Siena Catholic Primary School

Classroom visits by our parish priests

We are so blest at Siena with the partnership we have with our priests in enhancing our Religious Education and Religious Life of the School. Fr Peter, Fr Will and Deacon Isaac bring the church and its teaching alive and visible to the students. Jesus’ message that we should love one another and treat everyone with dignity has been received with understanding by the students through the interesting child focused homilies given at the various school gatherings this year. Our priests have also started to visit classrooms answering children’s questions and giving their perspective on the Religion unit the children are learning. This week, Fr Will and Deacon Isaac visited the Year 1 classes discussing life at the time of Jesus. Next week they will talk with the Year 3 classes on images of God and how these images enhance our understanding of God in the everyday. We appreciate our partnership with the church as this enhances the children’s faith development and makes religion and the church more real in their lives.

Stella Maris Primary School 

Collaborative project with Artist-in-Residence

This week, there has been much excitement in the air as Artist-in-Residence, Jandamarra Cadd, began work on a special mural at the school. A Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Warung descendent, Jandamarra is a man of many talents. The school community has been captivated, not only by his work as a visual artist, but by his readiness to listen deeply, ask questions and share stories. It’s a wonder he is getting any work done at all with all the observers stopping by! The idea for the mural stemmed from a discussion by the Staff Religion Team about the need to have high quality religious art visible around the school. This developed into a focus on the scripture texts studied by classes in Religious Education units of work. With all year levels having some focus on Creation stories, Care for Creation and Stewardship, it was decided to head in this direction, with an indigenous perspective. How lucky we are to have the talented Jandamarra to work with us on this journey. This work is a collaborative art piece! By the end of the project, every student and every staff member will have contributed to the creation of this mural. Students who are part of our Deadly Maroochy Mob and their families will have the opportunity to work in a special way with Jandamarra on the project as well. We can’t wait to show you our finished masterpiece!

Siena Catholic College  

Open Day success

More than 175 families gathered at Siena Catholic College Open Day last Sunday. Following a tour, led by Year 11 and 12 students, parents had the opportunity to learn more about the College during a presentation from the Leadership Team. On Monday, we gathered for the annual ‘Clean Up Siena’ afternoon. Donning their blue gloves and with Clean-Up bags at the ready, students scoured the College grounds for stray lunch wrappings, empty poppers and the inevitable plastic straws, apple cores and chip packets. Tuesday saw us again mobilise to raise funds for the important work of Caritas. MacKillop House inspired by Mary’s words to ‘never see a need without doing something about it’ fired up the BBQ for a delicious (and sold out!) sausage sizzle. Our Year 11 students joined parishioners at St Catherine’s on Wednesday morning for the 9.00am Mass. During his homily, Fr Will challenged the students to think how they might answer Jesus’ call to live a life of service to others.