Newsletter

Dear Parents and Caregivers

As we welcome a new school year, it is with great joy that we extend a warm welcome to all members of our vibrant school community, whether new or returning. 

We trust that each one of you has enjoyed a restful and joyous Christmas break filled with moments of love, laughter and rejuvenation, and feel ready to receive all the blessings of 2024. 

With the echoes of holiday cheer still lingering, we are eager to embark on a new chapter together as we look ahead to a year filled with growth, camaraderie and shared accomplishments.

A heartfelt welcome to our incoming students and families in 2024. Regardless of the year level, the warmth of a welcome in the spirit of Mercy hospitality is alive and well across our campus. 

As part of our commitment to helping new students and their families navigate the tapestry of our All Hallows' community, we have a range of induction and welcome activities over the coming weeks. 

We were delighted to welcome new parents and caregivers at yesterday's Welcome Assembly, followed by our traditional Welcome Morning Tea, hosted by our dedicated Mothers' Network volunteers in the Piazza. We extend our sincere thanks to our always welcoming Mothers’ Network for their organisation of this cherished tradition and the warmth with which new members of our community are embraced.

As our Class of 2023 begins the next chapter of their lives, we can’t help but be impressed with their outstanding achievements, as detailed in the Queensland Certificate of Education Results document posted to the School App on 16 December 2023. 

It was American author and disability rights advocate Helen Keller who said: “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much”, and these results would not be possible without the support, guidance and encouragement of our dedicated staff and you as parents and caregivers.

We offer our heartfelt congratulations to our Class of 2023, and we look forward to celebrating their achievements at the Academic Assembly in Term 1.

After a year of meticulous refurbishment work, I am excited to announce the completion of our McAuley Hall renovations. 

I would like to thank all those involved in the renovation of this historic building, which has evolved into a dynamic learning hub with colour and light filled teaching spaces catering to the educational needs of our expanded number of Year 5 and 6 students and teachers. 

This exciting renovation would not have been possible without the support of our generous donors through the All Hallows’ Foundation. Your generous investment has enabled the Foundation to make a $500,000 contribution to this project.  Over the years, the All Hallows’ Foundation has contributed $5,000,000 to provide outstanding teaching and learning facilities across our campus. This could not have occurred without the generous donations from our families and the wider All Hallows’ community.  In these first days of the year, when I have the opportunity to speak with so many parents and caregivers, they are always amazed at the beauty of our campus and the inspiring classrooms and facilities, and this is all made possible thanks to our generous Foundation donors.

I also give my thanks to our dedicated P&F Association for their incredibly generous donation of $100,000 towards the cost of the new classroom furniture for McAuley Hall. This donation will be appreciated by our Year 5 and 6 students for years to come as they learn and work in this inspiring space. 

The refurbishment includes 12 general learning areas designed to support pedagogy with new furniture throughout, multiple breakout areas, meeting areas, and inspiring art installations telling the stories of Catherine McAuley’s life, faith and work. 

I would like to invite all members of our school community to attend our Inaugural Mass this Thursday, 25 January, at 1.00 pm at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. 

This is the only opportunity in the year when we have the capacity for our entire school community to come together to give thanks and celebrate our many blessings as a Mercy community. It is a truly joyous and uplifting afternoon that sets a wonderful tone for the year ahead. 

I hope you can join us. For booking information, please see the School App.

This year our 2024 School Theme calls us to Listen with Curiosity, Speak with Courage, Act with Integrity. 

Just as Catherine McAuley and the Sisters of Mercy listened attentively to the needs of others, spoke boldly to voice truth and justice, and served with authenticity and faith, our 2024 theme reminds us that we are called to follow in the path of these inspiring faith-filled leaders, fostering a community where every student and staff member is encouraged to grow in knowledge, faith and compassion. 

In Term 4 of 2023, I was privileged to take some time for spiritual and personal renewal. I attended a Mercy Partners pilgrimage to Assisi, Cork and Dublin during my break. With 16 other pilgrims, I visited the foundation sites of the Franciscan, Presentation and Mercy Charisms. 

We walked the roads and paths of amazing spiritual mystics who saw pain in the world and strived to address it. We heard stories of adversity and community, but most of all, courage - courage to challenge the structures that limited people's ability to enjoy a healthy and fulfilling life. Despite their differences, St Francis, Nano Nagle and Catherine McAuley all shared a desire to make a difference and serve their communities.

By their very nature, pilgrimages are designed to be transformative: the person who sets out on a pilgrimage is not the same one who returns. I am very grateful to have had the time to contemplate what God is calling me to be and I have returned deeper in the knowledge that the Christian journey is one of grace and service to others. 

As we explore our 2024 school theme, Listen with Curiosity, Speak with Courage, Act with Integrity, we have 3 excellent models of people who did just that - Francis, Nano and Catherine McAuley. Let us pray that we can follow in their footsteps.

I look forward to seeing many parents and community members at the Inaugural Mass this Thursday. Mass begins at 1pm at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. At this year's Mass, we will take the time to explore our new school theme: Listen with Curiosity, Speak with Courage, Act with Integrity. We will also bless our community and the work that will be done this year and. we will bless and launch our second Reconciliation Action Plan.

The parent portal for the Mercy Action Sign On will be open for Semester 1 from tomorrow afternoon.

Below is a summary of the Semester 1 Mercy Action program offerings. For more detailed information, please consult the Mercy Action Program booklet here.

Please note that only parents can give permission for their daughters' to participate in Mercy Action activities. 

Please use the parent login to access Moodle, which permits your daughter(s) to participate in off-site activities. The sign-on page is available here.

Special note regarding Year 7 Mercy Action sign-on: registration for Year 7 students will take place later in Term 1 once they are settled and are familiar with the Mercy Action offerings

Moodle sign-on for students in Years 8-12 opens at 4.00pm on Wednesday, 24 January, and closes at 11.59pm on Monday, 29 January. 

Please check potential clashes with other co-curricular activities to avoid double-ups, and please only sign on for activities students can attend. This is particularly important for the off-site, smaller activities.

If you have any questions regarding the Mercy Action program, please contact Ms Hayes at MercyAction@ahs.qld.edu.au  

Our work for sustainability, as well as service to the wider community, came together at the end of 2023 through our donation of laptops and tablets to a number of local and international groups. Rather than destroying our used devices, many were donated to groups such as Mirror of Hope in Kenya, LiteHaus International, TAFE Queensland, Legacy, the Steiner School and the Murri School at Acacia Ridge. In addition to desktops, laptops and other hardware donations, anything that could not be salvaged was sent to be recycled.

Thank you to our wonderful IT staff, who prepared and packaged the donated items to support the education of others.

I'd like to take the opportunity to welcome everyone to 2024! For those families who were with us last year, you would have been as excited as we were by the announcement we have partnered with the Dogs Connect Program and will be introducing Teddy, our wellbeing dog, to AHS. In partnering with Dogs Connect, we are working with an evidence-based program that is underpinned by best practices, and we welcome you to look over the website to gain more of an idea of what the program is about. https://dogsconnect.net.au. 

Many of you will have seen photos of Teddy on our social media, and I can see from the comments being made that many of you share in the joy of Teddy joining our community.  While we are all very excited to welcome Teddy, there’s much to do before you will see him regularly at school.  

His focus now is learning to be relaxed at school.  This involves him working with a small core group of staff and becoming familiar with places around the school.

Teddy is only young, and he has quite a bit to learn, but we as a community also have much to learn about helping Teddy feel relaxed and safe at school. One of the most important messages we want to start our whole community with are the three expectations: 

Say hello to the person (not the dog) 

Give lots of space when we pass the dog 

We keep moving (we don’t stand around and stare)

Teddy is lovely, and we would all like to have pets with him, but he has a very special role as a wellbeing dog at our school. We need to follow the three expectations to keep him safe and relaxed.

Dogs Connect 3 Expectations

Once Teddy has learned to relax, his next job will be to learn to meet more people. He will be taking things slowly and being very careful about how he walks, sits, plays, and greets people. This can take a long time, but we would love for him to be here for years, so it is important that he takes his time.

We will keep you all updated with news about Teddy throughout the term. 

Tickets and transport arrangements

On Thursday, 25 January, our School community will celebrate our Inaugural Mass at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre (BCEC), South Bank.

We warmly welcome our whole School community to join us for this Mass as we pray for blessings for the new school year. Mass will commence at 1pm but we ask our guests to be seated by 12.45pm.

Ticketing is now available to all families via this link: 

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/all-hallows-school-2024-inaugural-mass-tickets-751365072157

Please ensure you bring your printed ticket with you so we can direct you to your seat. All Hallows’ School students will not require a ticket.

Students will be dismissed from BCEC after Mass concludes, by 3:00pm. 

At the conclusion of the Inaugural Mass, families attending the Mass should arrange to meet students in the foyer or outside the building. Students may also be collected from designated pick-up zones (Merivale and Glenelg Streets) or use public transport home via the bus, train and ferry stations nearby.

Our Years 5 and 7 parents are asked to email your daughter’s Class Teacher (Year 5) or Head of House (Year 7) and confirm your daughter’s afternoon transport arrangements.

Limited return bus transport is available back to All Hallows’ School after the Mass. Registration for return transport is required via this signup link:

https://portal.ahs.qld.edu.au/blue/mod/feedback/view.php?id=17890

The return bus transport link will close on Wednesday, 24 January. If you would like your daughter to return to School by return bus transport, please ensure registration is completed by this time.

Monday 29 January 2024

We will follow recent years’ processes for school photographs, using a technology-assisted method offered by AdvancedLife to capture our Home Group, ID, and Magazine photographs. 

• All students must wear full formal School uniform and arrive neat, tidy and well-groomed, in accordance with the school uniform policy outlined from page 52 of the Student Diary.
• Student photographs will be scheduled in timetabled year-level forms. 

Please note: 

• Family/ Sibling photographs will be captured physically at our Follow-Up School Photograph Day on Thursday, 15 August 2024. 
• The Year 12 cohort photograph will be captured physically on Thursday, 15 August 2024, on the Terrace Amphitheatre steps. 

We are actively seeking parents/caregivers who have a few days each term to volunteer at Café 547/Food Service Area. 

Please complete the volunteer form on Moodle Section: Cafe 547 | Parent Information | AHS or email FoodService@ahs.qld.edu.au

Ms Katie Castle (Food Service Manager).

Welcome back!

On behalf of the Mothers’ Network, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all families joining the AHS community in 2024 and those families returning once again this year. 

We hope that you will have the opportunity to enjoy some of the events that the Mothers’ Network organises throughout the year – keeping you connected to your school community! Watch for notices via the School App, newsletter, and social media.

The first cab off the rank will be our Welcome Meeting and Morning Tea, which will be held on Friday morning, 2nd February, at 9.00am. At this meeting, you will hear about the workings of the Mothers’ Network and the opportunities available for parents and caregivers to become involved in our group's social and pastoral aspects.

Along with Mrs O’Kane, you will hear from a few committee members, talking about their roles and some of their experiences. This will be followed by an opportunity to talk with our members while taking advantage of the lovely food and refreshments for Morning Tea.

If you wish to attend, please see further event details and RSVP by clicking here.

Mrs Deb Hall  (Mothers’ Network President).

Care and Concern is a group of parents who respond when required to provide a meal for school community members who are doing it tough.

The meal is both a tangible help and a lovely gesture of care and support. Often, the requests come at relatively short notice. The usual request is for a meal to be prepared, placed in disposable containers, labelled, and sent to student services before 3pm on the required day. 

In addition to the evening meal, we have traditionally also asked for an item of home bake. If we can get sufficient volunteers, we would like to separate these 2 requests and have a volunteer for each.

Usually, the meal support is for a short period of a few weeks, but occasionally, longer-term support is needed. There is no pressure or expectation on our helpers. We like to have a relatively large contact list so that at any time, we can meet the needs of our families whilst not placing stress on our beautiful volunteers.

After the departure of many long-term helpers at the end of last school year we are in need of some new members to join us. We'd love to hear from you if you occasionally have the time to do a little extra cooking.

Further questions and requests to be added to the contact list can be sent to our current Care and Concern Coordinator, Linda Beckmann, at linda_beckmann@hotmail.com. 

Ms Linda Beckmann (Care and Concern Coordinator).

We call out for parents, caregivers, and school leavers to help support our girls in their Mercy Action endeavours in 2024.

Most of these duties are a commitment of only 1 to 1.5 hours at a time and can be once a term, once a semester or you can fill as many spots as we have available!

Many rosters work around busy parents and are either before or after school. 

Eddie’s and Jimmie’s Vans require support before school (6.30am until 8.00am on Tuesday or Wednesday mornings), and Brisbane Central State School supervision is after school (Thursdays 3.15pm until 4.30pm).

Please note that a Blue Card is required for you to supervise our girls, but it is an easy application and at no cost. Details regarding all Mercy Action activities can be found on the AHS School App.

If you are interested in helping or have any enquiries, please email our Mercy Action Parent Coordinator, Cassandra Griffin cg.gd@outlook.com

Ms Cassandra Griffin (Mercy Action Coordinator).

Mothers’ Network Welcome Morning Tea

Friday 2nd February 2024

9.00am – 11.00am

AHS Potter Room, Level 4 Potter Building

Register here

RSVP:  31 January 2024

Year 12 2024 Formal Night Parents/Caregivers 2024 Drinks

Saturday 3rd February 2024

7.15pm - 10.30pm

The Charming Squire 3/100 Grey St, South Brisbane

$40 per person (cost includes a welcome drink and canapes) 

Year 12 - 2024 Formal Night Parent & Caregiver Drinks (e-newsletter.com.au)

RSVP: 25 January 2024 

Michelle Moss  mmoss76@outlook.com.au 0432 494 530

Year 5 Family Welcome

Sunday 4th February 2024

4.00pm – 6.00pm

All Hallows School Terrace (Piazza if raining)

This is a wonderful opportunity to meet the other Year 5 families in a relaxed environment.  We also welcome siblings to this event.

The event is free; however, please register your interest for catering purposes.

Year 5 - 2024 Welcome BBQ (e-newsletter.com.au)

Cassandra Dahlheimer cassdahl@hotmail.com 0409 807 758

Year 7 Parent and Caregiver Welcome Evening

Friday 9th February 2024

7.00pm – 10.30pm

The Warehouse, 8 McLachlan Street, Fortitude Valley

$45 per person

Year 7 parents and caregivers are invited to come along and enjoy this opportunity to engage with new Year 7 families, catch up with familiar faces and develop the network that will see you through your All Hallows’ journey.

Year 7 Parent & Caregivers Welcome Evening (e-newsletter.com.au)

RSVP: 2 February 2024

Deb Hall Laso1015@hotmail.com 0417 480 830

Save the Date 

Mothers Network May Morning Tea

Friday 17th May 2024

9:30am – 12:30pm

Further details will be provided in the coming weeks.

Ms Regina Hefferan (Communications Secretary).