12 May 2017

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Dear Families,

The foundation of a collaborative learning community is collaboration - working together for common goals, partnership, shared leadership, co-evolving and co-learning. What does this look like in a school like Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School, Thursday Island…and how can we create a culture that promotes school effectiveness and school improvement placing our children and the future generation at the heart of everything we do.

The traditional African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child” reminds me of the culture that so many of us are supported by in our lives. Scripture reflections also provide us insight through the following verse: Suppose the foot says, “I am not a hand. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. And suppose the ear says, “I am not an eye. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? If the whole body were an ear, how could it smell? God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be. If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body? As it is, there are many parts. But there is only one body.

We each play a role in leading a collaborative learning community, emphasising the value of collaboration providing a safe and supportive environment and making a space and time for collaborative learning opportunities. The process of reflective practice and purposeful conversations being held by all emphasise the support provided to the students of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School through the development of shared understandings, vision and goals for the community. The greatest sign of this is remembering to listen to the voices of our children, one example being the student representative council.

A parent was recently talking to me about the way in which they respond to conflict or grievances. You can make two choices…we can talk about it or we can work together with others to find a solution to move forward and make a difference. Reconciliation is challenging, reflection and accepting the diverse wisdom and knowledge of others can be confronting, however together we represent the one body that scripture refers to as community.

We have recently placed expressions of interests out to all families to assist in being part of the solution, each person working collaboratively with others to make a difference. Your active engagement in identifying improved methods of communication can assist many of us, your ability to source resources for the education of our students and your ideas for what our children need to be engaged in their learning environment are beneficial to the development and understanding of school policy, effective use of the playground area and wellbeing. Please communicate with Patty at the front office if you would like to share your thoughts concerning the reflection and ongoing improvement of one of these areas.

We have attached the Grievance Policy to this week’s newsletter to assist with effective management of our reflective diversity of thoughts and opinions. Conflict is a natural part of life, unfortunately, however it is the process that we follow in finding a solution and the way in which we move forward as a community, working collaboratively as a team that reflects our motto ‘All for Jesus’.

At the end of May, members of the Parents and Friends and myself have been invited to attend a Parent Engagement Workshop, representative of members from all schools across the Diocese of Cairns. Many refer to being at a cross roads in their life…an alternative is to look at it from the perspective of a new frontier, where we see hope, vision, ability for growth and new beginnings. It is this image that reflects a sense of positivity and energy that our children need to see modelled. Many thanks to all the parents and community members who have been actively engaged in assisting students and staff in so many ways recently, especially through cuppa and yarns, sporting events and assisting with classroom activities.

Your time and support in working in partnership with the school is greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Sharon County
Principal

News from the APFL

We give great thanks to those who helped for the cross country. We had many volunteers and community groups that gave considerable time to support our school. We acknowledge the efforts of our Parents and Friends Association, the Local Police Service, the Torres Shire Council and the Deadly Runners group. We acknowledge the dedication of our students and their parents and care givers.

We remind everyone that we are holding a fundraising event on Saturday 13 May, outside Col Jones, for our Choir trip to the Cairns Eisteddfod in June. Please come and support us on the day!

This Sunday, we celebrate the first centenary of the appearances of Fatima. During the Great War, it was proclaimed through an apparition of Mother Mary that the Rosary be prayed to bring about peace and love, for the world had never seen violence on such a scale. Peace and love is central to the holistic teaching of our church; especially now as we acknowledge Our Lady of Fatima and celebrate Mother’s Day at the same time.

Year 5/6 Class News

Tiny Turtle Making

Students have been using ghost Nests found on beaches in the Torres Strait to make turtles for exhibition in Singapore. This project is being led by the artists and art centre on Darnley Island, Erub Erwer Meta. The final workshop is this Friday 12 May 2017.

The turtles will be exhibited in the Asian Civilisation Museum, Singapore along with turtles made by students from other schools and bigger works made by artists on Darnley.

The Ghost Nets cause quite a lot of damage to the local turtle population as Turtles often get caught in the netting which causes them to drown, starve or grow deformed shells. It also causes them serious injury. This project is symbolic as we are using the very thing which destroys marine life to tell a story of protection and conservation.

Year 4/5 Class News

Whilst the Year 3 & 5 students have been preparing for NAPLAN, the Year 2 & 4 students have been busy learning about persuasive texts and partaking in peer reading. See our awesome photos attached.

Congratulations to Zeb, Matilda, Christina, Beka, Victor and Zahdein who were our week 2 & 3 SEL award winners! Fantastic work!

We have established our class rules and expectations. Year 4/5 students are expected to take responsibility for their behaviour and the choices they make. We have several reward systems in our class to encourage positive behaviour, including; individual and whole class goals, incentives and celebrations.

If you have any questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to come me see during school hours or contact me on bjones6@cns.catholic.edu.au

Eso for your support.

Yours in Education,
Briohny Jones

Year 2/3 Class News

Year 2/3 have been revisiting our key concepts to help students reflect on their behaviour.

We have also been exploring 3Dshapes.

Year 1 Class News

Students are learning a variety of things in English at present, including Communication skills with their 'Show & Tell' time, Writing skills with their letter practice and Story plans, as well as Rhyming words and Phonemes. They are also doing Spelling words, Reading Comprehension, Sentence construction and Reading groups. In Maths they are focusing on Place Value, Counting up and down from any number 1-100 and ordering numbers from Highest to Lowest and Lowest to Highest.

They are also learning about Creatures in the Environment in Science, doing AFL skills in HPE time and learning about their Strengths & Talents in Health.

Year 1 had a 'Mother's Day' stall on Thursday at 2nd break at school, it was a success and we raised some money!

Friday was the Cross Country, which was another success and all of the students had a great time. Thanks to all of the volunteers who helped make it a great day!! And to all of the wonderful mothers out there, thanks for all that you do everyday!

Prep Class News.

Congratulations Isabelle in week 3 on your award and to Kaitlyn and Nate as our award winners this week.

Please can prep have;

• Empty, clean 2 litre milk or juice bottles
• Rolls from glad wrap/alfoil. (No toilet rolls please.)

We will be needing these for construction projects and under 8s activities.

All lids are still being collected for another lid project. Please put them in the bucket outside prep. Thanks

In Prep this fortnight we have had fun with;

• Building models together of places around our school with blocks and building materials.
• Playing in the new doctor’s surgery in the home corner
• Training for and running the cross country
• Watching, turning and measuring the temperature of our eggs which are incubating in the classroom
• Relocating our fully grown frogs (2 so far)
• Creating some surprises for Mother’s Day
• Bringing in secret news with clues for the class
• Improving in our skills with the AFL workshops

Please contact us at the school/email below if you have any further queries,

Helen Osborne
hosborne@cns.catholic.edu.au

Hammond Campus News

Firstly, I would like to congratulate our SEL award winners over the past two weeks: In Week two and three, Joy’liyah, Bob, Xavier , Rajon, Malakia, Nola, Neville, Elsie, and Nola was congratulated on using confidence, persistence and getting along when participating in the classroom and on the playground. We would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate and welcome our new student Sario on his confidence and for fitting into his new school.

All the students have settled back into their routine at school. Our Year three students have worked consistently on practising for the NAPLAN test and we wish them all the best.

ANZAC Day was celebrated on Hammond Island with a liturgy. We were honoured to have our local dignitary Mr Marasat Ketchell ex Naval Seaman, Mayor Fred Gela and Councillor Mario Sabatino, Aka’s, Parents and the wider community.

In religion this term the students will be learning how to say the rosary and as part of pray time we will be visiting the grotto to say the rosary one a week. The children have been working collaboratively during Maths, English, Science, History, Art and HPE. The older students have been very helpful during learning time to assist the little ones and their teacher.

Thank you to Aka Lala, Richard and Sheree, Opera, Ada, and our Police Liaison Officer Miss Florence Levi for devoting one hour of their time each week to teach the students language, songs and dance.

The staff and the students of Hammond Island School would like to wish all Great grandmothers, Grandmother and Mother’s a Happy Mother’s Day this Sunday.

Choir News

We will be having some important concerts and fundraisers before we go which all students and parents from both campus’ are welcome to attend so stay tuned to this spot. These include;

• Movie Fundraising Night-at Thursday Island school Friday 19th May 7pm start.
• Next Friday performance at ANZAC Park 10.30am for Families Week.
• Performing at Star of the Sea-week 7 (time/date TBC)
• Concert at Hammond School Campus-6.30pm (P & F provided ferry leaving 5.20pm) Thursday 8th June
• Concert at Thursday Island Campus 6.30pm Thursday 15th June
• Leaving for Cairns-Sunday 18th June
• Cairns Eisteddfod-Tuesday June 20th
• Return –Thursday June 22nd

Please contact us at the school/email below if you have any further queries,

Helen Osborne
hosborne@cns.catholic.edu.au

Library News

Thank you to everyone from TI and Hammond Island for supporting our book fair this term.

We made $2927 slightly down from last year but still a terrific effort by everyone.

The commission from this book fair is valued at $600 and with this money we will be purchasing 25 copies of Australian All by Nadia Wheatley as class readers for Year 5/6 and come to the value of $599.

I look forward to our next book fair in Term 3/4 and will keep you posted with dates and the theme.

Ms Chi

Congratulations to Miss Chi for putting on a fantastic Book Fair. Thank you so much.

Mrs County

Awards

Week 3 Award Winners

Swimming Champions Medal Presentations Photos

We were very fortunate to have Elsie Seriat and Saliman BinJuda come visit our school to talk about the up-coming Cross Country Races. While they were here we got them to present the Swimming Age Champions with their medals. Congratulations to our little champs who have now received their medals.

Hockey Photos

Community Announcements

Term 2 Events

2017 Special Events and Public Holidays

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