Woodstock Christian School has come alive with the students and staff back in this place! Each morning, buses pull into the parking area and I get to greet and welcome students back to school for the day. As they walk and run through the gate into the school playground, Mrs Bulthuis is there to greet them, ready to listen to any exciting news and to pass students along to classroom teachers who are waiting in the halls and at classroom doors to greet them. This is actually one of the highlights of my day, seeing the students’ smiles (behind their masks, but still, their eyes are smiling) eager and ready for school and being with their classmates. Parents, we miss seeing you, and want you to know that when you entrust your children to us, they are in good hands. There is joy in this place! Classrooms buzz with student conversations, morning circles and devotions are taking place, with students sharing news, concerns, reasons for praise, and praying together. There is so much learning happening! Outdoors, students are making extremely good use of the playground - now divided into six zones to provide everyone access to age-appropriate activity areas. Did you catch last week’s Facebook post? Students are happy to be back at school, so they can learn, be with friends, get better at math, art, science, be with teachers and be busy together. The words of I Chronicles 16: 25, 27 are reassuring: For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise... the Lord made the heavens. Splendour and majesty are before him; strength and joy are in his dwelling place. In the face of uncertainty, the strangeness of new normals, anxieties about health and wellbeing, God is constant - he provides strength and joy.

                                                                                                                                         Carol Verbeek, Principal