Our Lady Queen of Peace Feast Day Mass-6th May 2017
Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish celebrated its inaugural feast day to celebrate Our Lady Queen of Peace. Many students from Our Lady Queen of Peace school attended the 10.00am mass to celebrate the namesake of our school. The school choir led by Mrs Grella and Mrs Mahony led the congregation in hymns. The recessional song-written by Mrs Grella called Jubilee, a celebration song for the celebration of sixty years of Our Lady Queen of Peace school.
Below is the address to the Our Lady Queen of Peace congregation regarding the 60th anniversary of Our Lady Queen of Peace Primary school.
Good Morning everyone. My name is Sue Dwyer and I together with many of my colleagues present at this mass to celebrate the Feast Day of Our Lady Queen of Peace, am proud and privileged to be a teacher at Our Lady Queen of Peace Primary School in 2017.
Our Lady Queen of Peace Primary school celebrates in 2017, its 60th anniversary.
Sixty years ago the Carmelite Fathers and the Sisters of Mercy had a vision for a primary school in the developing Greystanes area that today, in 2017 provides a Catholic education for over 830 children from Kindergarten to Year 6.
Our Lady Queen Primary school has enjoyed a rich history over its 60 years. A 60 year anniversary is a diamond anniversary. The word diamond comes from the Greek word adamas that means unconquerable and enduring.
I would just like to share with you some of the unconquerable and enduring history of Our Lady Queen of Peace Primary school.
Our Lady Queen of Peace Primary School was established in 1957 to serve the community of Greystanes. The original school called Saint Simon Stock Primary was situated in a building that doubled as the church on weekends. The sisters of Mercy, with the Dominican Sisters of Malta taking over in 1965, ran Saint Simon Stock school.
In the late 1960s the Greystanes area flourished with market gardens making way for housing development. With this, school enrolments increased rapidly and a new school building program was initiated on the land that now houses the primary school. The first school building was opened in 1970. The building program continued throughout the 1970s and in 1972 and the school was renamed Our Lady Queen of Peace.
In 1988 the Dominican Sisters withdrew from the school leaving OLQP fully staffed by lay teachers.
Over the years, building programs have continued to accommodate the ever-growing student population and the changing face of education. In 2017 we have an enrolment of above 830 students and have recently been given another grant for renovations of existing buildings to meet 21st century learning.
Over the last sixty years buildings, people, teaching and learning have changed but there remains one constant in the sixty years of the Our Lady Queen of Peace Primary school. That constant is that Jesus is central to all the members of the school community; with Gospel values promoted and lived in all we do and say.
Sixty years on, Our Lady Queen of Peace School continues to see Christ reflected in the people, structures and programs of the school.
If parishioners and parents have any photos or memorabilia on Our Lady Queen of Peace Primary we would love to hear from you, so as to make a display and walk down memory lane remembering the 60 years of history of Our Lady Queen of Peace Primary. Please contact our school office or the parish office.
