accessibility Bar has been deployed to all Catholic Schools Office websites and all School (Schoolzine) websites. The Website Accessibility Bar allows users to do 2 things:
- Instantly translate pages from English into more than 100 other languages; and
- Increase font size on the page for the vision impaired.
We are very excited to make all our websites more accessible to non-English speaking and vision impaired users. Further accessibility options will be added to websites throughout the year.
Staff are reminded to register for all professional learning courses through the My Learning site. The site has the facility to recommend courses to others. This is useful for Principals and Assistant Principals who wish to recommend staff to register for particular courses.
Staff are reminded that the closing date for courses is five working days prior to the course.
To register, please visit My Learning.
Reminder: R&A Implementation of NSW Curriculum (Secondary) - 22CSO-IONCS1
The R&A Implementation of NSW Curriculum meeting dates are available on MyLearning for registrations. Please refer to THE WAY (TERM 1 WEEK 8) for more details.
7-12 Literacy Coaches Collaborative Network - F23LS-712LCC
In this course, participants will engage with facilitators and peers to develop a deeper understanding of strategies to improve learning and teaching practice in regards to literacy outcomes. The course is designed to support Literacy Coaches to keep abreast of contemporary pedagogical and assessment practices.
- Thursday, 15 June 2023 - Mount St Patrick College, Murwillumbah
Information on employment opportunities within the Diocese of Lismore is available via Positions Vacant.
Existing staff should apply through the Internal Positions Vacant page on the intranet; select People & Safety > Recruitment > Positions vacant – internal site.
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS OFFICE
- Facilities Coordinator, Schools (x2 positions)
- Facilities Coordinator, Corporate Offices
- Regional Finance Business Partners (x4 positions)
- Pastoral Care Officer
- Education Officer - Mathematics K-12
- Finance Business Partner