Week 3, Term 3, 2023

Dear Parents & Carers,

Catholic Education Week is an annual event that is held to promote the special ethos of Catholic schools and to highlight the great things that take place in Catholic schools every day. 

The theme for this year’s celebrations is:  Communities of Faith, Hope and Love.

Catholic education strives to make a difference in the lives of those in our schools and in the wider community by challenging young people to live out the message of Jesus and to reach their full potential as compassionate, contributing, life-giving members of society.

As part of our planning for the next SSPS Strategic Plan, our classroom teachers recently completed an anonymous survey.  I would like to share some reflections from our teachers about the Catholic School that you have chosen for your son or daughter.  See below two questions that were on the survey and a sample of teacher responses:

1. One word/phrase that best describes St Saviour's Primary School - Community, Family, Quality, Excellence, Inclusive, Caring, Supportive, Welcoming, Compassionate, Nurturing Learners.

2. What are some of the ideal qualities of a graduate of St Saviour's Primary School - Confident, happy, strong sense of their own faith, compassionate for those who are different to them, engaged learners, open minded, proactive learners, lifelong learner, considerate of others, advocate for themselves, just, passionate about learning, community aware and driven, respectful, responsible, collaborative, critical thinkers, problem solvers, resilient/determined. 

The above responses certainly signal to me that the teachers at St Saviour's Primary School are commited to working in a Community of Faith, Hope and Love.

TCS EXCELLENCE AWARDS

Tonight, four St Saviour's Primary staff members will be attending the Toowoomba Catholic Schools' Excellence Awards as finalists.  At this event, the winners will be announced.

Congratulations and good luck to Annette Murdoch who has been nominated in the category of Excellence in Educational Support and our three administration officers, Jodie McLachlan, Julie Robinson and Alex Sleba who have been nominated for Excellence in Administrative Support.

I look forward to sharing the outcome of the night with you all.

REMINDER: Shaping the future of our schools – share your views

With only two weeks left to share your views and shape our future, we encourage all our parents to complete the Shaping our future – Toowoomba Catholic Schools perception survey. 

Parents, staff and students from our other 30 schools and the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Office are being called on to complete this survey to shape the ideas, innovations and quality of Toowoomba Catholic Schools.

If you are yet to share your thoughts, please check your email for the link and complete the 15 minute survey.

This survey holds additional significance for St Saviour's Primary as it will help inform the direction of our new Strategic Plan which is currently being developed.  The Strategic Plan will also be a large focus of the next Parent Engagement Network (PEN) Meeting on Tuesday 1 August at 5.30pm in the staffroom.

Enjoy the rest of the week!

Sam Hannant

What a wonderful week of celebrations for Catholic Education Week!

We began our week with our whole school Mass led by Xavier house. Father Michael always finds a way to make Mass engaging and meaningful. This time, we were flying paper areoplanes! How is that relevant? Well, this plane came back to you after you threw it just like Faith, Hope and Love. In our communities, when we show Faith, Hope and Love it will come back to you. That's what being in a community is all about; sharing our Faith, Hope and love. We also learnt more about Francis Xavier and the quality he showed in his words and actions. Thankyou to those members of Xavier who took on active role during Mass, Ciarah, Claire & Mia, Thomas, Hugh, Brooklyn, Ailey, Heidi, Aya, Alessandra, Kenn, Harry, Indi, Chelsea, Maddie, Charlotte, Novah, Zelie, We also began our Catholic Education week celebrations. Lots of photos are have been posted on our socials so take a look when you get a chance!

On Tuesday, we were very fortunate to have Andrew Chinn with us for the day. He is an amazing talent and he very ably presented extremely engaging songs and music for us all to enjoy. Each class spent time with him singing, laughing, listening, learning and celebrating the Spirit of Jesus through Music. Again, many videos of the day are on our socials. Definitely worth a look!

The choir worked with Andrew before they led our whole school concert. It was such a fun day and a wonderful experience for all the children! All of Andrew’s songs can be accessed via Spotify or his Youtube channel. Take a listen and you’ll have those tunes in your heads for some time!

On Friday, during the Student free day, our staff will attend the Bishop’s Inservice Day at St Mary’s College. It is an opportunity for us to meet with our colleague’s across the Toowoomba schools, meet the new Bishop of our Diocese, Ken Howell, listen to guest speaker, Associate Professor Maeve Heaney who is a senior lecturer in the faculty of Theology and Philosophy at Australian Catholic University and celebrate Mass together. It is an enriching Spiritual day which reaffirmes our passion for teaching in Catholic Education.

Lily Priest (Prep T) you are a star! We wanted to acknowledge the most heart warming gesture from one of our Prep students in Prep T, Lily Priest. Lily had been requesting for months to cut her hair but her Mum wans’t so sure! My heart broke at the idea of those long locks being gone!” Lily asked again before the holidays and informed both her parents that she wanted to cut it off and give it to kids with no hair because she had so much. 

Jessica & Mitchell (Lily’s parents) set-up a fundraising page through Kids with Cancer - https://fundraise.kidswithcancer.org.au/fundraisers/lilypriest 

On the 1^st July, Lily donated 28cm of hair to Wigs4Kids Australia / Kids with Cancer Foundation for wigs to be made out of her hair. “We're so proud of Lily and the fact she requested to donate her hair to kids in need and has already said she wants to grow her hair long and do it again,” commented Jessica.

Wow Lily! You should be so proud of yourself! You are showing the values here at SSPS – Compasssion, Commitment and Service towards others in need. Your family should be super proud of the wonderful person you are! 

Thankyou to our students for their enthusiasm this week. It is our privilege to walk alongside them at SSPS.

Have a great week and thanks for reading!

Ann-Maree

Dear Parents and Carers,

As you know, this year we are having a big focus on reading. 

This week I have had the pleasure of completing some walk throughs throughout the school and I have witnessed many students’ working towards different reading goals. This week the focus for reading will be on Year 2 and Year 3.  

Year 2 –

Term 3 learning goal – We are learning that words can be represented in a text through a synonym.  

Students will be successful if:

I can define a synonym and give an example  

I can identify the meaning of unknown words  

I can make connections and replace words in a text  

Year 3

Term 3 learning goal – We are learning to use the think and search strategy.

Student’s will be successful if:

I can identify the key words in a question.

I can read back through the text and make connections.

I can answer a comprehension question by searching for the answer and using my own thoughts.

Please discuss these reading goals with your child when you are listening to them read at home.  I would like to leave you with this quote that signifies the importance of reading with your child at home.

“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.”

Happy Reading,

Bec Thomas

Dear Parents and Guardians, 

The 2023 NAPLAN results have been distributed to parents via hard copy over the past week.  In 2023, there are new proficiency levels for NAPLAN based on a 4 point scale, replacing the previous numerical reporting method and national minimum standards.  These standards provide clear information on student achievement and are based mainly on what was taught in the previous year of schooling.  These are the four proficiency levels:

• Exceeding: Student’s results exceeds expectations at the time of testing
• Strong: The student’s results meets challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing
• Developing: The student’s result indicates that they are working towards expectations at the time of testing
• Needs additional support: The student’s results indicates that they are not achieving the learning outcomes expected at the time of testing.  They are likely to need additional support to progress satisfactorily.

Today I would like to provide you with a summary of the proficiency level distribution percentages for SSPS and the state for comparison.  These results are extremely positive for the school as you will see below. 

ALL of our Year 5 students are above the state average for ALL tests! Our Year 3 students, in their first attempt ever for NAPLAN, were above the state average in most areas too.

One of the ways I like to look at how much impact a school has had on our students, is to see where they’ve come from and where they progress to. Unfortunately, due to a change in scale score, we cannot compare the same cohort of students. Eg. How did Jimmy go in Year 3 versus Year 5. We can however, use the % from Year 3 and compare to Year 5 results and easily see that we have become more successful in many areas, particularly spelling, Grammar and punctuation and Writing.

Another standout area in these results is Reading – Check out our percentages in strong and exceeding.

• In our Year 3 cohort – over 80% of our Year 3 students are strong or exceeding in reading, how exceptional is that?
• In our Year 5 cohort – 93.5% are strong or exceeding, just incredible!

While there are many things to celebrate overall with this year’s results, an area that stands out to work on as a school is around creating challenge and rigour for our high performing learners, particularly in writing. As you can see in Year 3 – we had 6.5% in exceeding, but a whopping 78% in strong. How do we support those strong writers to be even better? I think one way is through the work we are already doing around the learning pit and encouraging children to challenge themselves in their learning. What strategies can we use when we are in the pit to help add flare and more sophistication to our writing? Another way we might be able to show growth in this area is through our Learner Qualities. For example, Instead of settling with a first draft of writing, how can we collaborate with other learners and learn from them to better our own writing?

I hope you enjoy perusing the data as much as I did! 

Warm Regards

Nicki Prentice

Acting APA

Bolded % indicates higher than state average in the strong or exceeding area. Bolded % also represents lower than the state average in developing or needing additional support

Writing

Reading

Spelling

Grammar and Punctuation

Numeracy

Dear Parents and Guardians, 

Please note this timetable is subject to change, but this can be used a guide for locations and times for Interschool sport for our Year 5 and 6 students for Term 3. 

Catholic Schools Athletics Carnival 

On Friday, 14th of July, St Saviour’s students represented their school at the Catholic Schools Athletics Carnival. They ran, jumped, and threw with two to three students in each event. St Saviour’s did extremely well with many students placing in the top three for their events. All students are to be commended on the way they represented their school and the sportsmanship they showed on the day. This carnival is designed for students to have a go against other school and prepare the older students for the Central Zone Carnival in Week Five. Congratulations to everyone on a fantastic carnival (pictures attached). 

Friday Sport 

Friday Sport kicked off again this term with students in Year Five and Year Six participating in either Rugby League, Soccer or Netball. The feedback from the students is that they had an awesome time playing against other schools and really enjoyed playing in teams with their peers. I look forward to hearing about their games as the term progresses (pictures attached). 

Touch/Netball Gala Day 

Students in Year Five and Year Six also competed against other schools in Netball and Touch Football for Catholic Education Week, playing in either competitive or non-competitive teams. Students are again to be commended on their sportsmanship and the way they represented St Saviour’s Primary on the day. Everyone played with heart and determination with lots of fun had by all teams (pictures attached). 

School Sport 

Congratulations to Matilda Crothers who made Darling Downs team for Rugby League. Rose Stead also competed in the State Cross Country running a personal best of 11:08, placing 7th for the 11-year-old girls and is the first reserve for the QLD team. Rose also picked up a silver medal as a part of the 11 girls relay team. Mammoth effort girls and we are all cheering for you (picture attached).  

Weekly Sport Stars 

Congratulations to Kenn Corpuz who was awarded player of the match last Saturday at Runnin Rebels Super Camp Cup (picture attached). Super effort Kenn! 

Alfie Benvenuti, Owen Thomas, Tommy Carey and Jack Black all play Rugby Union together in under 7’s for South’s Junior Rugby (picture attached). It is so special to get to play sport with your mates outside of school and so great that they can apply lots of the skills that they are taught in PE to their weekend sport. 

Zone and Darling Downs Trials 

All Zone and Darling Downs trials will be placed on Parent Portal. Please check Parent Portal regularly or set up notifications on your phone if you wish for your child to be eligible to trial for Zone and Darling Downs sporting teams as you will be required to obtain paperwork from myself. I am unable to nominate students after the closing date so please make sure you do keep an eye on Parent Portal. Any questions, please contact me at brendan.luck@twb.catholic.edu.au. 

Upcoming Events (Term Three) 

• Catholic Touch/Netball Gala Day (Year 5 and 6)– 27/7/2023 9.00 am - 2:30 pm 
• Central Zone Athletics Carnival – 9/08/2023 8.00 am - 2:30 pm 

• Darling Downs Athletics Carnival – 15/08/2023 8.00 am - 2:30pm 
• Catholic Touch Football Gala Day (Year 4) – 12/09/2023 9.00 am - 2:30pm 

Cheers 

Brendan Luck 

HPE Teacher 

brendan.luck@twb.catholic.edu.au 

Dear Families,

Last week our Grade 6 students welcomed Riki and Casey from Headspace to talk to them about safeguarding their mental health and wellbeing as they begin the transition to high school. Feedback from students was extremely positive. Headspace have also created an early intervention campaign to support young people and families with topics including relationships, identity, social media and the future. You can find these “NIP it the bud” resources here.  

In keeping with Catholic Education Week’s 2023 theme of “communities of faith, hope and love”, I thought it timely to share some information on how to foster hope and resilience in children of all ages. Helping your child to deal with life’s ups and downs is an incredibly important life skill.  As a parent or caregiver, part of your role is to teach your child how to be resilient and cope with life’s challenges.  Resilience is a skill that everyone can learn.  It develops over time and exists on a spectrum that is always changing through out life and with different experiences.  When children have supportive relationships, they endure more easily, difficult life experiences.  These supportive relationships help to enhance feelings of connection, which enhance coping and social skill development.  In addition to simply providing a supportive relationship, teach your child how to self-regulate and deal with difficult emotions.  Promote positive thinking, modelling to your child how to have an optimistic attitude in life.  These qualities will help your child to thrive in life rather than simply to survive.   

Some useful links to articles on resilience: 

• Psycom – Resilience in children: Strategies to strengthen your kids
• Hey Sigmund – Building resilience in children – 20 practical, powerful strategies (backed by science)

If you’d like more information about headspace, resilience, or our SSPS wellbeing program, please reach out via email: anne.woodcroft-brown@twb.catholic.edu.au or visit our SSPS Wellbeing Hub.

Congratulations to our Weekly Award Winners for

Week 2 & Week 3

Catholic Education Week Awards

2023 Census Privacy Collection:

Next week our school will feature on River 94.9 for Primary School Weather Watch.  Each day students will read the weather on air with Radio Hosts Marnie and Campo.  Tune in next week and listen out for our fabulous Weather Watch presenters.

School Fees:

Term 3 School Fees are due Friday 11th August. 

Pupil Free Day:

Tomorrow is a Pupil Free Day for Toowoomba Catholic Education Week.  There will be no school tomorrow.  All staff will be taking part in Bishops Inservice Day at St Mary's College, Toowooomba.

Reminders (Parking):

• Please remember to refrain from parking in front of residents driveways both in Perth and Neil Street and on footpaths.
• Please do not park in Bus Zones. 
• Parking in Lawrence Street - Please remember to be vigilant at peak times when parking and reversing.  
• Please cross at the crossing with your child of a morning and afternoon.  

Important Dates Coming Up:

* August 9 - Central Zone Athletics Carnival

* August 15 - Darling Downs Athletics Carnival

* August 16 - ICAS Testing

* August 18 - National Day of action against bullying and violence

* August 25 - Book Week Dress Up Day

* September 1 - Pupil Free Day CTJ Day