Issue 13 - 16 August 2017

Newsletter Articles

MISSION STATEMENT

St Rita’s School mission is to create a community which inspires a love of holistic, life-long learning grounded in the Catholic Christian faith. Childhood is celebrated and nurtured by caring adults. A student’s capacity for their best future is realised in the context of our small rural community. We provide a safe and supportive environment, characterised by strong, life-giving and respectful relationships with students, staff, families, parish and the wider community. The school strives to ensure we are living out the Mercy values.

PRINCIPAL’S PEN

Dear Parents and Carers,

Since our last newsletter we have celebrated a significant event on our 2017 school calendar. On Friday 4th August, our NAIDOC Week celebration recognised the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Ms Myree Sam, from Catholic Education Services, worked with Miss Alannah Dewis and Mrs Gaul to successfully organise an action-packed day of activities for our special guests, parents, staff and students. We would like to especially thank Mrs Cecily Musumeci, who escorted honoured guest Annie Wonga, an elder of the Yidinji people, to St Rita’s Church and School.

What an awesome visitor we had to St Rita’s last week! On Thursday afternoon we had a visit from Mr Lynton Allan, a chalk artist. Lynton engaged with our children through a live demonstration of creating beautiful pieces of art using the medium of chalk. The students were astounded with the speed and skilfulness Lynton used to create the two pieces (pictured below) in the first session for the younger children. The pieces were then displayed in the church on Friday morning for the Prep/Year 1 and Year 2/3/4 Liturgy which celebrated the theme of Creation.

St Rita’s would like to especially thank Mr Curly Lauridsen for organising Lynton’s visit to our school.

This Wednesday (17th August) we will be celebrating National Science Week at St Rita’s by hosting our fifth annual ‘Science Fun Day’. The organisers of the event this year, Mrs Masina and Mrs Savaglio, have busily planned a day filled with mayhem and experimentation as the children rotate through a number of fun science activities. Did you see the Science Day information letter that was sent home last week? It will let you know the plans for the day and what your child requires to be transformed into a ‘Mad Scientist’ on Thursday.

Once again, our goal this year is to create an atmosphere that will inspire the children and ignite their interest in Science through practical activities, while at the same time teaching them the basics of different scientific phenomena through modelling and whole group discussions. Guest speaker, Mr Stephen Calcagno, will be opening the day with a presentation focused on the topic of sustainability in the local sugar cane farming industry. Parents are most welcome to join us for the day or even morning session.

NAPLAN Testing results were distributed to parents last week. Although we have yet to thoroughly analyse these results, it was immediately apparent that our students have achieved a very pleasing level of results this year. Our Literacy & Numeracy Action Plan for the past three years has targeted Grammar & Punctuation and Spelling, and I was especially excited to see that this area of literacy has shown marked improvement. Congratulations Year 3 and Year 5 students!

Each year, across Australia, The Children’s Book Council of Australia brings children and books together celebrating Children’s Book Week. During this time, schools, libraries, booksellers and authors celebrate Australian children's Literature. We are excited to be celebrating Children’s Book Week at St Rita’s with the theme, ‘Escape to Everywhere’. The focus of English curriculum will be on Book Week and classroom teachers have been busy planning stimulating and engaging lessons around the short-listed books that we have bought.

THE BOOK OF THE YEAR IS COMING!

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Australia’s most influential children’s literary awards event, the CBCA Children’s Book of the Year Awards, is almost here.

Our tireless volunteer judges spent hundreds of hours collectively reading over 440 entries for the 2017 CBCA Book of the Year Awards. After careful deliberation they narrowed the entries down to a stellar Short List . Next they had the challenging task of selecting the Winner and Honour books.

The 2017 CBCA Book of the Year Winners will be announced at midday on Friday 18 August at an event hosted by the CBCA Tasmanian Branch at Government House Tasmania.

Stay tuned to our website and social media channels for the announcement!

The most exciting event for Book Week is our Dress Up Day which is planned for Wednesday 24th August. As we have the Babinda Community Kindergarten as our special guests for the morning, we will be combining Dress Up Day with an Open Morning this year. Beginning with a parade, which all families are invited to enjoy, the children will be participating in rotational activities in the middle session which explore some of the short-listed books. All students are encouraged to come to school dressed in as a ‘book character’, and bring along the book from which the character has been taken.

We have been kindly invited to participate in parent education sessions which will be held at Good Counsel Primary in Innisfail at the end of term. Maggie Dent is a renowned parent educator who has worked in the diocese with staff and parents for a number of years. Details of the workshops are outlined in a flyer which is included in this newsletter. Please note that your RSVP is needed if you are interested in attending. You are encouraged to go if you are free!

Altogether we have an exciting few weeks ahead in and around our classrooms. I hope to have a super turn-out of families at all our upcoming school events. Come and have fun learning with us at St Rita’s! As this will be my last newsletter article for Term 3, I wish you a successful last few weeks of term 3. As you know, I am taking Long Service Leave from Monday 28th August for a holiday in the U.K. I know that I will be leaving the school in the capable hands of Mrs Gaul and the staff in my absence.

Enjoy your week!

Regards,

Judy Billiau

LEARNING TO MANAGE ANGER

How to help children recognise their feelings of anger and how to manage their anger continues to be an integral part of our Whole School Positive Behaviour Framework and each child’s development of awareness of their feelings and behaviours. This topic is discussed extremely well in the Kids Matter – Australian Primary Schools Mental Health Initiative literature, in which the following strategies are outlined to help primary-aged children develop their skills of self-control.

Be aware of feelings

Children need to learn that having angry feelings is normal and okay, but that acting aggressively towards others when you’re angry is not. Adults can help children become aware of feeling annoyed, frustrated, angry or furious by naming feelings. Learning to say, “I’m feeling angry” or “I’m feeling frustrated” gives children a way to separate feeling angry from how they react.

Time to talk

Talking to your child about what has put him in an angry mood will help him see that feelings have causes and that solutions can be found. Once you find out what he or she was angry about, you can help him think up better ways to handle the problem. This kind of conversation doesn’t work while the child is really angry. Sometimes it must wait until later.

Find alternatives

Getting children to think through a difficult situation helps them develop problem-solving skills. Asking, “is that what you wanted to happen?” or “What else could you have tried?” encourages children’s helpful thinking. Thinking of alternative solutions helps children plan different ways of reacting next time. Be sure to praise their efforts.

Have ways to calm down

When emotions are strong, it is easy to act without thinking. Encourage your child to take control and allow time for the emotions to subside. Walking away, using a quiet sport to think or doing something else like listening to music, are all activities that can assist in reducing strong emotions.

APRE THOUGHTS

Liturgical Life at St Rita’s

Coming together in prayer is an integral part of our Christian Faith Tradition. This has been rich and varied over the previous weeks, with Catholic Education Week and NAIDOC Week celebrations, and the Prep-Year 4 Creation Liturgy. Looking ahead, this promises to continue! We have celebrated prayer assemblies, liturgies and masses together, alongside our school and parish friends and family members, and it is always a delight to share our prayer experiences with others.

It was also a pleasure to share in a morning tea with Father Kerry and attending mothers following last Friday’s liturgy! May I extend a heart-felt thanks to Father Kerry and our staff for their excellent efforts in effecting these wonderful events for our students, and to our parents for their continued support in strengthening our faith community.

Our next whole school mass will be held on Tuesday 15th August to observe the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and our Year 5/6 Mass on ‘Spring Ember Day’ is scheduled for Friday 1st September at 12:15pm. Please note the later start time to the Senior Mass. Parents are warmly invited to attend.

NAIDOC Day

“On the 4th August, St Rita’s celebrated NAIDOC Day. We started with having a traditional kup muri, which was cooked in the ground. I tried the coconut piece that looked like a white pineapple. For rotations, we did weaving, and I made an eel on a rod. Our second rotation was listening to the legend of the Babinda Boulders. Our only remaining tribal elder of Babinda, Miss Annie Wonga, told us that Bunna Binda means ‘water shoulder’. Mrs Gaul taught us a traditional song, ‘Taba Naba’. It means, ‘come to the reef’. We also did rock painting. I wrote ‘mimba’ which means ‘wallaby’, because I once saved a wallaby. I especially enjoyed the sit-down dance, because I had learnt the song before in kindy.” (Georgina Stone)

Our NAIDOC Day was another spectacular example to showcase the extraordinary dedication of a number of community members and value-add to our students’ educational experiences at St Rita’s! The NAIDOC Day liturgy opened with a special ‘Welcome to Country’ given by Babinda’s remaining tribal elder Annie Wonga, following the welcome by Miss Alannah Dewis (our Indigenous Liaison Officer). Our Indigenous students proudly carried in the three flags to represent our Australian People and presented prayers for petition.

Thank you to these people and their extended family members, who were instrumental in their roles to the success of the day’s events, to Father Grundy for presiding, and to the attending staff, parents and students. This was indeed a memorable day to celebrate the significant contribution made by Australia’s First Peoples to the development of our nation. Thanks also to Georgina, Harper and Leon for sharing their writing with us!

Did you know that you can use palm fronds to create many different and interesting objects using weaving techniques? You can weave hats, baskets, bowls and plates, or even decorative items such as lightning bolts, windmills or a ‘fish on a stick’. At our recent NAIDOC Day activity afternoon, the children of St Rita’s were shown how to weave palm fronds by Keira and Shira.

To make a ‘fish on a stick’ you need two palm fronds from a coconut palm tree. Lay the leaves at right angles, touching at the top. Starting with the bottom leaf, flip it over the top of the right leaf. Then flip the right leaf over to the left side, forming an accordion pleat. Continue pleating until five centimetres remain. This is your ‘fish’. Take a third palm frond and strip the sides of the leaves, leaving the spine or middle vein. Pierce the spine through the remaining un-pleated cross-section of the fish and there you have a ‘fish on a stick’.

This is a fun and easy way to make a decorative item out of natural foliage.

(Harper Wiles and Leon Schep)

Thanks for Creation

The 2017 National Science Week’s theme of ‘Future Earth’ aims to inspire active involvement in more sustainable practices. This is an exciting theme for us as God’s Stewards of Creation For the common good of all, we must respect and share fairly in the earth’s resources. In order to enact change for a healthier world, we are urged to consider how to modify our current practices and adopt new ways of living to fully embrace living more sustainably. What better way than to engage our youth in this valuable learning?

O God, we thank you for this earth, our home;
for the wide sky and the blessed sun,
for the salt sea and the running water,
for the everlasting hills and the never-resting winds,
for trees and the common grass underfoot.
We thank you for our senses by which we hear the songs of the birds,
and see the splendour of the summer fields,
and taste of the autumn fruits,
and rejoice in the feel of the snow,
and smell the breath of the spring.
Grant us a heart wide open to all this beauty;
and save our souls from being so blind that we pass unseeing
when even the common thorn bush is aflame with your glory.
O God our creator, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

WALTER RAUSCHENBUSCH

Blessings,

Maureen Gaul

CASTING THE NET

Your Precious Body

Sometimes one has to travel to the periphery to appreciate the core. This week the Church celebrates the Feast of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven. It is a very Catholic feast – so Catholic, this feast is designated as a Holy Day of Obligation, which is why your school will be celebrating Mass on Tuesday, if possible.

When did it begin and what is it about? Early texts in church history tell of stories surrounding the death of Mary, the mother of Jesus. All the apostles, bar one, gathered as her death approached and after she died her body was buried with love and grief. Soon after, the last apostle arrived and wanted to show his respects to her body. When the coffin was opened, nobody was there – an empty tomb. The teaching down through the centuries has been that she entered into the Glory of Heaven, body and soul, united to her son in his glory.

Last century, the Pope declared this teaching a dogma – an important Catholic belief. Seems strange, doesn’t it…or is it? This Feast asserts to us how important and sacred our physical bodies are…and that we are destined for glory. While we will experience the ‘awful’ separation of body and soul in death, we will be reunited with our body, our precious body, in heaven. When a loved one dies, we so miss the immediacy of touching and loving their bodies but we can live in the hope that we will touch them again when their bodies and ours are transformed in glory. These fragile, often broken, bodies of ours are like seeds waiting to erupt in the glory that shines in the Risen Jesus and in his mother, Mary.

Loving Father let me realise that this life is not the end and that your desire is for me to share in your glory united with my loved ones and with Jesus and Mary. I ask this in his name confident that you will hear me.

Sr Kym Harris osb

NATIONAL SCIENCE WEEK 12 – 20 AUGUST 2017

National Science Week is Australia’s annual celebration of science and technology. Running each year in August, it features more than 1000 events around Australia, including those delivered by universities, schools, research institutions, libraries, museums and science centres. These events attract a wide audience from children to adults, and science amateurs to professionals. Over one million people participate in science events across the nation.

Established in 1997, National Science Week provides an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of Australian scientists to the world of knowledge. It also aims to encourage an interest in science pursuits among the general public, and to encourage younger people to be fascinated by the world we live in.

National Science Week is proudly supported by the Australian Government in a variety of ways, including the provision of up to $500 000 for the National Science Week Grants Program. Other partners include the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Australian Science Teachers Association (ASTA).

AROUND THE CLASSROOMS

Top Coaching Tips from Travis

St Rita’s students from years two to six have been enjoying weekly tennis lessons from Travis, who also teaches at Farinelli’s Tennis Academy. Our aim is to build up our fitness and stamina, and to learn some tennis skills and on-court moves.

Travis inspires all students to be their best and finds hidden talents amongst the St Rita’s students. Balls fly through the air, zooming past while Travis slams tennis balls onto the court for one of us to run and hit. The rubber, from the soles of our shoes, squeaks loudly as we step and sprint to hammer the balls over the net, and vibrations from the racquet strings buzz when we strike the fuzzy, orange balls.

Travis is an enthusiastic coach and uses games to help us to practise our skills. There is a lot of fun and friendly ribbing to make us all smile and laugh as well! Travis teaches with light-hearted cheer; he’s funny and we love having him here!

By Jamie Brose and Snowball Junior Snowball

SCHOOL WRITING COMPETITION

WRITE4fun

The 2017 School Writing Competition is NOW OPEN! Write4fun encourages students to read and write through these FUN competitions that are EASY to enter! School Students across Australia will battle it out for the great cash and prizes on offer. Including $1000 cash first prize with $500 awarded to their school and $500 to the winning student.

The quickest and easiest way to enter is online via the link below. Alternatively you can fill in an entry form and mail your entry to PO Box 2734, Nerang DC, QLD 4211 (one entry form per entry) or email your poem/story to enter@write4fun.net or fax to us at (07 5574 3644).

There is NO THEME! Entries can be on any topic and in any style. Entry is FREE and the closing date is 31st August 2017.

WOOLWORTHS ‘EARN & LEARN’ PROMOTION

St Rita’s School will once again participate in the Woolworths Earn & Learn program. Through this program we will be able to get new educational resources for our school and all we need you to do is shop for your groceries at any Woolworths supermarket. If your extended family and friends do not have a school to support, we encourage you to ask them to collect for St Rita’s too!

From Wednesday 26th July to Tuesday 19th September, we are collecting Woolworths Earn & Learn Stickers. You will get one Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker for every $10 spent (excluding liquor, tobacco and gift cards). Place the Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker onto a Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker Sheet and bring it to the school office when it is complete.

At the end of the promotion, the school is able to order new equipment and resources from an extensive range of Maths, English, Science, Arts & Craft and P.E. equipment. Our school really does benefit from being able to purchase additional teaching resources from the Earn & Learn program. Many thanks to those families who have already sent in lots of stickers!

DATE CLAIMERS

STUDENTS OF THE WEEK

St Rita’s School congratulates those students who were awarded ‘Student of the Week’ at Assembly on Friday 11TH August 2017.

BIRTHDAY CONGRATULATIONS

St Rita’s wishes Saffron Ripps all the very best for her recent birthday. We hope you had a wonderful birthday celebration. Congratulations Saffron!

ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

We congratulate Roisin Stager and Andy Pham who successfully contributed to the Cairns Post ‘Inspire’ feature on Tuesday 18th July 2017. Roisin and Andy wrote an engaging article on their ‘Community Carers’ visit to Abbeyfield House. Matthew Mellick and Harrison Stone’s article on 25th July 2017 titled ‘Funky disco gets kids in fancy dress’ and Nathaniel McEwan and Latoya Ambrum’s article titled ‘Students learn valuable lessons about dangers of fire’ have also been published. We especially enjoyed reading these published articles by our St Rita’s writers. Congratulations and well done Roisin, Andy, Matthew, Harrison, Nathaniel and Latoya!

MULGRAVE DISTRICT SPORTS TRIALS

Parenting Resilient Kids Program

This program provides parents with individually tailored feedback and a personalised package of modules for parents to learn strategies to help prevent depression and anxiety in their primary-school aged children. The program is supported by research evidence and international experts in the field and is based on Parenting Guidelines that were published in partnership with Beyond Blue and have been accessed by thousands of parents internationally.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

COMMUNITY NEWS

BABINDA COMMUNITY KINDERGARTEN

PARENT EDUCATION SEMINARS

ART EXHIBITION