Issue 1 – 1 February 2017

Newsletter Articles

VISION STATEMENT

St Rita’s School will be a compassionate and supportive community built on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, specifically incorporating the Mercy Values which are lived out. We will be a values-based community reaching out to and welcoming the wider community. Our strong school spirit will shine. St Rita’s will be a school in which every member is respectful of self and others

PRINCIPAL’S PEN

Dear Parents and Carers,

Once again, I extend a very warm welcome to all for the 2017 school year! As we welcome new families to St. Rita’s, I wish all members of our school community an enjoyable and fulfilling experience during the coming year. I encourage you to be an active part of our school community and enjoy being involved in your child’s growth and development at school.

Although it was a short first week of term, the children settled enthusiastically into their new classrooms. On the first day, Sensei Bohdan our new Japanese teacher was impressed with the warm welcome he received by the St Rita’s students. Mrs Lisa Calcagno was unable to return to work due to illness, however all other staff members worked hard to ensure a successful start to the new academic year. Our new Prep children also made a rapid transition into their class, and this was helped through their participation in the Term 4 Pre-Prep program.

We finished Week 1 with our first whole school Assembly on Friday afternoon. We trialled afternoon Assemblies last year and they were popular with both staff and parents. Parents are most welcome to join us for Assembly and it is convenient that these take place at the end of the day so you are not making an extra trip to St Rita’s. Information on when your child’s class is rostered on Assembly can be noted both in the School Newsletter and the Student Diary.

Although I have been fortunate to catch up with many parents since school resumed. I am looking forward to welcoming you to our first formal whole school event next week. On Friday 3rd February, Father Kerry Crowley will be celebrating our Opening Mass for 2017 in St Rita’s Church. Our new student leaders will be commissioned and badges will be blessed and presented at the mass. Parents and families are encouraged to join the staff and students for this very important event.

We have also finalised plans for the upcoming Parent Information Evening on Tuesday 7th February. During these sessions you will be able to meet your child’s teacher and visit their new classrooms. I strongly encourage all parents to join us for these sessions as they provide valuable information on the Term One class calendar, Homework requirements, classroom routines, the yearly curriculum overview and how you can help in the classroom. Mark your calendar now!

As valued members of our school community, I urge parents to become involved in school activities throughout the year and to keep in close contact with your child’s teacher. Your teacher is your first ‘port of call’ for any queries or concerns about your child’s learning. You are also welcome to contact either Maureen, our Assistant Principal, or myself should you have any questions about school in general. I strongly believe that communication is vital for us to work as partners in the education of your child.

Blessings for a wonderful 2017 at St. Rita’s School!

Judy Billiau
Principal

AFTER SCHOOL ROUTINES

As we are beginning our second week at school, it is important that we revisit our after school practices to ensure the safety of St. Rita’s students at the end of each day. When the bell sounds at 2:55pm, all children move to the front of the school to catch buses, ride or walk home, or be picked up by their parents.

For your information, we ask that the following procedures be observed:

• Parents who pick up their children are asked to park on the school side of the street to reduce the risks associated with students crossing the street.
• Students who ride bikes or walk should leave the school promptly after the last bell.
• A list of students who catch the bus has been compiled from information given by parents. We ask you to inform the Office in writing of any permanent variations to the normal routine. A phone call will suffice, however, for last minute or unexpected changes for that day.

SCHOOL UNIFORM

St Rita’s has a school uniform for the purpose of school identity, spirit and pride. Much consideration has gone into making our uniform functional, attractive and suitable for students of primary school age. If students are out of uniform, parents need to provide a reason by way of a note in your child’s Student Diary or an email to the Office.

• Hats
  Navy blue broad-brimmed hat or legionnaires cap
• Shoes
  All black, lace-up shoes for dress uniform and joggers for sports uniform
• Socks
  Navy socks for both day and sports uniforms
• Girls uniform
  Navy skort with teal and navy blouse
• Boys uniform
  Navy shorts with teal and navy shirt
• Sports uniform
  Navy shorts/Navy skort with green and navy polo shirt

For the convenience of parents, the School Office stocks all items of the St Rita’s uniform. It is a service we provide for your convenience, and our uniforms are sold at the purchase price with a small delivery charge. Let’s keep St Rita’s students looking smart in their school uniform!

APRE THOUGHTS…..

Blessedness

The Beatitudes, from this Sunday’s Gospel reading, are a tough act to follow in our modern world, where individualism and self-fulfilment are prevalent and encouraged. The word ‘beatitude’ means supreme blessedness, and the author of Matthew’s Gospel composed ‘declarations of blessedness’ to capture the meaning of Jesus’ teaching. Interestingly, what the Beatitudes reveal of God’s values, is stark contrast to today’s standards! With the media fascination of the world of celebrities, and the trappings of fame and fortune, how can we heed the call to transform our standards and live out this Gospel message?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteous’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven.
(Matthew 5:3-12)

These verses call for humility and an earthy perspective on daily living, with a clear focus on the well-being of the world around us. They appeal to us to use our God-given gifts to reach out, make a stand for peace and justice and care for our world – not so much about advancing ourselves, but advancing the Kingdom of God! True riches spring not from wealth or fame or achievement, but from God alone.

Thank You!

Another stark contrast to speak of, is my recent transition from a very large multi-stream primary school in Cairns to a small multi-age school. What an amazing school community you have at St Rita's! I feel incredibly privileged and humbled to be here with such a committed group of staff and parents, and fabulous children! For all of your welcoming smiles, helping hands and kind words, I thank you all! It is a delight to walk this journey with you!

St Rita’s Opening School Mass

Parents and friends of St Rita’s School, you are warmly invited to celebrate our Opening School Mass this Friday 3rd February at 11:15am with staff and students. We welcome you to join with us in St Rita’s Parish Church, and celebrate our first coming together as a Catholic Christian community in the school year, and to commission our 2017 school leaders. Thank you to Father Kerry Crowley who will preside over our Mass.

Maureen Gaul
Assistant Principal (Religious Education)

SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING

Building Motivated Learners

Recent research conducted by the Australian Scholarships Groups has concluded that 93% of the parents who were surveyed believed that their child aims to do well at school. Further to this, the survey links feelings of pride and happiness to learning success. Family support in maintaining this motivation is critical, and it is important to note that praising effort and persistence, and not intelligence or results, produces a healthy mindset to apply to future learning opportunities. Learning problem-solving skills and resilience to see ‘failure’ as an opportunity for growth is vital, and will allow children to build self-confidence. Confident children can build better relationships and experience greater success and happiness into their adult lives. So how can we motivate and praise our children in an authentic manner to build confidence? The “Kids Matter” website suggests these strategies:

• Arranging safe and interesting spaces where children are free to explore and see the effects of their actions.
• Giving children warm and supportive care that helps them feel safe to explore.
• Interacting with children so they can see that what they do gets a response (e.g. when I laugh Mum laughs too).
• Answering children's questions appropriately. It's ok if you don't know the answer. You can always suggest that you both find out together.
• Asking children questions to help them solve problems and promote further learning.
• Working with children at first, then giving them more space as they become more confident in their own abilities.
• Helping children to experience that learning is fun.
• Acknowledging what children have done well and not so well. Explain to children that part of learning is not getting things right all the time. Encouraging older children to talk through their experiences (eg how they are going about solving a problem such as deciding which shoes to put on).
• Using rewards and praise selectively. Focus on the child's effort rather than the outcome and emphasise that putting in effort will help them get better at what they're doing.

Praising effort and persistence, rather than achievement, facilitates confident thinking and a healthy mindset to deal effectively with setbacks, and leads to a positive sense of self.

Further details may be obtained at:

Maureen Gaul
Assistant Principal (Religious Education)

CASTING THE NET

Australia Day Honours

I love the Australia Day Honours. Reading through the list is such an antidote to the negativity about people with which we are so often bombarded. There are so many people quietly doing good and transforming the communities in which we live. This year I watched the ceremony at which this year’s winners were announced. There was much to appreciate in the ABC program (it’s still available on iview). A brief profile was given on each of the nominees with a longer description of each winner.

One segment that was special was the interviews with the children from Auburn North Primary School in Sydney. Young as some of these children were, they seemed to instinctively understand what it takes to be a ‘hero’ in our community. While they did not have the big words to describe selflessness, they knew that being helpful to others over time makes for a person of worth and honour. As one aptly put it, ‘It is about character.’

What these children understood is that we, each of us, can make service and heroism a reality in our lives and our communities. We are each made in the image and likeness of God and, because of that, our very growth as individuals lies in service, loving service of our families and communities. Few of us are going to be offered a gong for what we do but they do not make our daily, loving kindness any less valuable. As we live by the goodness, resilience and passion that are our birthright as children of God we can make a difference that is good, true and lasting.

Loving God, made in your image, I am called to share your life and love within my world. Send me your Spirit so I may discover the passion by which I can serve my family and community in love. I ask this in Jesus’ name, confident that you will hear me.

Sr Kym Harris osb

CURRICULUM

Before the new term commenced, teachers participated in professional development sessions to further their knowledge of John Hattie’s ‘Visible Learning’ pedagogy. This pedagogy was introduced into the St Rita’s curriculum in 2015 and has become integrated into all aspects of learning and teaching in the classrooms.

The key message of Visible Learning is that it doesn’t matter where schools (or individual students) start from because we can all help our students to progress even further in the years ahead. This doesn’t mean that there are not external factors that can help or hinder how well students do at school. It simply means we can help our students excel despite the things that we do not control.

The school’s stories give us concrete evidence that we can all improve, whether we work in low-performing school or a school that already exceeds international benchmarks. Improvement is about helping each student to make significant progress from where they already are no matter where that may be. It is about preventing high-achieving students from coasting, as much as it about helping struggling students to pass.

Hattie’s view of school improvement is simple yet profound. He sees it as, “An opportunity to re-define its aspirations for students and to re-visit its basic beliefs and practices, evaluating them in light of their contribution to the intended student outcomes” (John Hattie, 2015).

LIBRARY LINKS

We are very proud of our Library at St Rita’s School! It is an active learning hub for both students and staff, that is well-resourced with extensive contributions being made by the P & F. Although our Library is used for much more than book borrowing, it is the most significant avenue for accessing high quality literature at school.

The importance of the young child experiencing literature continues to be stressed by educationalists. We have been saying it for a long time! Take advantage of your school Library, model reading at home, read, read and read some more. Michael Grose, in his Parenting Ideas Blog, writes an interesting article advocating reading every day with your young child.

Read daily to kids - the proof of its benefits

Recent research quantified what we’ve intuitively known about children and reading. That is, the more adults read to children from an early age, the greater the impact on their reading and thinking skills.

It was reported in The Age (3 March 2013) that a longitudinal study by The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research measured the link between the frequency of reading to a child and his or her development.

The study followed 4,000 children, aged four to five years in 2004 through to ages 10 and 11, and found that reading to a child six to seven days a week puts him almost a year ahead of a child who has not been read to. The study also found that children who were read to every day from a young age also have better numeracy skills in primary school.

The benefits don’t stop at reading to pre-school aged children. The study found that kids who are read to more often keep doing better as they age than other children.

The finding sends a clear message to parents, and other adults such as grandparents; reading to children goes beyond a simple fun, bonding experience. It is perhaps the single most important activity you can do to give a child a head start in literacy.

As a former primary teacher and literacy consultant I’ve seen the benefits first hand of children who come from language and reading rich environments. Anecdotally, these children are streets ahead of those who come from language and reading deficient environments.

So, how can you help?

• Stock up on your children’s book library at home. Establish a comfortable reading spot so that your kids associate that place with reading and books.
• Make reading to your kids a habit. If you’ve wriggly boys who don’t sit still, keep the reading time short and make sure the books are of interest to boys. The grubbier and gorier the content the better, usually!
• Make reading time interesting and fun rather than laborious and boring. That way your kids will always look forward to their reading time with you.
• Make sure your kids take plenty of books on visits and sleepovers with grandparents, and other relatives. Let them know how important reading daily to children is.
• Books make great presents so pass the word around that it would be most welcome for your kids to receive books that you can read to them.

AROUND THE CLASSROOMS

Welcome to Prep and Year 1!

Welcome to Prep and Year 1. We are all looking forward to an exciting year ahead! The students have settled in very well to their new class and have been working enthusiastically in their learning activities. We are working towards establishing our classroom communities this term. Through hands-on fun activities the children are developing their personal and social skills.

In our Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) we are unpacking our St Rita’s 3Rs, ‘Rights’, ‘Rules’ and ‘Responsibilities’. To begin, we introduced our key value of respect and what that looks like and sounds like in the classroom. In History last week, we enjoyed sharing pictures and stories of who is in our family by drawing a Family Tree. We also enjoyed getting up close to see our similarities and differences in eye and hair colour. Yesterday we started writing and sharing recounts about our wonderful Christmas holidays.

The children shared their thoughts on favourite new learning experiences last week in the Prep/Year 1 class: spelling and sorting word activities (Havana); thinking about healthy food (Amethyst), painting our body shapes (Tony), using Reading Eggs on the computer (Teelah), decorating our Homework Book cover (Latoya), and playing fun games with our teachers (Nathaniel).

My Holiday Recount

On the holidays I stayed at a cabin. There wasn’t much room. I went with my sister Saffron, my Mum and Dad. There was a warm sparkly beach. We found heaps of shiny shells. Inside the cabin there was a bunkbed, T.V., sofa, bed and a bathroom. I loved going there with my family because it was so much fun!

By Amethyst Ripps (Year 1)

DATE CLAIMERS

At St Rita’s we have chosen to not charge a Grounds Levy to pay the wages of a Janitor/Groundsman. The buildings and grounds are maintained through a budgeted Building Maintenance Levy and the assistance of staff families, P & F Working Bees and an annual Gardening and Grounds Roster.

We ask that each family selects two preferred dates on this roster, and return it to the office as soon as possible. Your assistance in keeping our school grounds looking beautiful is greatly appreciated. A special thank you to the McEwan family who worked extremely hard to prepare our grounds over the holidays. John Clarke deserves special acknowledgement for his efforts also. Thank you!

MUSIC TUITION

Mrs Jenny Marks will be recommencing her keyboard, guitar and singing lessons on Wednesday 1st February 2017. To begin with, lesson times and days will be the same as had been scheduled last year. You can phone Jenny on 4067 6157 for all enquiries and information regarding your child’s participation in this Music program.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

COMMUNITY NEWS

BABINDA COLTS JUNIOR RUGBY LEAGUE

KIDS CLUB

A program for Prep to Year 6 students is held each Wednesday night throughout the term, 5:00 – 7.30pm.

Activities held in the CWA Hall include games, singing, Christian Education, and meal and craft.

All leaders hold Blue Cards and the Club is supported by the Innisfail Baptist Family Centre.

‘Sign On’ will be on Wednesday 1st February from 5:00 – 5.30pm.

For more information phone Kristine Erwood (A/H) 4067 1681 or Janice Lauridsen 4067 1406

Well Women’s Clinic – Babinda Hospital

(This clinic is available to Medicare eligible clients)
Wednesday 15th February 2017

All services are provided by a specially-trained Women’s Health Nurse.

For appointments phone 4067 8200