It was so lovely to be able to welcome everyone back to school this week with many smiling faces greeting us, eager to share great stories from their holidays. Term 4 is always full of activity, and there is much to look forward to over the coming months. This week, we start things off with students having the opportunity to engage in NAIDOC Celebrations.

While NAIDOC week is officially celebrated nationally in the first full week of July, it is appropriate for events and celebrations to be held at other times of the year and many local events can and do happen outside of this week. In fact, the NAIDOC committee encourages continuous engagement and celebration not just through the designated week. This allows more opportunities to build genuine partnerships.

NAIDOC celebrations remind us to set aside time to recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Sometimes people wonder why these celebrations are so important in schools, especially if they themselves don’t feel personally connected to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander culture. From a Catholic perspective, we believe that dedicating time to explicitly help students develop their understanding in this area is central to living out the St Matthews Way - encouraging everyone in our community to grow in compassion, respect and love for all people.

For more than 65,000 years, First Nations peoples have cared for this land, shared knowledge, and built rich cultural traditions. NAIDOC events give us the opportunity to learn from that incredible heritage and to celebrate the resilience and strength of the world’s oldest continuing culture. Together, we strive to model for our students what it means to listen, learn, and walk alongside others with understanding.

To acknowledge this important part of our nation's story, this Friday, students at both our Primary and Secondary campuses will be spending some time during the day learning about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture through a variety of fun and engaging activities, These activities will be supported and led by our Aboriginal Education Officers, Ashlee and Sharyn, as well as some AEO’s from other diocesan schools.

Finally, I would like to wish our Year 12 students all the best for their HSC exams which commence this week. Please keep them in your prayers.

God bless
Angela Myles