OUT OF UNIFORM DAYS 

On Friday March 17 we are celebrating St Patrick’s Day and the children are invited to wear something GREEN. Please bring a gold coin donation to go towards the Project Compassion Appeal.

One of our big fund-raisers for the year is our Easter Raffle. On Friday 31 March, the children are invited to wear their civvies for the day. For this privilege we ask that each child brings an Easter Chocolate to be added to the hampers for the raffle.

OUR NEW VISION AND MISSION STATEMENTS

During the later part of 2021 and all of 2022, the staff worked on an update to our Vision and Mission statements to more closely align our goal (vision) with how we will achieve this (mission). We looked closely at the two intersecting charisms (ways of living the Gospel) of the Josephites and the Dominicans, as they both had and have prominence in the development of Our Lady of Victories.

At the heart of the Dominican charism is the purposeful and dynamic search for TRUTH (Veritas). The search for truth leads us to a personal encounter with God who is our centre. It drives us to inspire our students to be aware of wonder and awe, of beauty and joy, recognising the innate dignity and creativity of each person. The Josephite charism is based upon Mary MacKillop’s core belief of “Never see a need without doing something about it”. Mary MacKillop was selfless, and spread a spirituality based on her ‘gritty determination’, her love and concern for others, and her dedication to making a difference. Together, our search for truth and wanting to help each other forms the core of what strive for at OLV.

 After much discussion, PD, and deep thinking, we have developed a simple, but strong vision, and ways we can live this. It has since been developed into signage that will soon be displayed in multiple locations around the school. Further discussion on the development and how to embed of our Vision and Mission statement will be presented at the next P&F meeting. 

Each fortnight, at our assembly, the teachers will find a student, or group of students, who are actively living our Vision and Mission through their actions. Awards will have the reason on them and these can be seen in the awards section of the newsletter. Our V&M statements also link with our PBL (Positive Behaviours for Learning) focus of I AM SAFE, I AM A LEARNER and I AM RESPONSIBLE in that the same sort of caring, community minded actions are encouraged through this initiative as well. It will be unpacked over time with the students so they know HOW to live our V&M.

We have a beautiful community at OLV and this will serve to ensure that we instil lifelong values that will benefit our community for years to come, and other communities into which our students enter, after they leave us.