Last term I informed you of our Board’s plans to establish a small school in the northwest of NSW in the town of Brewarrina. We are continuing to move forward with this project with plans to purchase a property proceeding. The property will not only potentially host a small school for the local area in the future, but also provide a range of exciting opportunities for our GPCC students. It will be at least 2 years before we can open a school on the site but we'll begin using it for our purposes much sooner.

This year we launched an Aboriginal Studies course for Years 11/12 students and continue to plan on sending increased numbers of Year 9 students for an experience in Brewarrina and surrounds. There is significant scope on the site we are looking at to host students for outdoor education activities, spiritual retreats, other subject fieldtrips (Geography, Business Studies, History etc) and for student exchanges etc.

Getting our students to experience something of life and the issues of remote western NSW is a great way to help them broaden their horizons and develop a greater understanding of the diversity and complexity of this great country. For teenagers who are working out their life’s vocation, having experiences outside of their current comfort zone is important in giving them a bigger vista of opportunities for their future. Brewarrina and surrounding areas are great for a family holiday too as we all think about holidaying closer to home in the current pandemic.

You can pray for our school Board as we move forward in this direction.

I also want to announce our plans to open a School of a Kind here at GPCC. We have increasing numbers of students who are on the Autism spectrum and who need a specialised environment in order to be able to thrive. This specialist school will be funded independently of GPCC, but be a close sister school to us with some shared facilities and activities for socialisation purposes. We have identified a need on the Central Coast for a school like this for families and are in the process of putting together an application to the NSW Education Standards Authority for permission to operate such a school.

Watch this space for more information as our plans develop and again, we value your prayers for this process. 

The new Master Plan for our site is almost complete and we will now enter a consultation phase with Church, school staff and the wider parent community. With our 40^th anniversary to be celebrated next year, we are looking forward to giving thanks for all that has been accomplished so far but also looking ahead to future developments.

I was hoping not to have to mention traffic this week but I feel I need to do so.  Generally, traffic patterns are settling down into something more manageable but with our new K-2 Kiss and Drop zone, I cannot reinforce enough the need for parents to time their arrival for well after 3:15pm to assist in not spilling out onto Avoca Drive and blocking up one lane.

We are looking at some internal modifications to allow for easier u-turns at the top of the Kiss and Drop zone, but these will take a while to finalise and get approval for. Thanks again for your patience as we all adjust to the changes this has brought.

Phillip Nash