Dear Colleagues,

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT

Each week during Lent, we open our hearts a little more to receive the light of Christ. On the mountain, the face of Jesus shines like the sun as he is proclaimed the Beloved One of God! Jesus is indeed the Light of the world – the revelation of God’s love for us. In the second week of Lent, we listen for the voice of God, who calls us ‘Beloved’ with Christ. It is this God who lives and speaks within our hearts.

We invite Jesus to shine into our hearts and illuminate for us the sacred in all of creation, that we may treasure the mystery within ourselves, within one another, and within all living things on this earth.

Pastoral Care Workers Gather for Formation and Learning

On Friday, 14 March, our dedicated Pastoral Care Workers (PCWs) from across the Diocese came together for their first gathering of the year. This event provided an invaluable opportunity for conversation, formation, and learning, focusing on their significant roles in our community.

The Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle is truly blessed to have such a committed group of PCWs. Their contributions to the pastoral needs of students in our Catholic schools are immeasurable. Through their compassionate work, they bear witness to Christ's presence among us, uplifting the dignity of individuals experiencing hardship and requiring special care.

We are grateful for their unwavering dedication and the positive impact they continue to make in the lives of many.

The Benefits of Attending a Catholic School

As leaders in Catholic education, we are always encouraged by the positive impact our schools and our staff have on the lives of our students. I wanted to share two recent articles that highlight the lifelong benefits of a Catholic education, reinforcing what we already know - our schools provide personal, social, and spiritual growth that extends beyond the classroom:

• A study in The Australianthat highlights how Catholic school graduates outperform their peers in key areas such as life satisfaction, work success, and overall health. You can read the full article here: Catholic school graduates 'perform better' on key outcomes including life satisfaction, work and health.
• The Victorian Catholic Education Authorityhas published a resource outlining the extensive lifelong benefits of attending a Catholic school, including the development of values, resilience, and a strong sense of community. You can access the resource here: Lifelong Benefits of Attending a Catholic School.

I encourage you to share these positive messages with your school communities. These insights can also serve as a powerful tool in our ongoing conversations regarding further community engagement and enrolment discussions.

The Communications and Marketing team will incorporate these positive messages where possible in our campaigns.

 Thank you for your dedication and commitment to Catholic education.

St Patricks Day – Monday 17^th March

On this Feast of St. Patrick, we celebrate not just the patron saint of Ireland but a man of deep faith who spread the message of Christ with courage and love. May his example inspire us to walk in faith, share kindness, and trust in God’s divine plan.

May the blessings of St. Patrick be with you today and always. May Christ be beside you, before you, and within you, guiding your path.

“Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me.” – St. Patrick’s Breastplate

Wishing you a joyful and blessed St. Patrick’s Day!

St. Michael’s Nelson Bay

St. Michael's Nelson Bay's youngest students have settled into their brand-new classrooms. St. Michael’s has two kindergarten classes this year, and the students are already learning a lot in the new, modern classrooms.

Kindergarten students Milo, Alexander, May, and Frankie sat down with the Port Stephens Examiner to discuss what they've learned at school so far and what they love about their school.

See the article below (attached pdf).

I sincerely thank Jenny Howard and her staff for their commitment to our students and the school community at Adamstown. Your hard work, passion, and care shape not only the minds of our learners but also their character and future.

Your efforts—whether in the classroom, administration, or behind the scenes—do not go unnoticed. Each of you plays a vital role in creating a nurturing and inspiring learning environment, and I sincerely thank you.

As we continue this journey together, I encourage you to take pride in the impact you make every day.

With my best wishes,

Jacqui

Dear Colleagues,

The current endorsement cycle for the Stage 6 Studies in Catholic Thought course expires at the end of 2025. NESA has recently released its timeline and processes for the renewal of School Developed Board Endorsed Courses (SDBEC) and it is now time for a new application to be submitted for 2026-2027. 

Sydney Catholic Schools submits a Group Proposal on behalf of every Catholic School in NSW. For schools to be included in this Group Proposal, NESA requires that each school request to the submitting authority (Sydney Catholic Schools) that they be included.

To facilitate schools joining the Group Proposal for Studies in Catholic Thought, I have attached a Google Form that each school must complete individually. Importantly, the Principal, at the end of the form, formally requests that they be included in the Group Proposal.

Schools must submit their form by close of business Friday 28 March 2025. 

Link: https://forms.gle/B8tk61aUBgXL4kKT6

It is important to note that schools not applying for inclusion will not be able to enrol students in Studies in Catholic Thought via Schools Online after this year. Should a school be uncertain as to whether they will be offering the course to their students, they should join the group anyway and have it as an option in case circumstances change during the new endorsement period. 

Thanks in advance for your support. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me via phone or email. 

Kind regards

Ryan Gato

The ASPIRE Song Competition is open to all students in our primary and secondary schools.

Aspire 2025 is set in a post-apocalyptic future where young people are not allowed to feel any emotions. When mysterious artworks start appearing around the city questioning this course of action a small group of rebels are inspired to challenge the decisions of their leaders.

The Song Competition will be broken into 4 categories- Primary School (individual), Primary (class), Year 7-9 and Years 10-12. Using the story for the production, the themes below will be the song writing focus for these allocated year groups.

Primary (class) category- Primary school teachers are encouraged to create a song with their classes or part of their class. This could be part of programming or a co-curricular project.

Primary School (individual and class categories): Emotions

What are emotions?

Select an emotion to be the focus of your song

Different ways of expressing emotions

Years 7, 8 or 9: Rebellion

Using 'rebellion’ as a theme for lyrics and/or music

Think about making a stand

What do people rebel against and how might they go about it

Years 10, 11 or 12: Artwork

Using 'artwork’ as a theme for lyrics and/or music

You may be inspired by a particular artist or artwork

What effect does art have on people

The attached flyer will give you more about the song competition which closes on Thursday 3 April 2025. Those selected as finalists will workshop their songs and then perform at the Song Writing Showcase on Thursday 22 May 2025.

The following information is from CSNSW e-bulletin Scholaris newsletter 4/3/2025 regarding the Higher School Certificate 2025 Rural and Remote Marking Program.

The HSC Rural and Remote Marking Program (Ref: 38/25)

The HSC Rural and Remote Marking Program (RRMP) is a joint program run by the Department of Education (DoE), Catholic Schools NSW (CSNSW) and the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). Applications for the 2025 RRMP open on 6 March 2025 and close on 20 March 2025. 

The program is designed to give rural and remote teachers the opportunity to participate in marking the Higher School Certificate (HSC). The RRMP is a valuable professional development activity, and allows teachers to gain knowledge, skills and understanding about the marking process. 

The Higher School Certificate 2025 Rural and Remote Marking Program Handbook can be found here. Applications can be made via the link on page 3 of the Handbook.

Staff who wish to apply need to discuss with their principal and refer to the criteria and eligibility for selection as outlined in the program handbook.  

Dear Principals

Our school communities are strengthened when staff, parents and carers work in partnership to support the learning, wellbeing and formation of our students.

To this end, it is essential that all schools in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle operate a family engagement forum (whether that be FACE Forum or a P&F or PEG for the remainder of 2025).

Just as importantly, each School Principal must call for nominations for Federation Representatives (school parent representatives) in Term 1 of each school year. Ideally, each school will have two Federation representatives.

To this end, please see below sample text which you may wish to include in your school newsletter/ a Compass post ahead of your school’s first FACE/PEG/P&F meeting for the year.

In addition, a PowerPoint slide and handout has also been developed, for Principals to use ahead of are as part of promoting the Federation Representative role to parents and carers as part of their family engagement forum. Please use the attachment relevant to your school context e.g. FACE, PEG or P&F document.

Once you have finalised the nominees for your school, please email me their name, email address and phone number as soon as possible.

If you have any questions about the Federation representative role, the process of election, or its promotion please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,

Lizzie

Sample text for school newsletter promoting the role of Federation Representative

As the leader of our school, I deeply support the role of parents and carers as first educators and prioritise partnering with our students’ caregivers to ensure each child is nurtured to their potential.

To this end, I seek to incorporate family voice in our school’s operations and at a diocesan level.

As part of the upcoming FACE Forum/ PEG Meeting/ P&F Meeting, I will be calling for nominations for the role of Federation Representatives for our school (ideally, two representatives will be elected).

If you are interested in taking on this role and would like to know more about what it entails, please refer to the attached document. 

If you would like to nominate but cannot attend the meeting, please email me via school adminemailaddress. You are also welcome to contact me to ask any questions about the role and what it entails.

Dear Principals

We have a shared focus on ensuring that parents and carers in our school communities are engaged in the partnership of their children’s learning and wellbeing. In an effort to assist you in this endeavour whilst also cutting down on administrative work for you and your team, I would like to invite you to promote a newly developed Catholic Schools’ webpage as a regular feature in your school newsletter.

With support from the Communications and Marketing team, the Catholic Schools website now includes page dedicated to listing upcoming webinars that are intended for parents and carers, are free to attend and, provided by reputable providers such as the Catholic Council for School Parents NSW/ACT, eSafety Commissioner, HeadSpace and more.

By including a reoccurring article in your school newsletter that promotes this webpage, your parents will be able to access up-to-date information whenever they access it- replacing the need for you to cut and paste suggestions I include for you in Connect editions, which has been the practice in the past. 

If you would like to promote the Catholic Schools’ new web page to your school community, you may like to consider the following text:

Sample wording to promote the web page in your school newsletter

Upcoming information sessions and webinars for parents and carers

Parents and carers are the most important educators in their child’s life. As well as partnering directly with our school to support your child’s learning and wellbeing, there are a range of webinars and information sessions provided each month by reputable providers specifically for parents and carers- free of charge. To view a list of upcoming webinars and information sessions that may be of interest to you, click the link below at any time. The list will be updated weekly throughout the school term, so be sure to check the page regularly.

www.mn.catholic.edu.au/our-community/supporting-parents-and-carers/upcoming-parent-and-carer-information-sessions/

Another useful resource for parents and carers to access timely information on a range of topics including cyber safety, mental health, positive parenting, school survival, diversity and inclusion and healthy bodies is via School TV. Our school invested in this online platform so that our parents and carers can conveniently access reliable information from credible sources all in one place - when you need it most - not just at a specified webinar time.  It includes videos, fact sheets and podcasts all delivered by leading psychologists and experts. To access our school’s SchoolTV site visit

INSERT YOUR SCHOOL’S SCHOOL TV webpage link here.

Advice for creating this article as a reoccurring article in your SchoolZine e-newsletter

As the majority of our schools use SchoolZine for the distribution of their newsletter, the Communications and Marketing team have kindly provided instructions below to guide schools on how to add the above text (or your school’s customised version of it) as a reoccurring feature in your school newsletter.

1. Create a new article in your next SchoolZine newsletter and add your school’s customised information regarding parent information sessions (sample text above). This will save in your article list. 
2. Each time you build your regular newsletter, please include this article as reoccurring content by selecting the saved article from your list. You can do this by selecting '+' then 'Link Article' in your newsletter builder. 

Alternatively, if you copy your newsletter from the previous issue, please keep this information available for parents. 

If you need assistance with this process, please contact Schools’ Marketing partner, Gemma Hunter gemma.hunter@mn.catholic.org.au.

Final notes

• If you would prefer to manually list information about upcoming webinars in your school newsletter rather than the link, you can continue to do this. Please note that moving forward, rather than you accessing this information from an article included in Connect as has been done in the past, you would simply need to visit the Catholic Schools’ webpage and cut and paste information about any of the sessions you think are most relevant to your school community.
• If you are aware of any reputable providers of free webinars that are designed for parents and carers, please send them through to me at lizzie.watkin@mn.catholic.edu.au so that I can incorporate these suggestions into the list.

If you have any questions, concerns or ideas regarding this article or other family engagement matters, please give me a call or email me. I welcome hearing from you and your suggestions on how I can better support you and your school communities. 

Kind regards,

Lizzie Watkin
Professional Officer- Family Engagement

This week we acknowledge the children from St Joseph’s Merriwa, St Joseph’s Denman, St Francis Xavier Belmont, St James’ Muswellbrook, St Mary’s Scone, St Brigid’s Raymond Terrace, Our Lady of Lourdes Tarro, St Michael’s Nelson Bay, St Mary’s Warners Bay and Holy Cross Glendale where the following images were taken as part of our school visits this week.

Successful Foundations has now officially ended for 2025, however, play to access curriculum and self-determined play remain as important as ever for learning and wellbeing in Kindergarten.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all schools for the support of Successful Foundations for another year. Our visits to schools across the diocese over the last six weeks have been overwhelmingly positive. The commitment and dedication from our Kindergarten teachers is highly evident in the care for our youngest learners in the diocese as they transition to school. 

If you would like any support in Early Learning within your school, please reach out to the team.

Bridie Stanger