Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School Thursday Island eNewsletter

9 August 2017

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s News
News from the APFL
Year 2/3 Class News
Year 1 News in Pictures
Final Choir Trip Thank yous…
Hammond Pre-Prep News
Prep News in Pictures
Awards
Term 3 Book Fair
Careers Market Photos
Athletics Carnival – Friday 4th August
Community Announcements

Principal’s News

Week 4 already and then week 5 or half the way through the term.

We welcome Debra Calder onto our staff as our Learning Support Teacher. Debra has a Masters of Education (Special Education Needs). She is a very experienced teacher having been the Head of individual Needs at Wesley College in Melbourne and the Director of Learning Centre Programs at Aitken College. Debra has run Gifted and Talented Programs. She was seconded to the Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School in the Kimberley (W.A) to develop Reading and Individual Learning Programs for indigenous students last year. We are fortunate to have her apply for and accept the position.

While a new member of staff has arrived, we farewelled Patty Nakata who has taken another job on Thursday Island. Patty’s good nature and efficiency in the office will be missed. The OLSH community wishes her well in her new job. Donna See Kee and Christine Benjamin will share the office role.

Last week Ben Mills and Mali Kotzikas represented OLSH at the opening of Catholic Education Week in Cairns. It was a large event held at St. Andrew’s Redlynch with most schools in attendance. Mali and Ben were fine ambassadors for our school. Thanks to Mali’s mother Mirian for coming with us. Shopping is not one of my better traits.

One part of going away is the time involved in travel. A 2-hour celebration takes 3 days to do with travel. I try not to minimise any time away but some things I cannot avoid and Principal’s meetings are one of them. So, this week I will be at a Principal’s meeting. However, I will be back for the Athletics Carnival.

We celebrated our Catholic Education Week Mass with Father Paul on Friday.

This Friday is our Athletics Carnival at the Ken Brown Oval and a program is up on the notice board at school. We look forward to a day of strong competition. The 800m will be run earlier in the week to ensure the age and house winners are announced on the day.

On another sports note we are in discussion with PE staff from the other local Primary Schools looking at an inter school sports program. Hopefully this will eventuate soon. On an island such as Thursday Island it is good to develop relationships with the other schools and look at working together on a range of areas. The costs to get people here is much better when shared and we know how expensive it is to get to here.

The new desks for Year2/3 have arrived and have been put into the classroom. We will continue to do small internal maintenance in the classrooms with larger jobs during the holidays. Blinds are ready to go up in some of the classrooms in the next week.

Living on an island has many positive points and some less so. One of the lesser parts can be with conversations about your work. I have asked the staff at OLSH to maintain confidentiality in the community when questioned about school matters. I am more than willing to meet with parents about any concerns that you may have. That way staff know what is expected and their social lives can be just that. It also protects parents and students should that become a topic.

As I have said before P and F meetings are the best forum for discussion on ways to improve our school.

In the way of Mary
Paul Keenan

Our Captains, Mali and Ben, with Bishop James Foley during Catholic Education Week Celebrations in Cairns

News from the APFL

During Catholic Education Week, we were able to celebrate our journey in the way of Jesus. We had great support from members of the community in pulling together the school mass. Along our veranda, each student has created a footstep that shows how all of us are sharing the journey. Sharing the journey was the theme for Catholic Education Week. Our leaders, with the principal, were able to proudly represent our school at the Catholic Education Week mass in Cairns, amongst other representatives from schools state-wide.

Our Athletics Carnival is one of those annual events that truly showcases how we share our journey. With togetherness, students, parents and staff display the care and compassion for one another that stands behind good sportsmanship and team spirit. We have tremendous gratitude for all those who volunteered time and resources to help run such an enjoyable athletic day!

Year 2/3 Class News

Dear Parents

Week 3 was another big week in the year 2/3 Classroom with lots of learning. We learnt about different units of measurement for maths. How to write a procedure for English and started exploring the world around us specifically climate and how this effect peoples choices in how they live.

The big news was that we finally got our new desks. The students are enjoying them and we have gotten straight into work using them.

We celebrated Catholic education week with the students contributing to the pathway of feet along our veranda. We also had a lovely whole school MASS on Friday in which the children sung very well.

We are now settling into our new routine with reading groups running smoothly. Our reading groups run every day except Tuesday’s from 8:40 to 9:15 so come and join the children on their reading adventure. This Friday is our athletics carnival and we are all looking very forward to it. Please come to support our students.

Yours in God
Mr Sedran

Casey and Jacob during reading groups

Students having a rest while moving
their old desks into storage

Year 1 News in Pictures

VIEW GALLERY

Year 1 News in Pictures

Click images to enlarge

Final Choir Trip Thank yous…

A Huge Eso to our organisers-Ms Chi Chi Fujii, Helen Osborne, Donna See Kee, and Cale Fisher. We are also very grateful to our dedicated elders Mrs Rita Dorante, Mr Anson Dorante, Mrs Tassie McDonald, Mr Benny Mabo and Mrs Margaret Gabey. Many thanks also to our parent/volunteers who got themselves to Cairns and tirelessly helped us with students, activities and meals etc.

Serena Manaena
Beryl Daniel

Karen Maguire and Conner Maguire
Rachelle Jia
Chelsea Carswell
Jodi Taylor
Michelle See Kee
Sook Hahn and Silva See Kee
Marita Sagigi
Gemma Osborne

The choir visited and performed on other days for boarders at St Augustine’s, St Andrew’s Junior school and Our Lady Help of Christians Schools in Cairns. They also provided a family concert at the Seville Mercy Conference Centre where over 60 people gathered from extended friends and family in the Cairns area.

Thanks for your all your help and overall support to these organisations and people;

TSRA
Torres Cleaning & Maintenance-Rae and Geoff Archibald
Jared and Kimberley-Torres Hotel
HACC
TI Rotary Club
Mrs Margaret SeeKee and the /servers at our cake stall
Mura Kosker for purchasing our dress material
Ms Nadine Tarrant & Ms Chelsea Carswell with year one students for Mother’s Day Cake Stall and helping with hair flowers
Friday Island Pearl Farm
Mr Wilke Fauid for making our Kulups
Mrs Janelle Gebadi for making our dresses and dance outfits
St Augustine’s College-boarding tour, dinner and bus transport
The Seville Mercy Conference Centre
Kimberley & Wayne See Kee
Deb Reis
Staff and parents at Hammond Island Campus
Christine Benjamin
Hammond Island Shire Council
Hammond Island Ferry Service
Staff and community of Thursday Island Campus
St Andrew’s Catholic College - Miss Emma Lovell, Ms Amanda Stephen
Our Lady Help of Christians School - Cairns
Myree Sam for supplying extra instruments and palm leaves in Cairns
Mr Paul & Mrs Santina Keenan
McDonald’s Charter for ferries
Godfrey’s Construction, The Grand Hotel and Gab Titui for generous raffle donations

My sincere apologies if I have missed anyone who contributed to our trip - we are greatly appreciative of everyone’s help.

Thank you Thank you Thank you Eso Eso Eso

Hammond Pre-Prep News

Hello Parents,

We have had a busy start to term 3 in pre-prep. The flu is bad as some of our children were absent due to this terrible illness. But most of us have pulled through and are ready to carrying on with term topic which is based on farm animals. We have been listening and copying the noises that they make on a farm with the farmer and his helpers, the farm dogs.

The rhyming songs and puppets are our huge success especially with our hands and fingers that wriggle and use to make them move and talk.

Counting to forwards and backwards to five and randomly identifying the numbers to five was our focus for this term, plus correspondence with coloured counters to match each number value. We will continue practicing our numbers until we all feel confident and are able to identify them with ease.

The Health Team visited our class and with parental permission came to test our eyes, ears, colours, patterns, height and toilet test. Mrs Ball rang our mums to help us do our toilet test as this was something we felt comfortable with our mums who takes care of us all the time at our home. We all felt happy afterwards and returned to our daily class activities with our ‘oa’ sound pictures. Xavier started us singing our nursery rhyme of ‘humpty dumpty’.

Our obstacle course we love as we practise our gross motor skills with identifying the colours and counting the hoops, jumping on the trampoline, balancing forward, backward and sideways on the plank, crawling through the green caterpillar and walking on the blue bridge counting the steps, rolling on the yellow and blue mattresses and twisting on the blue twister. Sometimes we walk around or jog twice to keep our bodies fit and healthy then sit and have a drink of water.

We have been bouncing, kicking and throwing the ball to each other having lots of fun!

Ipads we enjoy during our rest time and lots of books to choose and read by looking at the pictures. Let’s continue learning, challenging and discovering new activities at pre-prep.

Kind Regards,
Mrs Marion Ball and Miss Dorothy

Prep News in Pictures