Our Early Commencement Programme has started very smoothly and students are settling into new classes and subjects. It’s been an absolute joy to see calm, focussed classrooms and students stepping up to their next year level. We have been doing an early commencement programme for four years now, and the benefits of putting this in place have been very clear in supporting the transition process to the next year level and giving all our students more preparation time for their subjects. It’s important that all students make the very best of the opportunities so they can be fully prepared for what their 2026 programme brings. As you can imagine, the task of having a timetable, programmes and staffing done for this is not simple, and there is a team of people who have worked tirelessly to make this happen – thankyou.

Our participants in the Catholic Youth Festival held in Melbourne returned yesterday afternoon, and we look forward to hearing about their experiences. A big thankyou to Brendan Lindsay and the Faith and Ministry team for their work in this space.

As we come to the end of the year, it’s time to reflect on what our students and the College have achieved this year. We are preparing for our academic, citizenship and special awards at present by collecting data and discerning through nominations. We will be having our academic and achievement awards presented to our 2025 Year 7 to 11 students on Friday 12 December and our Special Awards and Year 12 Academic Awards on Monday 15 December. We will be sending out parent invitations to these once we have finished identifying our award winners.

On Monday night we welcome our 2026 Year 7 students and families to meet their Heads of House and Pastoral Group Leaders. We look forward to welcoming them to Notre Dame College.

Enjoy the week ahead,

Emma Reynoldson, Acting Principal.