The St Peter’s Community was saddened to hear of the passing of Sr. Mary Batchelor OLSH who was a former Principal of our school in the 1960’s. I had the pleasure of meeting Sr Mary a number of times when she came back to Australia after working in Sudan. On one of these visits I was taking her around the school (before the current Junior School was built) and we went into the old portables that used to be on Casey. Sr Mary turned to me and said, “Michael you need to get rid of these portables I put them here temporarily in the 60’s!”

We had great pleasure in inviting her to the opening of the Junior School in 2009 and she was so happy that the children had learning spaces that were modern and so inviting. Sr Mary was an amazing woman who gave such love and service to Catholic Education for her entire life. In fact Sr Mary was not only Principal of St Peter’s but also had time as Principal of St Paul’s and St Catherine’s.

In an open letter to the Parish last year during lockdown she wrote in part:

I am missing my old friends dating back to the sixties, seventies and eighties, when I loved my time in your schools. I am missing the wonderful spirit of Holy Trinity Parish which has been home for me for so many years of my life. But really I am not missing any of these because God has his own ways of coming into our lives, and when the familiar pattern fades, he is there with something new. Let us all be open to receive whatever gift God is offering us today. God Bless us all !

We offer our condolences to Our Lady of Sacred Heart community at this difficult time. May Sister Mary rest in peace.

Michael Juliff

SRC - Leadership Conference

On Wednesday May 25th, the Year 6 SRC team made a trip to the city. We met at the train station at 8:10 and took the train, eventually arriving at Flinders Street Station. We took a short walk to the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. When we arrived we went in and took our seats, waiting for the convention to begin. Not long after we arrived, the convention began. We were introduced to the man who was leading the convention. We began by learning about when it will be our time to shine. We were each given booklets in which we wrote down the different things that we learnt throughout the convention. We watched movie clips and wrote down how we thought that the character in the clip was taking the lead and about how they knew that it was their time to shine. To add more fun to it we were introduced to the Loud Noises. The Loud Noises were a team of two people, Andy and Cam. We were all split into two teams, one Andy’s and one Cam’s. We then each learnt a chant each for our team and said them at the same time; seeing who was louder. We watched Andy and Cam play a game with some students from other schools which they had chosen. 

After we had our morning tea, we returned to the convention theatre. The leader of the convention began to walk us through what the responsibilities of a leader were. We all listened intently, writing down notes as we went. After having heaps of fun in the past hour we switched topics. We learnt about how to think of a bright idea. Having a bright idea isn’t about thinking of something you can buy and add to the school, it is about thinking of something that we, as students can do to improve our school. Whether it is revolving around having something to do at playtime or how to make the school safer, it is always a good idea to try and make the change as students with the help of teachers and other staff. We did some activities like asking other schools what they have done or what they are thinking to improve their school.
At 12:30pm the theatre emptied as all the schools left to go and eat lunch. We sat outside the exhibition centre and ate our lunch discussing things that we could do to make St Peter’s a more improved school. 

When we went back in we had another session about how to make a bright idea realistic and the steps to do that. We learnt about how sometime we will need to invent things to make a bright idea come true. The main concept of the session was about how to plan and about the five i’s. They were to identify a problem or need, invent a solution, introduce it to teachers and students, implement your solution and improve continually. We were then told that we were to make a plan using these five i’s. Overall going to the GRIP Student Leadership Conference was a memorable experience and we have learned a lot more about how to be amazing leaders.

 Sneha, Tia and the Year 6 Student Representatives

Many of our families attended a virtual webinar provided by Carley on suggestions for dealing with lockdown. In light of recent news reports & backed by research pointing to an alarming increase in online harms & child exploitation (Sydney Morning Herald May 16), particularly since COVID19, Carley has written an open letter to all parents of Primary School children. Carley is a psychologist, cyber safety educator and parent and writes her letter to both increase awareness and also provide some practical steps to get started.