Issue 8 - 28 May 2019

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,

Since our last newsletter, we have been overwhelmed with the fun of a number of whole school and community events. Beginning with Friday 18th May, staff and students met at the Showgrounds before school to participate in the annual ‘Walk Safely to School Day’ national event. After a prediction of morning showers, we were prepared with umbrellas and coats. However, the morning was perfect that day in Babinda, and we had the largest number of students ever who joined us for the walk to school. When we arrived, a healthy breakfast of fresh fruit, toast and milk was enjoyed by the children. It was a large family breakfast at St Rita’s!

Last week we had two more significant school events that were enjoyed by our school community. On Wednesday 22nd, St Rita’s Feast Day was celebrated with a whole school Mass and fun activities in the afternoon. In the Catholic school tradition, a school ‘Feast Day’ is a celebration of its patron saint and a noteworthy event on our religious/liturgical calendar. Our patron is St Rita of Cascia, who was born in 1381 at Roccaporena in Italy. She died on 22nd May, 1457 in Cascia, so we celebrate St Rita’s Feast Day on this day each year.

The following day, the Queensland Branch of Early Childhood Australia organised the national event, Under 8s’ Day. Our Prep - Year 2 students joined in with other early years children at Babinda State School to celebrate Under 8s’ Day 2019. Mrs Masina, Mrs Calcagno and I accompanied the children for their Under 8s’ fun this year. Due to the high possibility of rain this year, we had decided not to walk to Under 8s’ this year.

Thank you to parents and staff who provided transport for the children to this event. Your help is very much appreciated! And a huge thank you to Babinda State School for organising another successful event for the young children in the district.

A more serious side of the last fortnight was the Year 3 and 5 students undertaking NAPLAN Testing. As it was our first year of completing the four test elements ‘online’, I am pleased to report that the test administration went smoothly, and we did not experience technical issues which had disrupted the testing schedule in many schools throughout the country. I am looking forward to receiving our NAPLAN results in the future and using this assessment data to inform Semester Two planning.

Please pay special attention to your child’s Student Diary in the next few weeks. We have a lot happening in the classrooms in June. Have a happy week!

Kind regards,

Judy Billiau

HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR CHILD’S LEARNING

St Rita’s School Babinda recognises that every day of attendance in the classroom contributes to maximising student learning outcomes for children. I will continue to emphasise the extreme importance of your child coming to school each day, and this is not simply that we have a legal responsibility, in the Education (General Provisions) Act 2006, to record student attendance. St Rita’s wants all students to achieve his or her maximum potential, and being present in the classroom is the first way we can achieve this goal.

On the eMinerva school administration system that we use in Cairns Catholic Education, student attendance is recorded twice daily, at 9:00am and 2:00pm, and absences are recorded as either ‘Explained’ or ‘Unexplained’. We ask that parents notify the School Office of instances, such as professional appointments, that impact on your ability to bring your child to school. If we don’t have notification of an absence, the teacher will record the absence as being ‘Unexplained’.

Similarly to most primary schools in the diocese, St Rita’s Attendance Records could be improved. This year, Cairns Catholic Education is targeting 95% student attendance as being the goal for all schools, both primary and secondary, in the diocese. It doesn’t sound too difficult does it? However, 5% of a twenty-week semester equates to a child missing ONE WEEK of school each semester of the academic year. It puts the ‘occasional day off’ into perspective doesn’t it!

Judy Billiau
Principal

APRE THOUGHTS

Dear Parents,

Last week, on Wednesday, we celebrated our school patron’s feast day. To open our St Rita’s Feast Day Mass, a children’s hymn composed by Australian Andrew Chinn was specially chosen to capture the essence of our friendly small school; it is called ‘Welcome To Our Place’, and the lyrics clearly depict the Mercy Spirit that our school community aspires to:

“Welcome to our place,
a place of love and a place of hope.
Come and share our journey,
come and seek the truth.
Together in God, together as one,
flowing in faith, this is our school!”

Foremost, at St Rita’s, we challenge ourselves to be people of goodwill, and show generosity in our hospitality towards others. We actively strive to act with compassion, by offering our personal talents and Gifts of the Spirit in service of the needs of others, as care and well-being are at our core. At all times, we mean to honour and value the goodness of everyone and everything, to show respect to all of God’s creation. And lastly, we aim to act with justice and courage, when addressing areas of concern and issues of inequity in a fair and reasonable manner. These tenets – our Mercy Values - are central to who we are and what we stand for at St Rita’s, and in addition to these, we also inspired by the revered qualities of our school’s Patron, Saint Rita, that is, to be peaceful, loving, forgiving, and faith-filled.

Our feast day celebrations focused on the life of St Rita, Saint of Impossible Causes, who found joy amidst her personal turmoil and suffering, and remained strong in her commitment to her faith. Following the mass, it was wonderful to be joined by Father Grundy and Father Mathew, parishioners and parents. We shared a delicious cake together and spent the afternoon in ‘peaceful’ endeavours, including making origami peace doves, beaded crosses and yoga poses amongst other things. Our thanks extend to Father Mathew for presiding over our whole school Mass, and to the staff and students for an afternoon of activities to celebrate the life and influence of St Rita.

National Sorry Day

National Sorry Day is an Australia-wide observance held annually on May 26. This day gives people the chance to come together and share the steps towards healing for the Stolen Generations, their families and communities, and it is followed by National Reconciliation Week, from 27 May to 3 June. Of interest, is the significance of these dates in Australia’s history, since they mark two important milestones in the journey towards reconciliation, that is, the successful 1967 referendum and the High Court Mabo decision, respectively.

In 2019, the theme for National Reconciliation Week is “Grounded in Truth Walk Together with Courage”, where we are being challenged to unlearn and relearn Australia’s colonial history, and work towards a unified future. Together, let us pray for physical, emotional, spiritual and cultural healing for our First Peoples:

Holy Father, God of Love,
You are the Creator of this land and of all good things.
We acknowledge the pain and shame of our history
and the suffering of our peoples,
and we ask your forgiveness.
We thank you for the survival of indigenous cultures.

Our hope is in you because you gave your Son Jesus
to reconcile the world to you.
We pray for your strength and grace to forgive,
accept and love one another,
as you love us and forgive and accept us
in the sacrifice of your Son.

Give us the courage to accept the realities of our history
so that we may build a better future for our nation.
Teach us to respect all cultures.
Teach us to care for our land and waters.
Help us to share justly the resources of this land.
Help us to bring about spiritual and social change
to improve the quality of life for all groups in our communities,
especially the disadvantaged.

Help young people to find true dignity and self-esteem by your Spirit.
May your power and love be the foundations
on which we build our families, our communities and our nation,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This prayer was prepared by Wontulp-Bi-Buya Indigenous Theology Working Group in 1997.

Source: accessed 12th May 2019

Blessings,

Maureen Gaul
Assistant Principal (Religious Education)

CASTING THE NET

‘You give them wings to fly…

… and then you want to clip them,’ said a mother whose older children have left the nest and are pursuing their own lives in very different ways. And that is what happens being a mother, and even a parent. You watch over those first steps, and then see them walk away; you teach them to ride a bike and then they insist they can go to school on their own. All that you do to teach them to grow up is leading them to be adults, independent, separate from you as mother, as father, and yet in your deepest heart, you want to protect them as much as the moment they were put into your arms as new-born babes.

This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension, when at the end of Jesus’ time on earth he left the disciples, returning to heaven. But he didn’t leave them to be alone, bereft of his care. No, he left them so that they could really grow up and live by his teaching…that they could show his love and life in their own lives. This is really what good parenting is about. As mother, father, guardians, you want to pass on the best of yourself, so that in your children’s lives they may learn to express goodness in their own, exceptional way. You want them to learn the lessons lovingly taught and mirror these in the reflection of their own lives.

To do that takes sacrifice in many different ways: you have to be prepared to watch them make mistakes, even ones that hurt. You have to be prepared for them to reject you, at least occasionally, and you have to trust them to do it their way. No, the wings cannot be clipped but your heart must learn to widen and fly to encompass them always in your love.

Loving God, you are father and mother to us. As we care for our children, may we encourage them to live and love in all fullness and may we be prepared for them to grow beyond our arms but never out of our hearts. We ask this in Jesus’ name confident that you will hear us.

Sr Kym Harris osb

SCHOOL COUNSELLOR

ONLINE SAFETY

Is your child safe online? Positive use of technology can enhance child development and education. There is also a dark side. More and more children and teenagers are exposed to inappropriate online material including:

1. Cyberbullying (cyberbullying is the most common threat that you may face while using the internet, especially on Social Networking sites)
2. Online Predators
3. Theft of personal information
4. Pornography and other inappropriate content
5. Phishing (the fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers).

Early use of screen devices is also of concern. Current guidelines recommend children under two years have no screen device access and children not be given a smart phone until at least age 13, and even then only after considering their developmental level and maturity.

Experts advise that parents and carers have a moral and ethical responsibility to have an ongoing conversation with their children about the moral and ethical use of technology, and to continually monitor their young persons' online activity and mobile phone use, including blocking access to specific sites and setting time restrictions on use of devices.

The major service providers have security apps to support parents in this:

• Telstra: 'Mobile Protect' and 'Broadband Protect'
• Optus: 'Parental Control' and 'Mobile security’
• Vodaphone: 'Guardian'

This link provides digital guidelines: Promoting healthy technology use for children

It’s not all doom and gloom though! One of the benefits of digital technology is the increased availability of online resources to support parents in their parenting in a complex world.

Larissa Juniper
Guidance Counsellor

CURRICULUM

‘Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden’ Program

The beautiful weather last Tuesday allowed the senior class and Mrs Stone to begin the term’s gardening with the SAKG program. This term, preparing the garden beds and planting the crops of vegetables and herbs will be the highlight of SAKG. A bumper crop of sweet potatoes was harvested during the weeding activity, and the children are looking forward to cooking these delicious vegies this week.

AROUND THE CLASSROOMS

Under 8s’ Day is great! My name is Braden and I am six years old and I have two more years of Under 8s’ Day. St Rita’s Preps, Year 1s and Year 2s went to Babinda State School on Thursday 24th May for Under 8s’. It was a whole morning of awesome, fun activities. Bubble blowing, blue squishy playdough, dress-ups, obstacle course,10-pin bowling and a clown show were some of the many things I could do.

The Animal Farm was a blast. Inside the farm was an alpaca who followed everyone around. The baby chickens were so soft and cute. The little, white rabbit was super cuddly. I especially enjoyed patting the goats and the baby deer. We also played cricket. We had to bat all the balls out onto the court. Fielders had to run and collect all the balls and place them back on the wickets. “HOW’S THAT!” we shouted.

This week has been the best week of school so far! The day before, we visited the Babinda Library for National Simultaneous Storytime. We listened to a very funny story about Macca the Alpaca who tried to join a talent show. He planned to come first but they came last. The library ladies had made little maracas for us to play. Then we did some art before we went back to St Rita’s. The Babinda Library is fun too!

SCHOOL PHOTOS

Class and individual student photos of all children will be taken by NQ Photography this Monday 3rd June 2019. If you wish your children to have a ‘family’ photo, specific order packs for these are available at the School Office.

On photo day, we ask that students arrive at school by 8:20am for the photographers to commence shooting photos soon after. Please ensure your child is wearing their best formal uniform (shirt/ blouse and shorts/skort) next Monday. Hair should be neat and tidy, and long hair must be tied up with navy or teal ribbons.

Thank you for helping St Rita’s look smart for this year’s photos!

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 order 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!

We will be collecting the Woolworths Earn & Learn Stickers from Wednesday 1st May to Tuesday 25th June this year. You will get one Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker for every $10 spent (excluding liquor, tobacco and gift cards). If you have a Sticker Sheet, place the Woolworths Earn & Learn Stickers onto it and return to the school office when full. You are welcome also to simply bring in the stickers without doing so!

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. As a small school on a tight budget, St Rita’s really does benefit from being able to purchase additional teaching resources from the Earn & Learn program.

Thank you for your support!

DATE CLAIMERS

MERCY SPIRIT AWARD

At Assembly on Monday 27th May, Robert Freeman was awarded the ‘Mercy Spirit Award’ for showing kindness and concern for others, demonstrating compassion and consistently showing consideration to everyone. Robert has the privilege of being the first student this year to be awarded the St Rita’s Mercy Spirit Award. Congratulations Robert!

BIRTHDAY CONGRATULATIONS

St Rita’s wishes Havana Postic all the very best for her recently celebrated birthday. We hope you had a wonderful birthday celebration Havana!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

COMMUNITY NEWS

CATHOLIC EDUCATION WEEK

RELAY FOR LIFE LUNCHEON & MINI CENT SALE

AUSKICK AFL AT ST RITA’S

CENT SALE FOR DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN

GOOD COUNSEL COLLEGE

Tuesday 11 June - 9am to 10.30am
Good Counsel College Prospective Parent College Tour & Morning Tea.
RSVP : cmifsud@cns.catholic.edu.au by Friday 7 June.

ST RITA’S DISCO