5 February 2018

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal’s Desk

Dear families,

Welcome to OLSH 2018 and a very special welcome to all our new families and students. Despite the wet weather, we have had a wonderful start to the new year on both our Hammond and Thursday Island campuses. The students are happy, settled, getting along with each other and keen to learn. They are wonderful young people – you should all be proud. Our staff have all returned ready to work together and with parents, students and community to make our great school even better.

Thank you for the greetings, welcoming words and friendship that you have shared with me. These islands are a beautiful place to call home, I am very happy here and just loving my work. I plan to stay for a long, long time. My husband will be joining me as soon as he can finish his work down south and I know that our family will visit often.

Please come and see me if you ever have any concerns. I will be visiting Hammond Island every Thursday to connect with students, teachers and parents there. I am also available via email at principal.ti@cns.catholic.edu.au and on phone 0439 229 909.

One of our goals for 2018 is to communicate clearly with parents and community. To keep up to date with all that is happening please read these newsletters each fortnight. There is a “School Bag App” that you can get on your mobile/device for electronic copies of this newsletter, messages and alerts. We will also use email, SMS and our face book page to share information.

I pray that God blesses our school and all the work that we all do together.

God bless,
Majella Lynch-Harlow
Principal

In this newsletter you will find…

• Our school prayer
• Staff photo board
• Assembly Times
• Parent Information and BBQ night (next week)
• Invitation to Opening liturgy (Fri 9th)
• Invitation to Ash Wednesday liturgy (Wed 14th)
• Delays to Hammond Island Building works
• Assistant Principal News (Wellness)
• Class News
• Garden News
• Interschool Sport News
• Choir News
• Administration News
• School fees and book/resource packs
• Community Announcements

School Prayer

As we commence our year together, we pray that God will be with us and guide us. May Jesus always be present here in our conversations, work and play as we help each other to live life to the full.

Loving God, you show us in Jesus your Son,
how to live, love and respect.
At Our Lady of the Sacred Heart school
we pray that each of us act ‘All For Jesus’.
Help our school to be a place that welcomes everyone.
Encourage us to be the best that we can
and bring us closer to you in everything we say and do.
We make this prayer in Jesus name. Amen.

STAFF

Welcome back to all our fantastic staff. 2018 will be blessed because of their stability, experience and passion. Please see the photo board to know who will regularly be working on each island.

Congratulations to Mrs Kirsty Dunn, our new Assistant Principal Curriculum and Pastoral. Kirsty brings many years of leadership experience to the role, as well as a passion for student wellbeing. Welcome to our new grade three teacher on TI, Mrs Judy Costigan. She has made a big impression already on staff and parents… but most importantly, the children in her class love her and are excited by her lessons.

Hammond Island Campus

Thursday Island Campus

ASSEMBLY TIMES

Hammond Island – Mondays at 8:30am
Thursday Island – Fridays at 8:30am

PARENT INFORMATION NIGHT

We would like all parents to have the chance to meet their child’s teachers and hear about what is happening in class this year. There will be a BBQ sausage sizzle to share.

Thursday Island – Tuesday February 6th. The BBQ will start cooking at 5:30pm. Principal’s welcome at 6pm. Teachers will do two presentations in their room starting at 6:10 and 6:40pm.

Hammond Island – Thursday February 8th. The BBQ will start cooking at 5:30pm. Welcome by Principal at 6pm. Hammond teachers will each present what is happening in their class. As many Hammond families have children attending the Thursday Island campus as well, all class teachers from TI will be introduced and will bring information packs for each child in their class. Thursday Island School Officers will attend as well to meet children and families.

INVITATION TO OPENING LITURGY – FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 9:30AM

Please join us at Sacred Heart Church on Thursday Island as we celebrate the beginning of our school year and recognise our student leaders for 2018. Students from both islands will be there to celebrate as a whole school. This will be a prayer liturgy rather than a Mass. All parents, friends and community members are welcome.

INVITATION TO ASH WEDNESDAY LITURGIES

Our students will lead prayers for Ash Wednesday liturgies on Wednesday February 14. All family, friends and community members are welcome.

Hammond Island – St Joseph’s Church – 9am
Thursday Island – Sacred Heart Church – 9am

DELAYS TO HAMMOND ISLAND BUILDING WORKS

In my visits to Hammond, I have seen how much the school is valued and loved by the community and how much work needs to be done to improve the grounds and buildings. The work should have commenced over the holidays. Unfortunately, the start-up meeting was delayed last year with the passing of an elder. This week, the start-up meeting was delayed again due to questions about how the Native Title claim impacts the land on which the school is built. There is now a wait for legal advice. I am sorry about these delays and the frustration and disappointment for the staff, students and community on Hammond. CES (Catholic Education Services), Council and our school will work together to solve the problems and get started as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

AUSTRALIA DAY AMBASSADOR VISIT

On Tuesday, Mr John Couttis came to visit OLSH TI to speak with students in years 4, 5 and 6. Mr John was the Australia Day Ambassador for the Torres Shire council. He spoke about his own life experiences of bullying and exclusion– his legs never formed properly and so he walks with his hands and scoots along on his skateboard. He spoke about the importance of accepting people’s differences and giving others a hand up. He also spoke about the importance of setting personal goals and striving to be your best – no matter what. Our students loved his jokes and story sharing and asked lots of clever questions. Thank you to the Torres Shire Council for organising this visit.

John “JC” Coutis with the OLSH Student Leadership Team

From the Deputy Principal

I would like to extend a warm welcome to all our returning families and those who are new to Our Lady of the Sacred School community.

I am very excited for the opportunity of my new appointment as Assistant Principal – Curriculum and Pastoral Care. I am very passionate about the wellbeing and development of children and how this directly relates to educational outcomes.

Starting a new school year can sometimes be overwhelming for children and families; even if you are returning to the same school with the same teacher. All children at some point will encounter situations where they may feel worried, anxious or nervous. A priority for students at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School is to ensure all students are supported, valued and nurtured. In 2018 we will be adopting a school-wide dedicated time for mindfulness and self-regulation which is holistically incorporated in our Social Emotional Learning Program. After first break each day students engage in Christian Meditation, Mindfulness activities or relaxation activities for 10 minutes.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a whole body-mind state of awareness that involves ‘tuning in’ to the present moment, with openness and curiosity, instead of ‘tuning out’ from experience. Mindfulness is a state of being fully awake to life – being aware and undistracted in the present moment. It is about focusing attention on the present, rather than thinking about the past or worrying about the future- which is often our brain’s default mode. Mindful awareness is something that we all possess and that can be strengthened through practice. Mindfulness can be developed through formal sitting meditation practices, or through informal everyday mindfulness activities that use the senses to anchor the attention: such as mindful walking, listening to music, eating or conversation. Mindfulness is a clinically proven tool to support wellbeing and mental health by reducing stress and allowing life to be experienced more fully.

The benefits of mindfulness with children

Research shows that mindfulness training increases connectivity in the frontal lobe of the brain, which is linked to improved attention, memory processing and decision making abilities.

Mindfulness training involves tuning in to internal and external experiences with curiosity resulting in increased self-awareness, social awareness, and self-confidence.

Mindfulness training increases children’s ability to self-regulate their emotions, especially difficult emotions such as fear and anger, through breathing and other grounding techniques.

Mindfulness has been shown to improve empathy or the ability to understand what another person is thinking or feeling, which improves children’s awareness of others and helps them to build positive relationships.

Mindfulness and childhood mental health

Mindfulness training has been to shown to reduce the severity of depression, anxiety and ADHD in children.

Mindfulness builds resilience by giving children skills to help them to cope better with stress, as well as engage more fully with themselves and the world.

I look forward to meeting many of you personally at our Parent Information night where families can be informed on the curriculum experiences students will participate in this year and gather information about school life during 2018.

Thursday Island - Tuesday 6th February 5:30pm
Hammond Island - Thursday 8th February 6:00pm

I strongly believe in working collaboratively with families and therefore am happy to meet, chat, yarn about any questions or thoughts you may have. Please see the office to make an appointment with me, or alternatively I can be contacted on kdunn@cns.catholic.edu.au.

Please make sure you check our revamped communication board upon entering the Thursday Island Campus!

Alone we are smart; together we are brilliant! – Steve Anderson
Kirsty Dunn
Deputy Principal

Year 6 Class News

We had an environmentally conscious start to the term creating learning maps to follow through our journey of discovery around how climate change affects the ocean and how changes in the ocean will affect dugongs and seagrass. We shared lots of stories about our experiences with dugongs and identified that the dugong is the totem for a few people in our group. To start off or religion learning for the term we discovered that Christian meditation is about becoming closer to God through being still and silent. Part of our faith as Catholics is the practice of stewardship and we have started that learning by writing a prayer asking God to protect the ocean and marine animals. We did lots of drawing and painting activities to create a beautiful mural to write our class prayer on.

Greenhouse

Big Esso to all the staff who came into school on Saturday afternoon to clean up the greenhouse and get it ready for the seedlings Prep and Grade One will produce in their science lessons this term.

We have had so much help and support from George Saveka with the planning of our science curriculum, big esso George. Each term a class from OLSH will be responsible for the garden and greenhouse, this learning is linked to the Australian Curriculum Biological Sciences learning area, more importantly Ms Michelle and George have designed the OLSH program so that it specialises in growing plants suitable to this region.

Our vegetable garden will get a makeover soon and we are expecting the arrival of a new garden shed plus lots of fun equipment in the next few weeks.

Michelle Hall
Year 6 Teacher

Year 5 Class News

Welcome back to school Congratulations to Abbi, Rylee and Oliver who were our week 1 SEL award winners! We have been busy getting to know each other. As a class, we have discussed and negotiated our class rules and expectations. They are: Respect for Self, Respect for Others and Respect for Property and the Environment. We are striving to demonstrate these through our actions and behaviours. Students are excited about the year ahead , are engaged and are actively participating in individual and group learning.

Thank you and kind regards,
Briohny Jones
Classroom Teacher

Year 4 Class News

Dear Parents

Welcome back to a New Year of learning at OLSH. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and their New Year is off to a great start.

Year 4 had a flying start. In week one we settled in with getting our books organised and creating title pages for each of our subjects. We focused on team building activities with students learning meditation and producing self-portraits. The students did a wonderful job.

During week two, we went straight into schoolwork. Students received their Chapter book for Term 1 ‘The Twits’ and will use them to help with reading comprehension and writing narratives. In maths, we are learning about numbers and place value and have started improving on our timetables. Other lessons have focused on community and the world around us.

Students now have started homework so please sit down with them and watch the magic of learning. In addition, we have an open classroom so come and visit anytime. We would love to see you.

Yours in God
Mr. Sedran

Year 2 Class News

Congratulations to Kade & Abigail as our award winners last week. Well done!

Year 2 has had fun this fortnight with

• Welcoming Abigail Heffernan to our class with her BIG smile!
• Celebrating Julian’s birthday with cupcakes
• Starting 30 days of drawing-Just make a mark and see where it takes us

• Making friends with our new buddy class in year 5 (See the photos)
• Bringing in surprises in our brown paper bags and using lots of adjectives to describe them for news.
• Testing moving toys in Science with Mr Worland
• Writing GUESS WHOO descriptions about ourselves in the owls
• Skip Counting in 3s
• Playing some old records on the turntable in music time & listening to old story records
• Meeting our Bala and Sissy dolls. Thanks Miss Margaret for your handiwork and making them an island dress/lava-lava.

Please contact us at the school/email below if you have any further queries,
Ms Helen & Ms Nadine
hosborne@cns.catholic.edu.au

Prep & Year 1 Class News

Congratulations to all the Prep/1’s for a fabulous start to the year. Well done!

In Prep/1 this fortnight we have had fun with:

• Getting to know each other and making friends
• Exploring what it means to be a respectful OLSH student

• Clapping games and counting syllables
• Sounding out and spelling words
• Drawing and writing in our journals
• Counting, writing numerals, teen numbers and big numbers
• Planning seeds to watch them grow
• Learning to meditate
• Finding out how to be successful

Please contact us at the school/email below if you have any further queries,
Miss Sue, Mrs Ball & Miss Katrina
sdale@cns.catholic.edu.au

Indigenous Liaison News

"Cairns Catholic Education offers a means-tested concession card discount. Parents/carers with a means-tested Australian government health care or pensioner concession card may be eligible to receive a 70% discount to tuition fees (does not apply to school levies).

Card holders are required to advise the school of their concession card at enrolment or when the card is gained. Once the card is sighted by the school’s administration, tuition fees for future terms only will be adjusted. This scheme is intended to assist those families who genuinely do not have the financial capacity to pay tuition fees in full."

CUPPA & YARN DATES:

THURSDAY ISLAND - Wednesday 28th February - 6.00pm to 7.00pm
HAMMOND ISLAND - Thursday 1st March - 5.30pm to 6.30pm

Please contact me on 40692203 from Monday's - Friday's - 8.30am - 3.00pm
Mrs Christine Benjamin
Indigenous Liaison Officer

Week 2 Awards

Week 2 Awards

Skoolbag

The Skoolbag App is one of the major ways we try to keep parents up-to-date with what is happening at the school. It is an app that is installed on your phone or tablet device which receives all the information we send out. All current mobile phones should be able to install the app.

It is also an easy way to advise of any student absences through the Absentee Form.

We will also be posting the link to the school’s newsletter each fortnight so families can view the newsletter.

A copy of how to install Skoolbag into your phone or tablet device is attached.

If you find it difficult to install the app into your phone or tablet, please come into the office and Donna will assist you with this.

Community Announcements

The OLSH P & F Association are holding the AGM on Tuesday 13th February at 6.30pm on Thursday Island.

All Family and Friends are welcome to attend.

Nomination forms are available in the school office or via the skoolbag app.

Choose how to add this event to your calendar:

Apple Calendar iPhone, iPad, Mac - Download .ics file

Outlook Desktop Outlook - Download .ics file

Android Calendar Android devices - Download .ics file

Other Calendar Google Calendar, Yahoo, etc. - Download .ics file

Download Event