On behalf of the Holy Family Merewether Beach oosh service we the parents and guardians of students who attend this service are here sign this in their support to stay. They provide our children and families with before-school, and after-school care at Holy Family Merewether Beach School.

We have learned the contract will not be renewed by the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle for 2020.

Many of us are upset and frustrated by this decision for a variety of reasons:

- our children enjoy attending Holy Family Oosh and the team does a great job. The diocese's decision is not supported by parents who use the service and even parents who don't as they recognise it's a great asset for the school.

- a local, small business operator will be put out of business just weeks before Christmas and we feel this decision goes against the values of our school community.

- there hasn't been any consultation provided or even a genuine transition period offered between providers. The first that we heard of this was via a 27 October 2019 Newcastle Herald article. We feel this is an example of poor communication and disregard for parents.

- the aforementioned article quotes Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle CEO Sean Scanlon as saying, "Several factors influence the rollout of a St Nicholas OOSH across the diocese, including problems or complaints in relation to an OOSH provider; an existing OOSH provider indicating they are planning to discontinue the service," Mr Scanlon said, as well as a school's wish to establish a service and other "practical" considerations. We would like to know, which of these instances applies to the service at Holy Family Merewether Beach oosh ?
We are unaware of any complaints of Holy Family oosh or being UN willing to discontinue its service or of the school looking to establish its own service.

- the establishment of Holy Family oosh at Holy Family school Merewether was driven by the school's P&F, therefore for any change to occur, consultation with the P&F needs to happen.
12 years ago the P&F and Principal approached Larissa to provide offsite care at no cost to any families in establishing this service.
Over the past 12 years the numbers have grown and so several years ago in consultation with the school and its community we set up a onsite service.

- there hasn't been any details offered around St Nicholas's fees and after some of us looked into the price of St Nicholas's daycare services, we discovered they are much higher than other local providers so we're concerned



For the reasons stated above, we are seeking a reversal of the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle's decision and for Holy Family Oosh to be re-instated as the provider of before-school, and after-school services Holy Family Merewether School.
Signed the parents and community of Holy Family School.