Week 5, Term 3, 2023

Dear Parents and Carers,

I am writing this week from the leadership forum in Millmerran.  The leadership forum takes place once a term and involves the executive leadership team and senior leaders from Toowoomba Catholic Schools as well as principals from all Toowoomba Catholic Schools.  The days have been extremely beneficial from an information sharing point of view, whilst also being able to collaborate with other school leaders on important topics affecting schools.

This week, there are some key messages/dates that I would like to share with you:

1. Staffing News

Kristie Laing will replace Katie Horne in Term 4 this year as Katie moves into her new position as Acting APRE at Sacred Heart Primary School in Toowoomba.  Kristie has been a supply teacher at SSPS since term 2 and has previous experience working in Prep and Year 1 in Education QLD Schools.  Welcome to St Saviour's Kristie and I know you will enjoy teaching and learning with the Prep H class in Term 4!

Annette Murdoch (Learning Support Teacher) has been successful in obtaining a short term contract as an Inclusion Coach at the Toowoomba Catholic Schools' Office.  The role of Inclusion Coach is a promotion for Annette and involves supporting Learning Support Teachers across several schools.  Annette will be in this role temporarilly until the end of Term 1 2024.  Congratulations Annette on this appointment!  A recruitment process is currently underway to fill this vacant position at St Saviour's Primary.

2.  Parent Engagement Network - Book Week initiative

Book Week will take place from the 19-25 August this year and St Saviour's Primary with the theme 'Read, Grow, Inspire'.  

Whilst there will be several celebrations taking place during this week, including a dress up day on Friday, the SSPS Parent Engagement Network and school staff are promoting a focus on parental engagement with learning.  

During this week there will be no homework.  Instead, parents are encouraged to read with their children for enjoyment.  Use the free time that would usually be allocated to homework to simply read.  It might be a book that your child loves or a book that you loved as a child or an audio book whilst you are in the car.  

Why not take a photo and send through to ssps@twb.catholic.edu.au or your child's classroom teacher.

3. Phones - Including Smart Watches

A reminder that all mobile phones need to be handed into the front office at the beginning of the school day and collected at the end of the school day.  This includes smart watches that are able to make calls or connect to the internet.  Thanks for you help with this matter.  

Have a great week.

Sam Hannant

Recently I had the pleasure of coaching a colleague and supporting her to complete an impact cycle in her classroom. One of the challenges many of us face as teachers, is how to get students to own their own learning. By this I mean how do we encourage every learner to want to progress and know where they’re at in their own learning journey. We worked together and discovered three questions (from Hattie and Timperley feedback model) to support students to stop and reflect on where they are at: The three questions are:

1. Where am I going with my learning?
2. How am I going?
3. Where to next? 

Just by asking these questions regularly during the lesson, the idea is that students start to see themselves in the drivers seat, and they have more ownership over their direction in learning. They are to reflect on how they are progressing with a learning task.

When I visited 3C earlier in the week, they were so excited to share with me their goal of owning their own learning and how they were going about it. They excitedly explained how and when the questions are asked and eagerly discussed their importance. Check out Facebook to hear it from their perspective!

I also did some professional reading around ‘Student Agency’ and discovered Seven factors for optimizing it! (Source: Great Teaching By Design – John Hattie)

Care: Take an interest in the learner

Confer: Listen to the learner’s perspective

Captivate: Make learning stimulating and fun!

Consolidate: Review and revise learning often

Clarity: Clear up confusions as they arise for the learner

Challenge: Press the learner to think deeply

Classroom management: ensure the learner is on task.

I’d love you to ask your children at home if they feel like they own their own learning. Share these questions or the 7 C’s and have a conversation about learning! 

If we can have 100% of our students tuned in to their own learning needs, we really can change the world!

Have a wonderful week

Warm Regards

Nicki Prentice

Key Dates to Save for Term 3 & 4

Bookweek Dress up: 25^th August

Student Free Day (CTJ):  1st September 

Parent teacher interviews: 4^th – 8^th September

Mercy Day/STEM day & Grandparents Day: 14^th September

St Saviour's Primary & St Patrick's Cathedral

DERBY DAY reimagined:  4th November

Whole school Christmas Concert: 22^nd November

Whole School Transition morning: 29^th November

Final assembly & 2024 Elected Leaders presentation:

30^th November

Graduation Mass: 1^st December

Don’t forget to check our Sentral Calendar for all important dates

Just 2 weeks until our Book Week celebrations! 

We are celebrating great children's books with our “share the joy of reading” initiative, our Book Week Parade and a Book week Performance by Perform Education. 

PLEASE SHARE THE JOY OF READING THIS BOOK WEEK 

FAMILY READING AT HOME!

during BOOK WEEK 21st – 25th August

JUST READ FOR THE JOY OF IT! 

Read aloud your favourite book when you were a child 

Read together a book chosen by your child/children 

Read in a cubby 

Read in the park 

Read a travel brochure if you are planning a holiday 

Read a website about your favourite sports person or author 

TAKE A PHOTO AND SEND IT TO SCHOOL TO SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH US! 

BOOK WEEK PARADE - Friday 25th August

Students have started sharing their costume ideas for our parade on Friday 25th August. It is always lovely to see their enthusiasm for dressing up! Students are asked to spend some time thinking how their costume connects to the “Read Grow Inspire” theme and be prepared to share their ideas on the day of the parade.  

WAY TOO COOL! Performance by Perform Educational

Wednesday 30th August

This performance will weave a story from 3 of the short-listed books to share some important messages. We are working with these books in library lessons to understand their themes and we are excited to see how they come together in the performance. 

 A FEW REMINDERS..... 

*Book trailers are due on Tuesday 15th August 

*Years 4, 5 and 6 return and borrow library books in Weeks 6, 8 and 10 this term. I have challenged our readers to spend longer with their free choice books, particularly their fiction choices, to see if they can engage more with the story and not give up on it. Please check in with your students to chat about their book choices.  Students can always return their loans as soon as they finish reading them, or decide they weren’t a good choice, and may borrow new books after 3pm any Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and during lunch-time each Tuesday. 

*Thank you to parents who are acting on overdue notices when received via email. The library database AccessIT has been set to send these reminders automatically when items are 2 weeks overdue and again at 4 weeks. 

 FAMILY BOOK CLUB

This term we are reading Book 1 from the Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend "The Trials of Morrigan Crow", more details here. Get started reading at home, perhaps this would be a good choice for family reading in Book Week! We will gather to chat about the book in Week 2 of Term 4. Thanks Ms Harlen for the great poster!

LUNCH-TIME FUN

The library is open on Tuesdays from 12.50pm - 1.15pm. Lego, colouring and stack-a-cup are popular at the moment.

Our “READ, GROW, INSPIRE” Display is growing!

 

Happy Reading Everyone, especially in Week 7!

Anne Anderson

Teacher Librarian

Central Zone Athletics Carnival

On Wednesday, 9^th of August, St Saviour’s students represented their school at the Central Zone 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. Emily Carrigan broke the record for 10 Year Discus throwing 33.89m smashing the old record by 5m. I feel it is also important to mention that while St Saviour’s did extremely well in track and field events, I was super proud of an incident that happened at the tent. A younger student was very nervous about his upcoming event to the point where he no longer wanted to compete. I asked some Year Five and Six boys to sit with him. These boys ate lunch with him and played a game that completely took his mind off his race and totally took the nerves away. At this moment I felt extremely privileged to work at a school where our students genuinally care about each other, demonstrating our school’s Mercy Values walking in the footsteps of Jesus.

The following students made the Central Zone Team and will compete at the Darling Downs Carnival later in the term.

• Samuel Abot (100m, 200m, High Jump)
• Mia Aylward (1500m)
• Harrison Black (High Jump)
• Joseph Black (100m, 200m, 800m, 1500m, Combined Event)
• Emily Carrigan (Shot Put, Discus)
• Aya Doherty (200m)
• Ayen Gakeer (200m)
• Lucy Hardy (200m)
• Liam McHugh (1500m, Shot Put, Discus)
• Ava Orr (Discus)
• Mary Quiles (100m, 200m)
• Nyigok Gakeer (High Jump)
• Rose Stead (100m, 800m, 1500m, Combined Event)
• Deborah Thomas (100m, 200m)

Congratulations to everyone on a fantastic carnival (picture below).

School Sport

Congratulations to Matilda Crothers who represented Darling Downs in Ruby Union last month. Matilda played some awesome footy being voted player of the match in one of her games. It was a very strong competition and such a fantastic experience. Mammoth effort Matilda and we look forward to hearing about when you represent Darling Downs for rugby league. (pictures below)

Futsal Star

William Prust went to Fiji last month to represent Australia in Futsal. He won a bronze medal playing as goalkeeper. While in Fiji, William and a teammate from Nanango, visited a kindergarten. The boys took with them heaps of learning supplies and had a wonderful time interacting with the kindy kids. What an awesome experience filled with memories that will last a lifetime (pictures below).

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)

• Darling Downs Athletics Carnival – 15/08/2023 8am-2:30pm
• Catholic Touch Football Gala Day (Year 4) – 12/09/2023 9am-2:30pm 

Cheers

Brendan Luck

HPE Teacher

brendan.luck@twb.catholic.edu.au

Eistedfod News:

Several of our students have been participating in local Eisteddfod competitions recently.  Well done to everyone who has competed.  Pictured below is Alexis Allen who received a 3rd placing for her section, Grade 5, humourous solo.  Well done Lexi!

PREP Carpaking:

Families who are using the Prep carpark of a morning and afternoon for drop off and pick up are reminded of the following:

• Please do not stop and wait for a park to become available.  Please continue to drive out and come back around through the entrance off Perth Street until a park becomes available.  By stopping and waiting, you are holding up cars behind you who are also trying to find a car park.  Please keep the flow of cars moving.  
• Please do not park in the designated disabled car park unless you are displaying disabled parking permits or have an arrangement with the Principal.  
• The Prep carpark has limited parking, but it is important that we all work together to ensure the safety and smooth flow of cars that are entering and leaving every day in Prep.  
• Please also be mindul of your speed.  Children can be unpredicatable and we all need to be mindul of this when picking up and dropping off of a morning and afternoon.  

Pupil Free Day:

Pupil Free Day for all children in the diocese for CTJ Day will be on Friday 1st September.  There will be no school this day as all staff will be accessing professional development across the Diocese.

Pizza Treat Day:

Pizza Treat Day is being held on Thursday September 7.  Ordering will be via Flexischools.  Please keep an eye out for this and place your orders as soon as it becomes live on Flexischools.

Plastic Free Lunch:

Next Thursday 17th August our school will be participating in a "PLASTIC FREE LUNCH".

This initiative was bought about from three of our fantastic Year 3 girls Tia, Nina and Samantha.  All three girls gathered a signed petition for Mr Hannant and put forward their proposal to bring their ideas to fruition. Well done girls we are proud of you.

Year 5 and Year 6 Camp invoices have been emailed to families this week.