Dear Parents and Carers

It is hard to believe we are already halfway through this term. When I think about our very busy campus lives, it is clear that we are a Vibrant Community who works in partnership to provide good experiences for our students. Having so many families join in the Mother’s Day celebrations on each campus last Friday and seeing all the items made by students with love for mums (and the adults who play that part in the lives of our kids,) warms my heart. Being ‘Mum’ to my now adult children is a very significant part of my life.

At Calvary we know how important relationship is and a lot of time is given to helping our young people make and sustain good relationships. Many of you may be as frustrated as I am by the often seemingly slow progress made in this area as children grow and learn. The important thing for us is never to give up and remain patiently consistent as we work with our young people through the thoughtless things they say to each other, the impulsive behaviours that hurt each other, and the frustrations they express. Yet, when students’ friendships are humming, it is rewarding for you and for us as we see the fruit of our patient and intentional training.

On Sunday a beautiful ewe lamb was born on our farm. The lambing team are camping onsite during lambing season ensuring the safety of our ewes and new lambs. I look forward to joining them overnight next weekend. I am deeply grateful to this team who give so much of their time, checking lambing ewes during the cold  (and often wet) nights and still managing their day jobs over the next few weeks. Thank you again to Angela Haupt, Farm Manager for her leadership of this team.

I enjoyed helping out last Friday at Happy Hens tuckshop in the morning. We are looking forward to expanding the service to an extra day next term and would love to have more parent volunteers. We plan, as the service grows, to expand our paid team. This is the model we used (and are still using) to build our Mango Café service at Carbrook. You might be interested to know that at Carbrook most of our Administration staff volunteer an hour before work in the mornings. It is good when staff and parents work together to provide services for our students and community.

You will probably be aware that we have a strong and multi pronged marketing campaign underway over the coming weeks. The Calvary Hype Reel was recently launched at the Hyperdome Cinemas and will be screening from May-July 2023. I hope that you will enjoy seeing Calvary represented proudly and that you will continue to lend your support through your positive word-of-mouth promotion of the College. We are very proud of the place Calvary holds in our community and our distinctive model for growing the whole child. We continue to extend our understanding of how children learn best and the importance of equipping them for their future. Research and our careful monitoring of the outcomes of our work continue to be the mainstay of learning design at Calvary.

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As we head towards athletics carnivals, work progresses on our beach volleyball courts at Carbrook, rehearsals for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang are in full swing, staff are beginning to prepare midyear reports. Tonight we have our Senior subject selection evening and later this week Stepping Up to Year 7 (both on the Carbrook campus). Students continue to demonstrate their learning in assessments and in their everyday learning experiences, and we all work every day at supporting the growing maturity of our students’ character development and their spiritual awareness. What matters most to us is who our children are and who they are becoming. My prayer is that in the midst of this very busy period, everyone will also take a moment to enjoy the wonder and beauty of our natural environment – we are blessed with the most extraordinarily lovely campuses.

Kingdom Kids at Carbrook has an Open Day on Saturday 27 May. Please see details in the link.

Enjoy the very busy second half of term two!

Yours sincerely

Cherylynne

Principal & CEO