Issue 1 - 9 February 2022

Newsletter Articles

VISION STATEMENT

PRINCIPAL’S PEN

Dear Families & Friends,

What a pleasure it is to finally have our students back at school. It was great to see our children reconnecting with each other on their first day of school. Some students were thrilled to be back at school, others not so much but I’m sure there were lots of relieved parents.

It was great to welcome some new faces too. Maddison, Jaxson and Achilles (prep), Mathew (Year 1), and Tarney-Lee (Year 2) are all new families to our school. I’m sure you’ll feel at home in our welcoming school community. Madeline, Daniel, and Ebony have also started prep, joining their older siblings at St Rita’s. We also welcome Ms Shelley Douglas onto our staff as Year 5/6 teacher and Mrs Jo’lene Burzacott as school counsellor. Please see a staff list further on in this newsletter.

There have been many changes at St Rita’s over the holidays. As a teaching group, we felt we needed to further adapt to better meet the needs of our students. We hired a consultant, Gemma Goodyear to work with us. Gemma is a principal of two schools in Melbourne’s North and has a reputation for running highly effective and academically engaging schools which students love to attend. Gemma challenged us to reshape our school vision, which is now published on our school website.

St Rita’s school is a dynamic learning community strengthened by our Mercy heritage and inspired through the teachings of Jesus Christ. We are connected and compassionate to the needs of our community and are proud of our local Wanyurr-Majay culture. We engage our learners through relevant and hands-on experiences, bringing joy and confidence to learning.

This vision will now shape much of our decision-making at our school and will flow through to the lessons that are taking place in each classroom. Gemma also challenged us to come up with some ‘Learning Boulders’. These are what we want our learning experiences at St Rita’s to look like. They are; Community, Connection, Joy, Dynamic, Hands-on & Relevant. Our teachers will refer to these Boulders when planning lessons and units which we hope will increase students’ engagement in their learning.

Practically our learning and teaching will look a little different. Our Prep-2 students will spend more time learning through structured play experiences and our Years 3-6 students will spend more time learning through project-based learning. This will give them ample time to explore their interests and passions and relate these back to their learning. A big goal for our staff this year is to promote more learning outside the classroom with lots of excursions and incursions, utilising the skills, talents of our community and the spectacular natural environment around us. Exciting times!

This year our students will be exposed to weekly specialist lessons in Art, Science and PE. Mrs Jago is going to be our Art/Science teacher and myself (Prep-2) and Mrs Benvenuti (Years 3-6) will be teaching PE. Prep-Year 2 students are to wear their sports uniform on Wednesdays and Years 3-6 on Tuesdays.

We are no longer running a homework club on a Monday afternoon. We feel overall our homework program has not been effective. Our homework this year will have a strong focus on personal reading. We will provide further updates in the coming weeks.

Principal/ Religious Education Leader: Mr Michael Rowe
Assistant Principal- Leader of Learning & Teaching: Ms Samantha Benvenuti
Prep/Year 1/2 Teacher: Miss Anna Wilson
Year 3/4 Teacher: Mrs Maryjane Masina
Year 5/6 Teacher: Ms Shelley Douglas
Classroom Support Teacher: Ms Samantha Benvenuti
Learning Support Teacher: Mrs Vicki Jago
Administration Officer: Mrs Debbie Kurucz
School Officers: Mrs Donna Lauridsen, Mrs Lisa Calcagno, Mrs Rose Morris and Mrs Jenni Stone
Indigenous Liason Officer: Mrs Karen Yaroseray
Arts/ Science Teacher Mrs Vicki Jago
HPE Teachers: Ms Samantha Benvenuti & Mr Michael Rowe
Cleaner: Ms Evelyn King
Librarian: Mrs Lisa Calcagno
School Counsellor: Mrs Jo’lene Burzacott

As you know we are continuing to operate under the Queensland Health Covid-19 directions. We will provide updates on our Commencement Mass and other activities once we get the green light. Please remember to keep your children at home if they are experiencing cold/flu symptoms. We are required to send children and staff home who develop symptoms on site. We are hoping the interruptions because of this will be minimal.

Looking forward to a great year,

Michael Rowe
Principal

St Rita’s Babinda Sacramental Program 2022

St Rita’s will commence our Sacramental Program shortly, which prepares candidates to receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist. If your child is in Year 4 or above, is baptised (or is to be baptised) and you would like them to participate in the program, please contact the school office on 4065 9580 to organise an enrolment form.

Once enrolments have been finalised, an information session will occur, with further details regarding the sessions along with significant dates. Should you be aware of others in our community who would benefit from this information, we would be grateful if you would kindly refer them to contact our school.

Michael Rowe
Sacramental Programs Coordinator.

DEPUTY PRINCIPAL

Welcome back to an exciting 2022 ahead. This year I am thrilled to take on the position as Leader of Learning and Teaching. I will be working collaboratively with our teachers to ensure we are tapping into what motivates our students, through an inquiry based model.

It has been wonderful to see all our students racing through the school gates, and we are eager to see how they grow as learners this Semester.

Over the last two weeks, teachers and school officers have emphasized that a positive learning environment requires one key ingredient. It thrives on knowing our students, and how they best learn. With this approach we hope to improve student learning engagement. When students are involved in their learning process, they are more likely to be successful and engaged.

Kind regards,

Samantha Benvenuti
Deputy Principal – Leader of Learning and Teaching

COUNSELLOR CORNER

Thank you to the school community for the warm welcome. I am happy to introduce myself as your new School Counsellor available to you every Friday. My husband and are local farmers and have three school aged boys.

As many of you can contest it has been a looonnnggg school break and the return to a new school year will bring joy to some and angst to others.

Do you have challenges with getting your little ones into a new routine or out the door in the morning? You are not alone! Take a few deep breaths to calm yourself and choose to not match the tears or anger. Shift your lens, by trying these responses to help our children’s strong feelings:

• Listen to your child’s feelings with your whole body
• Stop what you’re doing and get down to their level
• Make physical contact and speak using a calm voice (their focus is on your tone)
• Help them notice their body and use words
• “I can see you are clenching your fists this morning. It looks like you’re pretty angry/sad/scared about going to school”
• Let them feel heard
• “I hear that you don’t feel like going to school today”
• Follow through with Empathy
• “I can understand that you might not want to go to school, I remember feeling like that sometimes too”
• Give them space and role model calming breaths. Once a child feels seen, heard, and understood, they are more likely to listen or accept your following statement
• Be clear on what is expected of them.
• “School is important, you are safe at St Rita’s and your brain is hungry for learning. So, we are going to School, and I’ll look forward to you telling me all about it this afternoon”.

When we are positive and confident, our children feel safe, secure, and validated. New routines and transitions will take a few weeks to settle into. If the family are continuing to struggle with school refusal, please contact me at the school to discuss a personalised plan.

On another note: There has been a lot of screen time for some of us, so it is fitting that February 8th is Safer Internet Day and eSafety are providing free webinars to parents and caregivers to help kids be safer and thrive online.

Warm regards,

Miss Jo
School Counsellor

MUSIC TUITION

Mrs Jenny Marks will be delaying commencement of her keyboard, guitar and singing lessons. Lesson days will be Wednesday’s as per last year.

We will keep you informed when Jenny will be returning or you can phone her on 4067 6157 for any enquiries and information regarding your child’s participation in this Music program.

DATE CLAIMERS

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

MUNRO THEATRE