These dates may be subject to change at the discretion of the College. Any changes will be advised to parents and carers via Schoolzine.

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Endings and beginnings

It's a very busy time of year and it seems like there is much to cram in before Christmas. Students are looking forward to holidays and teachers are busy writing reports. It's easy to get bogged down and lose sight of the season of peace, hope and joy that is upon us. 

In an effort to take a moment to reflect on the year that has been, I'd like to express my gratitude to all students, teachers, coordinators and staff for the year that has been.  We  celebrate our Thanksgiving Mass tomorrow at 11:30am where we present our Christmas Hampers to members of our local St Vinnie’s Conference. Your generous donations will make a huge difference in the lives of those in need in our local community.

Congratulations to all the Primary students who were recognised with awards yesterday and Secondary students who will receive their awards next Tuesday evening.  Reports will be sent home on Tuesday: Primary through Compass and Secondary through Sentral. If you can't access them by Wednesday, please contact me on Antoinette.Woods@cg.catholic.edu.au

Congratulations also to our graduating Year 6 students - we look forward to seeing you continue to shine your light in Secondary, and to our Kindergarten students for completing a fun-filled year of learning.

Thanks to our parents and carers, especially the Community Council members, for entrusting us with your children's education and for helping create a welcoming environment. 

Happy retirement to Gina Otton who has been a stalwart at the College since 2002, inspiring 1000s of students to be creative and compassionate throughout her career. 

Farewell and good luck to much loved staff members who are leaving: Sarah-Jane Morgan, Naomi Aigner  and Helen Ffrench. 

All the very best to our trainees, Aja, Nesta and Sarncha - your assistance has been invaluable and greatly appreciated. 

And a final thought on gratitude: thank you to Helen Bigelow, Mike Rodda and the 9 students joining me on the Philippines Immersion Trip in January. Sr Rei and the children of Pontevedra are very excited that we will be visiting their community.  Our ongoing friendship is a blessing for both them and us. This immersion is a wonderful reminder of what's really important, especially as we celebrate being a part of a community of love this Christmas.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of our primary teachers for 2025.

NESA HSC Examination Provisions - for Year 12 2025 

If students would like to apply, please contact Helen.Bigelow@cg.catholic.edu.au 

Link for information about Disability Provisions:

https://www.nsw.gov.au/education-and-training/nesa/hsc/disability-provisions

Community Council News

November 2024

The Community Council (CC) members met up for their scheduled executive meeting on the 29/11/2024 for our final meeting of the year, a Christmas catch up and social event for parents at Lumen. We met up at the Sapphire Club in Merimbula and it was a wonderful opportunity to round up the events of 2024 and to start planning for next year – less than 4 weeks until 2025!

Update of Working Groups

An update on the uniform working group was provided and it has established some long- and short-term priorities and is developing a plan of action to change out some aspects of the school uniform to make students more comfortable, provide better practicality and initiate a better price point for families. With the change over from Pickles to Lowes as a provider of the uniform there are some contractual obligations that will need to be addressed, and as such the move to changing certain aspects of the uniform will take time. But rest assured there is a team working behind the scenes to ensure a wonderful outcome for the school and the school community.

Seaspray Café

Since we last met up in September Seaspray Café has made some changes in how they operate, and the access children have to the café. As some of you may have noticed Qkr! has more options for food, with the option for Snacks available at lunch time, as well as an additional ‘Primary Only’ line for primary school children. We hope this has helped and even solved some of the concerns in relation to the Seaspray Café. We thank the school community for raising this as an issue, and Lumen staff for helping us come up with a sustainable long-term solution.

Sponsorship and Fundraising

The Community Council has raised a plan for potential sponsorship and a more directed fundraising initiative within the school. The Community Council would like to see an opportunity for bigger and well-funded events throughout the year that are sustainable and have the potential to raise significant funds for both Catholic Education charitable groups such as Caritas, St Vincent de Paul and The Franciscan Sisters of St Anthony as well as developing other fundraising opportunities in the local community. We hope to develop a plan early 2025 for the year ahead. There will be more information about this initiative once the plan has been approved.

Social Events

Social events for 2025 for parents and teachers to attend are high on the agenda. We are hoping to provide at least one social event each term at a local venue, we encourage as many people to come and enjoy meeting your school community as the bigger the participation in these events the more we can have. More information on social events will come out early 2025.

Bikes and Scooter Parking

There was a concern raised in relation to bike and scooter storage for primary school children. At this stage there is one bike/scooter stand for the whole school. It has been observed that outside school events such as ‘ride or walk to school’ there is a very limited number of bikes and or scooters parked here. Due to this, it was decided that currently there is no reason to provide a separate storage area for primary. We encourage all parents to provide feedback on this if you feel it is required or to supply us with more information on this topic if you feel that the issue has not been addressed.

Update on building plans

As previously outlined, the school has several building upgrades that will be taking place over the next couple of weeks, months and even years. We aim to keep the community up to date with this as the information or scheduled upgrades are confirmed. Over the summer holidays the following will be happening at the school. • Shade sails outside the Music and Drama rooms (facing Pambula Beach Rd). • Blackout curtains and painting in the Music room to match the adjoining Drama room. • Re-lay paving in the lower courtyard to address water pooling and drainage issues. • Extension of the shaded area outside Seaspray Café. • Construction of a shaded area in the lower courtyard where picnic tables are (yr 6 area).

Other Business (screen use and relief teachers)

Screen use in the school is an ongoing ever developing space for teachers, parents and the community. IT is the future for kids and with that comes some great positives and opportunities in learning and creation. It also comes with some challenges, especially in the amount of time spent on screens both at school and in the home. The school has its own rules on phones that differ slightly from other schools in the area. Phones are not allowed in the classroom at any time, the school adopts an ‘Off and away all day, except at the Café’ approach. This is to instil some responsibility, respect and trust to our teens and young adults. However, if students do not abide by this rule, phones are confiscate. Members have requested the Catholic Educations policy on the use of screens (personal and those used for education) at school in order to ascertain, along with other evidence what the best approach might be to assist families and students with screen use. This will be a work in progress and one that will most likely require a lot of communication and trial and error to get the best outcome for students, parents and teachers. We welcome any ideas and feedback in this area and appreciate everyone’s patience.

LCCC is lucky enough to have a large pool of relief teachers who can provide subject specific expertise in the classroom. Students are provided a regular teacher for their subjects or year and all efforts are made to ensure continuity of their learning space. With this said, teachers need a break from time to time for a variety of reasons and as such relief teachers are required to fill this gap. Relief teachers are educated, trained and experienced in multiple subjects and age groups and as such should provide an uninterrupted education experience. Any long-term absences from a teacher will be communicated by the school and an appropriate replacement (i.e subject specific experienced teacher) will be provided.

Next Community Council Executive meeting

Our next meeting is on 27 March (Week 8) at 4:00pm in the Learning Centre at the College. We encourage and welcome your feedback, concerns, and ideas. Please do not hesitate to contact us via email.

Be the Light of Christ.

Steph Parry

Secretary LCCC Community Council

lumencommunitycouncil@gmail.com