From The Principal's Desk

Dear Families                                

The season of Lent is upon us again and it is a time for us to focus intentionally on what helps or hinders our commitment to Christ.  It may be better not to give up something but to take on something, to build our spiritual muscles.  At the beginning of Lent the first thought of many adult Catholics is to give something up and the standard was to give up chocolate of other sweet temptations.  A colleague of mine told me that he had urged his children to move beyond giving up sweet treats and to focus on giving up something that made others around them unhappy.  About halfway through Lent he asked his children how they were doing with their Lenten promise.  One of his young sons had promised to give up fighting with his brother and sister during Lent.  When his father asked him how it was going, the boy replied, “I’m doing pretty good, Dad—but boy, I can’t wait until Easter!”. The response indicates that this boy had only partly understood the purpose of Lenten ‘giving up’.  Lent is about conversion.  It is about working towards changing permanently what we do so that we become better people, not just for the 40 days of Lent but for the rest of our lives.   

NEW FAMILY EVENING: Thank you to the dedicated group of P&F members who hosted the New Family Sundowner last week and made such an impact on our new families.  In discussion with our new Liwara members, they shared with me how welcome they have felt from the very start and the evening sundowner was just the icing on the cake! Thank you, to all that were there to set up and down and made our new parents feel so welcome. A special thank you to Mrs Gaye Margetic and the OSHC team who ran the creche on the evening as the parents were extremely appreciative of their support.  

SCHOOL CLIMATE SURVEY:  Liwara Catholic Primary School is recognised as an inclusive community with strong connections to our parents. In order to reinforce our commitment in living out our motto “Strength in Community,” and as a response to the School Climate survey, the Liwara staff would like to invite  parents to join a focus group, to provide valuable feedback on new and reviewed documents relating to whole school improvement.  If you are interested, please contact the front office and leave your name and details (email and mobile number) by next Friday 13 March.

3 YEAR OLD PROGRAM:  If you know of any families in our community or in your local neighbourhood with children who have turned three or approaching their third birthday, and who would like to know a bit more about our 3 Year Old Kindy program, please encourage them to contact the school as we currently still have places in our Wednesday program.  If they are interested in their child attending on a Friday, we are slowly building up those numbers  as we need  at least 12 students enrolled before we can offer the second day. 

FLAG PRESENTATION CEREMONY MONDAY 16 MARCH 

I  would like to invite all our families to our Flag Presentation Ceremony on Monday 16 March at 10.15am.  Jessica Stojkovski, Member for Kingsley will be presenting the school with an Australian, West Australian and Aboriginal flag on behalf of Dr Anne Aly, Federal Member for Cowan so we can proudly fly all three flags in our newly installed flagpoles in the garden area flanked by the beautiful grass trees and bush tucker garden.  We hope to see many of you there.  Please respond to the invitation when it is sent out next week, for catering purposes.