From the Deputy Principal - Cathie Egarr

Dear St Andrew's Families

I can only add to the wonderful commentary and conversations shared about the Welcome Drinks on Friday night. With so many parents and staff in attendance, it was a beautiful occasion for all. This year, we had a higher number of children in our creche, which supported as many families as possible to attend the evening. We look forward to this offering for future events if needed, and I welcome any feedback regarding this. I must thank the four staff who worked in the Creche to ensure our families felt supported in a safe, caring and familiar environment for their children.

In true St Andrew’s style, our events are in full swing with camps already underway, challenge activities for our Year 6 leaders in place, additional co-curricular events on offer, excursion planning started for Term 1 and our sports, music and co-curricular activities up and running. We have busy children who embrace so many opportunities we offer. Still, we must also remind ourselves of the benefit of having children who are not overscheduled and, at times, may even get bored. When children are ‘bored’ or not ‘overscheduled’, their critical thinking, self-esteem and original thinking is fostered. Some of the best cubby house building, go-cart building and artwork I did as a child, was when I was free to play, explore and fill in my boredom… and yes, I had older brothers who helped me with my go-cart building!

This fortnight I have been lucky enough to attend Playgroup, which we hold on a Monday morning in our ELC, run collaborative challenge activities with the Year 6s as part of Leadership Week, enjoy a meal with our ELC children, take old scholars on school tours, support David Hodges in collating data on our younger years children, and generally having lovely conversations with children, staff and families.

Our Term 1 calendar has many events or occasions to support our whole school community and create gatherings at both class level, year level, sub-schools and the entire school. This may be through watching year-level sports days, joining the Parents' Association, becoming a parent class representative and perhaps hosting a class or year-level event, or even joining in on excursions. If you have any questions about any of these, please ask, and ensure you have access to our school calendar and regularly check events. A reminder to also contact Bron Greaves bgreaves@standrews.sa.edu.au to ensure you have completed your Volunteer requirements forms, for any volunteering you would like to do at our school.

Have a lovely fortnight ahead.

Cathie Egarr
Deputy Principal