The school and community extensively reflect the name ‘Holy Family’ with the staff and parents working together to ensure the children receive the best possible education in a strong family atmosphere.
The P&F recognises and values the role that parents and carers play in the education of their children and aims to strengthen the partnership between family, school, parish and the wider community for the benefit of their children’s overall development and learning.
Our Broad Objectives
Community
As a part of our objective to encourage the development of Holy Family Catholic Primary School as a vibrant community, many fun social events are planned with more to come throughout 2022.
These events include:
- Welcome Cocktail Party
- The Art Show & Fair and Cocktail Party;
- Health and well-being events
- The Mother’s Day Breakfast and Mass;
- The Grandparent’s Mass;
- School disco
- Mid-year dinner
- The Dad’s Big Breakfast
- The Colour Run
- The Christmas Markets
We hope you can all be part of these events – as attendees or volunteers – as they contribute enormously to building a strong sense of school community. Event dates are in the attached calendar. Reminders also appear in the school newsletter before each event and can be found online at https://www.hfldbb.catholic.edu.au/news-events/calendar/
Communication
The P&F hold 2 meetings per term to provide an opportunity for the school and parent community to meet to discuss matters of general interest. We invite you to join us. P&F meeting times are also in the online calendar, and published each term in the school newsletter.
If you would like to raise issues at other times, we encourage you to speak to any member of the P&F executive, or you can email your request to info@holyfamily.nsw.edu.au.
Broken Bay Catholic School Parents (CSP) – formerly the Diocesan Parent Council (DPC)
Alongside our school community events, the P&F regularly attends the Catholic Schools Parents (CSP) meetings, part of the Catholic Schools Office, Diocese of Broken Bay. This enables us to keep up to date with developments in education and Catholic education in particular, exchange ideas on fundraising and other matters with other P&F teams, and have a voice at diocesan level. For more information about the CSP, visit www.brokenbayparentcouncil.com.
Healthy and Sustainable Fundraising
The P&F introduced the “Healthy and Sustainable Guidelines for Fundraising and Social Events” in 2011. All school committees are encouraged to follow these guidelines when planning fundraising and social events in 2021. The intention is not to remove all “treats” from social and fundraising activities, but to provide a choice of healthy alternatives and minimise waste to reduce our environmental impact.
Social Justice
The Social Justice committee is a vital part of the Holy Family school fabric and an avenue for us to contribute meaningfully in the fight against poverty and injustice in our community, region and world. We actively work with the school to support a range of initiatives throughout the year to help our children become aware of how they might make a difference to the lives of those less fortunate than themselves. The social justice team also works with the P&F to allocate funds to a diverse range of organisations such as the School of St Jude’s in Tanzania, Redfern’s Jarjum College, KYDS Youth Counselling Service, Cana Communities, and Mary’s House among others. Parents and friends are encouraged to come along to committee meetings.
Funding
Events and activities
The P&F’s key fundraising initiatives this year include the Art Show and Fair, the Colour run, the Walkathon and the Christmas Markets. The sale of school uniforms through the Cowan and Lewis, also provides some funds to the P&F.
Another main funding source is sponsorship. In 2022 we will be seeking support from businesses in the local community, and receiving support from Third-I, the marketing company supporting the Coles development . If your business is interested in learning about opportunities to sponsor our school, please speak with any member of the P&F executive, or send us an email.
Continuing the vision of 2021, our major initiative remains to plan for the longer term expansion of our co-curricular facilities and playground space, as well as assisting in the ongoing improvement of the school’s infrastructure. Addressing this issue is an enormous cost, and can only be undertaken as a collaborative effort between the diocese, the Catholic Schools Office, the parish, the school and the P&F.
Planning and running of any fundraising event requires an enormous effort from parents, friends and relatives who volunteer their time, and we encourage as many of you as possible to get involved. We also thank in advance all of you who will devote so much time to our fundraising efforts this year.
Application of funds
The P&F welcomes your views on how we will use the money we raise this year. Please provide your suggestions and any feedback to an executive member or at the next P&F meeting.
Subject to suggestions raised at the P&F meeting, our key funding goals for 2022 are
- To meet recurrent expenditure requirements of the school, ‘flexible furniture’ for the school, resources supporting Science and Technology, supporting the School Improvement Plan, and funding specific teaching and learning programs such as MiniLit and MacqLit.
- To support the collaboration of the school and parish (Lindfield and Killara) in their social justice programs.
Funds raised above these commitments will go towards the school building fund. Extracurricular activities may also receive support from funds raised each term from P & F.
As you will appreciate, no specific amount of money is applied to meet these objectives as we recognise fundraising activities vary in success from year to year.
Support
While often not visible to the general parent community, under the current Strategic Plan the school board adopted, the P&F is responsible for implementing certain specific initiatives, including:
- Welcoming new families;
- Supporting the school and wider community in times of need;
- Further developing the role of the P&F within the principles of “shared wisdom”; and
- Planning for succession.
All of these activities grow and strengthen our sense of school community, a trademark of Holy Family. To continue to build positive relationships and the spirit of community, the P&F is committed to working closely with the Principal Mr Dogao, the school board and the wider school community.
We look forward to working together for a great 2022
Please access the online Calendar of events at https://www.hfldbb.catholic.edu.au/news-events/calendar/
Please note that some event dates may change.
Parents and Friends Office Bearers 2023
President: Olwyn Connolly
Treasurer: Lawrence Wong
Secretary: Norelle Jones
DBB CSP representative: Vincent Giang
Social Coordinator: Carolina Ramos (& team)
Class Parent Coordinator: Michael Le
School Band Coordinator: Virginia Smirniotis
School Yearbook Coordinators: Nicole Budge, Jen Frauendienst, Olivia Herlambang-Tham
If you would like to contact the Parents and Friends Association you can do so by emailing us at info@holyfamily.nsw.edu.au.