

Ms Renae Dunleavy
Principal
It has once again been an absolute privilege to lead the school community of St Patrick's School Lithgow through another challenging year.
We started the year once again with our focus fully on quality student engagement and our sights set on consolidating the work that we had done during the last half on 2019 and 2020 on student engagement, formative assessment and differentiation. These focus areas, woven into staff goal setting, remained at the fore despite the looming interruption that was COVID-19.
As a Leadership Team and staff, we continued with our proactive approach in response to COVID, implementing clear communication procedures and a plan to deliver quality Home Learning for all of our students utilising Google Classroom and the SeeSaw app. Although parent engagement was once again heavily impacted by COVID-19, we were consciously aware of keeping parents well informed and engaged in all that was happening within the school community. Parents continued to use our Home Learning Guide as a useful tool in navigating the remote learning period.
Despite being unable to share in school Masses due to COVID-19, prayer remained an integral part of school life, with weekly whole school and staff prayer being of utmost importance. We once again looked to our founder and inspiration, St Mary of the Cross MacKillop to guide us in our all of our decisions.