Issue 9 - 17 June 2016

Newsletter Articles

MERCY WORKS

Mercy is central to the Christian story and, where Mercy describes the particular characteristic or identity of a school, it does so in relation to an understanding of God as merciful. It is also named in connection with the educational endeavours of the Sisters of Mercy, a group of women who have an historic commitment to the expression of mercy in their schools. Students at Mercy schools can be invited into a lively and rich educational culture which they share with a long line of other women and men who have been educated in the Mercy tradition.

PRINCIPAL’S PEN

Dear Parents and Carers,

Semester One is drawing to a close. Although it has been especially busy at St Rita’s, students and staff are happy with the highs and lows that we have experienced during this second term. As your school leader, I appreciate that one of the criteria of a schools’ success is measured by what has been achieved; the success of students in their learning journey, the professional skills developed by staff, and building of positive relationships in the school community.

In all these aspects, I believe that we have had a successful first semester, made possible by staff, students and parents. I especially thank the wonderful teaching staff who has continued to provide a rich and meaningful learning environment for our students. A rigorous professional development schedule ensures that teachers at St Rita’s are also learners. Most recently, two teachers and two school officers attended a two-day THRASS course in Cairns. The teachers continue to be supported by a dedicated group of school officers and administration staff who work together to make a happy and cohesive team.

The generosity of spirit and the willingness to help others is evident in our school community. Thank you to parent volunteers who have assisted in so many ways during first semester; helping in classrooms and the tuckshop, being an appreciative audience at shows and carnivals, working on the grounds roster and attending parent meetings. Your involvement is very much appreciated at St Rita’s!

If you are new to our school this year or have recently changed your work commitments, I encourage all parents to volunteer at St Rita’s during the next half of the year. By doing so, you will not only feel good but your help will ensure our school stays a vibrant and happy community which benefits everyone. You will be nurturing a spirit of belonging and true community for all!

The Combined Schools Track & Field sports carnival will be held at the Babinda State School this coming Thursday. I give special thanks to Miss Hayley Bowie, Mrs Debbie Kurucz and Mrs Maryjane Masina who have prepared, trained and organised the St Rita’s team for this competition. The children are encouraged to do their best and display the good sportsmanship and team spirit which is a part of being a St Rita’s competitor.

At the end of term, we will sadly say goodbye to our PE specialist teacher Miss Hayley Bowie. Hayley has chosen to decrease her teaching load as she has extensive coaching commitments after school. On behalf of St Rita’s, I thank Hayley for her dedication and commitment to the students of our school and wish her all the best in the future.

I hope you have a happy and safe holiday beginning on Friday 24th June. Put away those lunch boxes, library bags and uniforms, and encourage your children to play outside and have fun in the great outdoors. School resumes on Monday, 11th July and we look forward to seeing bright and happy children returning to St Rita’s on that day. If you are driving these holidays, please take care on the roads.

Regards and blessings,
Judy Billiau

STUDENT REPORTING

Over the past weeks, teachers have been extremely busy preparing Semester One Reports for the students at St Rita’s School. Next Wednesday, these formal written reports will be distributed by teachers and sent home with students. I encourage you to review your child’s Report thoroughly and to contact your classroom teacher for an interview if you have any concerns or queries.

For your information, I am including an excerpt from the ‘Cairns Catholic Education Services Guideline on Student Reporting’ document, which provides instruction to schools for complying with Australian Government and Diocesan requirements for reporting student achievement:

Rationale and expectations:

In Catholic schools, student achievement is recognised and celebrated in many ways throughout the school year; at informal meetings, through awards at school assembly, parent/student/teacher interviews, through class work that is sent home, through class oral presentations and through written reports.

Reporting communicates information that has been obtained from a variety of assessment processes and involves a professional judgment made on a body of evidence about a student’s progress and achievement against a set of clearly articulated standards. In Catholic schools in the Diocese of Cairns the key principles of reporting are:

• Teacher professional judgment is at the heart of reporting student achievement.
• Teachers’ knowledge and observation of the students’ progress contributes to this professional judgment.
• Teacher professional judgment is informed by assessment data and referenced to the curriculum framework.
• The teacher develops assessment tasks and identifies the criteria which inform judgments about the child’s achievement.
• Teachers utilise the evidence from a body of work to make a judgment against standards at a point in time.
• Teachers should keep a folio of the evidence of a student’s work.

When reading your child’s Report and reviewing their Student Work Folio, please keep in mind that these are only two sources of feedback about student progress. Throughout the year there are opportunities for parent-teacher interviews to provide parents with comprehensive feedback on individual student progress. This includes feedback on your child’s behaviour in class and discussion of potential learning goals that the teacher has targeted for the individual student.

‘DANCE FEVER’ PROGRAM

Last night our annual ‘Dance Fever’ Showcase student performance was complemented with a disco which followed the dancing. The audience enjoyed a range of dance routines which had been learned during the term’s lessons; Hip Hop, the Tango and the Jive. The final dance saw parents, grandparents and older siblings all take to the dance floor to do an African Dance.

The instructors Holly and Lindsay were proud of the children’s achievements and how enthusiastically they engaged in the lessons this year. St Rita’s thanks the ‘Dance Fever’ company for providing an excellent dance and movement educational program for our students. We also acknowledge the financial contribution of the St Rita’s P & F, as without its assistance the levy charged for the weekly lessons would be much higher.

We are looking forward to dancing again in Term 2 next year!

Judy Billiau
Curriculum Support Teacher

APRE THOUGHTS …..

As this is the last newsletter for Term Two I thought I would reflect on the term and the activities that have been conducted. We have witnessed some beautiful and moving prayer assemblies and masses, including Confirmation and the Feast of St Rita. St Rita’s Feast Day was celebrated with the local parish community and a number of activities for the children. The Community Carers visited the little children of our community and we were a part of the Loud Fences movement.

Many Scripture Stories have been taught and discussed in class, as well learning about the Sacraments and prayer. Religious Education is not always the things we see in church and class. I have recently been learning about a concept known as apophatic knowledge. This relates to forming a relationship with God by subtraction. In simple terms, it is the times we experience God, rather than learn about God. This can be done via meditation, witnessing something incredible in nature and other ways including listening to music, drawing (mandalas) and even movement. I recently heard a beautiful cover version of the song “Colours of the Wind” from the Disney movie Pocahontas. The lyrics of this song go a long way in explaining our connection to the universe, each other and the divine.

As a Catholic school, these opportunities are presented to our children as a part of the Religious Education Curriculum. This is not an area such as Maths or English where judgements can be made by set criteria. Each individual’s relationship with God is personal and a teacher’s job here is to guide the child, to allow discovery, and not to have all the answers. In fact, if the child has more questions about faith at the end of the term than they had at the start, we can be nearly assured that their faith is deepening and their relationship with God growing. Finally, we would like to offer our prayers and thoughts for Mrs Jago and her family, after the passing of Mrs Maria Cini (Mrs Jago’s mother) last week.

SEL NEWS

As we come to the end of the Term we all get tired and start to become more edgy than usual. There are more times a teacher needs to talk to the class about behaviour towards each other, and completing tasks becomes a little bit harder than usual. It is important to note though that a number of times we seem to excuse the behaviour of ourselves and of others. Personal responsibility is a very important part of Social Emotional Learning. It can also be the most difficult part to learn and adopt. If we always make excuses for ourselves, our emotional growth can become limited.

It is also positive for children to understand and experience personal responsibility. This means taking responsibility for our mistakes, as well as, all the wonderful things we do well. If children can learn to do both of these things, they may well need less approval from the outside world, which could reduce the outside influences such as peer pressure, because they are able to see for themselves what they do well. On the other end of the scale, by being able to acknowledge the areas for growth, children have more accountability, and ultimately are more engaged in their own growth. For further readings on personal accountability there are many online blogs including positive parenting solutions, mind tools and well being habits, which can easily be found on Google.

Have a wonderful, restful break and I look forward to seeing you all in Term 3. On a side note for any of you that read my last article, my little hockey team is working their way out of the dip and last week had a 1 all draw! Enjoy the holidays.

Bec Burns
Assistant Principal (Religious Education)

COUNSELLOR’S CORNER

Often our time as parents is spent juggling so many things that we struggle to spend as much time focused on building positive and secure family relationships.

However, in order for our children to learn and grow and to overcome challenges (be they related to sleeping, eating, academic, behavioural, emotional) it is VITAL that they FEEL SECURE AND LOVED.

Here are SOME EASY THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP develop positive and STRONG FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS. (Adapted from Building Good Family Relationships: www.raisingchildren.net.au)

Communicate in Positive Ways

• Talk about things (both easy and more difficult)
• Listen attentively to one another
• Make sure everyone knows it’s okay to share and talk about ALL feelings
• Praise one another
• Work with each other to solve problems
• Ensure love, patience and understanding when disciplining
• Use words and affection that show appreciation, encouragement and love for each other

Spend Quality Time Together

• Make time together such as breakfast or dinner a time to talk and laugh together
• Make time for one on one talks with each family member. This enables a building and strengthening of individual relationships within the family.
• Have fun together as a family regularly!
• Discuss and make decisions together in relation to special events/celebrations.

Work Together as a Team

• Create family rules together and make some decisions together as a family (if appropriate.. e.g. holidays, rules)
• Share household chores
• Try to meet everyone’s needs when organising activities (as much as possible)
• Allow your children to make some decisions themselves (only within the boundaries you’ve set and within their developmental levels).

Appreciate Each Other

• Take an interest in one an other’s lives.
• When discussing what’s happened during the day include everyone
• Support one another for importance events e.g. sports days, concerts.

Yours in counselling,
Natalie McKenzie

CASTING THE NET

Mercy…and there is more!

Earlier this year I wrote on the Works of Mercy – ‘Feeding the Hungry’, ‘Clothing the Naked’ etc. It was a comprehensive and challenging list – especially to discover how to recognise and respond to those needs in our 21st society. But there is more. While those works of mercy focussed on the needs of the body, there are other works that focus on the needs of the mind, soul and spirit – the Spiritual Works of Mercy - and that is a far more challenging list.

People are a mystery to us, and it is hard to keep this in mind when we are caught up in the rush and stress of so many of our days. We need to get the kids up, get them off to school, get to work, get home, get to ring Mum ... get, get, get. As it all closes in on us, it takes real self-discipline not to mentally push people around so the jobs can be done. And too often, we are pushing ourselves around to fulfil the expectations of others. Why? We are a mystery to ourselves.

The place to change isn’t to put another item into our routine or to tell ourselves to stop. The way for a shift to occur is to recognise the mystery of ourselves and enter into wonder: easy words to say, hard to put into practice but not as hard as we think. One of the strange dynamics of the Spiritual Works of Mercy is that, in doing them, we really have to enter into the mystery of who were are and who others are. We learn to stop, wonder and reconnect with the deep love that has drawn us to be with these people. In the coming months, we will look at how ‘Comforting the Sorrowful’ and ‘Forgiving Injuries’ open us to the deeper levels of the mystery of being human before God.

Loving God, you know how easily the demands of life can swamp me, closing me to the mystery of others. As I seek to be merciful like you, may I discover the joy and mystery of every person, including myself. I ask this in Jesus’ name, confident that you will hear me.

Sr Kym Harris osb

AROUND THE CLASSROOMS

Echo Creek Camp Recount

On 25th May the Year 4, 5 and 6 children went on our yearly camp to ‘Echo Creek Adventure Centre’ in Tully. We went there last year as well, but the Grade 4s didn’t. It was so exciting and we needed five cars to take fifteen children. Billie, Ariah and I were in Mrs Masina’s car. It was really fun! On the way we stopped at the Innisfail History Museum and saw heaps of amazing stuff. It was so cool! Some of the things we saw were guns, swords, medals, swimming togs and glasses. I could go on and on, but there are too many cool things to mention.

We finally arrived at the amazing camp where we hopped out of the cars and greeted the Camp Instructor. We then unpacked and had lunch. After lunch we played Laser Tag. I was on the red team. The first game went for 85 minutes and if you got killed you re-spawned. The second game went for 20 minutes and the aim was to shoot a box and not let the other team get it. It was really fun. We had our own time after that. Next we went to the Obstacle Challenge course which was really fun. There was a mud pit, rope swing, tyre maze and I could go on there were so many challenges. Finally we could relax and have some own time. That night we had a campfire with some marshmallows and played games that were really good fun.

On the second day, we got changed and had breakfast and went to the Archery Course. Our skills in archery had improved from last year. Many of us were getting bullseyes, including me. We enjoyed the team event with double or triple points being scored in each round. Team Assassins, won the overall challenge, and the teachers on that team were Mrs Masina and Mr Stone. Then we had lunch. Following lunch we did abseiling and rock climbing. Most people didn’t want to do the abseiling. I did it and it was really scary. In the rock climbing exercise most people made it to the top. I made it to the top twice. Next we did the Low Ropes, in groups of three, and this activity was fun and challenging. Each time two people were in charge of being the protectors. The protector’s job was to catch anyone who might fall. Finally the day of activities was over and we had own time again. Each night we gathered together around the campfire and played Charades, Celebrity Heads and Scattegories.

The next day when we woke up we got changed and had breakfast. Mrs Masina told us that we were going to make damper and go for a walk down to the river. On the way to the river we got lost, but luckily Mrs Kurucz knew the right way and got us back on track. We had to stop twice because cows and horses were in our way. When we got back from the river it was damper-making time. Georgina and I chose not to make damper because there were too many people cooking at that time. The damper was really yummy!

Finally the camp had come to an end. Packing up was fun, but it took a long time because everyone was getting their clothes mixed up. We put our gear in the cars and buckled up for the long journey home. I was relieved the camp was over because it was tiring, but it was an awesome experience being with my classmates as well.

Roisin Stager
Year Five

CURRICULUM

UNSW Global Educational Assessment Australia: ICAS Testing

If you are interested in your child sitting the ICAS English and Mathematics tests this year, registrations are now open for testing on 2nd August and 16th August 2016. The cost per test is $8.80. Please contact the Office if you wish to register your child for ICAS Testing this year.

DATE CLAIMERS

STUDENTS OF THE WEEK

St Rita’s School congratulates those students who were awarded ‘Student of the Week’ at Assembly on Friday 10th June 2016.

BIRTHDAY CONGRATULATIONS

St Rita’s wishes Snowball Junior Snowball and Miss Tua Snowball (St Rita’s Indigenous Liaison Officer who was 21 years old) all the very best for their recent birthdays. We hope you had a wonderful birthday celebration Tua and Snowball!

SENATOR GLENN LAZARUS

Left to right : Nicholas Stone, Vito Musumeci, Andy Pham, Billie Luce and Melina Musumeci, (Absent Ariah Salvestrin)

Congratulation go to our school leaders this week as they were presented with ‘Certificates of Recognition’ for achieving leadership excellence at St Rita’s School. The awards were distributed on behalf of Queensland’s Senator Glenn Lazarus.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

COMMUNITY NEWS

BABINDA PONY CLUB

SCHOOL HOLIDAY FIRE SAFETY

With school holidays just around the corner, now is the time to learn the ropes and become a junior firefighter. Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) is urging parents across the state to ensure their children are aware of fire safety and risks. Keeping fire safety in mind by involving kids in fire escape plans and smoke alarm checks can be an easy way to ensure they are fire savvy. There are many fun activities you can do together, including playing the Triple Zero game, to communicate safety messages all children should learn. Be sure to check out Blazer’s Kids Corner for more information, and to get your very own junior firefighter certificate www.fire.qld.gov.au/kids/

TRIVIA NIGHT

SUSAN MC LEAN CYBER SAFETY