2019 Term 1 Week 5 Newsletter

Dear Parents and Caregivers

As of 2019, the Parents & Friends Associations in Queensland have a new name. The Federation of Parents and Friends Associations of Catholic Schools in Qld are now called Catholic School Parents Queensland. I am pleased to announce the members of our Catholic School Parents executive for 2019.  Congratulations to Mr Adam Prust as President; Mr Michael Darvall as Vice-President; Mr Steve McDonald as Secretary and Mrs Danielle Hart as Treasurer.  St Saviour’s Catholic School Parent Diocesan representatives are Mrs Danielle Hart and Mr Brendan Zimmerlee. 

There was much laughter and shared ‘story’ at the annual general meeting and I look forward to working in partnership with our new executive and the parents of our school.

Look out! Look out, there are children about!

Respect and care for safety outweighs convenience every time. We really need your help. The staff and I really love to welcome the children as they arrive at school. We love the smiles on their faces, their enthusiasm and the fact that they have arrived safely. The traffic around St Saviour’s Primary School can be potentially dangerous and I am imploring every parent to drive in a manner that is protective of every child and member of the public. Convenience should not be more important than respect and care when driving around the school precinct. Your support in this matter will be greatly appreciated.

SCHOOL FEES

School fee accounts were sent home via email in Week 2 of this Term. Prompt payment of all school fees is appreciated. The new year is an important time to review the arrangements that you currently have in place to ensure your school account is kept up to date.

Here are some points to consider:

1. Is my current Direct Debit/BPAY arrangement sufficient to cover the 2019 fees? Please feel free to contact the finance officers for assistance in calculating the amount required as we will be able to include the opening balance on your account.

If you already have an existing DD and just need to amend the amount/frequency, again, contact us for the appropriate form.

It is important to amend /set up your direct debit/BPAY as soon as possible to take advantage of spreading the cost over the remaining weeks/fortnights of the year. With each passing week, the amount you will be required to pay will increase! From Monday 4/3/18 there are only 44 weeks left in the year!

2. Did you receive a concession last year and would like to receive it again?

Each year it is necessary to reapply for a concession on your school fees. This will require a new application to be completed and returned with supporting documentation. On receipt, we will review your application and contact you to make an appropriate time to meet with us and discuss your request.

4. Do you envisage difficultly in paying your fees?

The school can help those families in genuine financial difficulty. As difficult as it may be, it is best to contact us immediately as there are avenues for us to help. Concessions may be granted and do require a meeting with the Principal and the completion of some paperwork.

Our expectation is for all accounts to be paid on time (14 days from issue) or be covered by a regular direct debit /BPAY.

If this is not going to be case, you must advise us promptly.

I appreciate the burden school fees can place on the household budget. We must accept the financial responsibility that comes with that and I encourage all parents to continually engage with us to ensure the School is aware of your situation.

Dear Parents,

St Saviour’s Primary School is scheduled for a School Renewal and Improvement quadrennial school review from Monday the 18^th March through to Friday the 22^nd March.  This is a very informative process that helps shapes the future direction our school. 

The Toowoomba Catholic Schools Office has a School renewal and improvement framework in place which has as a key element a quadrennial school review. In this review a panel consisting of senior staff from the Toowoomba Catholic Schools (TCS) Teaching and Learning Directorate and a peer principal from another school in the Diocese visit the school for three days.

Through a process of appreciative inquiry, panel members interview staff, parents/carers, students and community members. The questions asked are “In your opinion, what is going well at the school?” and “What could be done better?” The purpose is for the panel to report to the school community its findings and suggested improvement strategies. These inform the process of strategic plan development and the annual action plans which are also linked to the TCS Strategic Plan.

The aim is to assist schools to strategically plan to improve teaching and learning and these reviews occur in all TCS schools.

The review team would like to hear from the school community and I encourage anyone who is interested to have their say. Your feedback is important and will help us to continue to achieve the two pillars of TCS: that all students will come to personally know Jesus and that all students will achieve academic success.

Feedback can be provided to the review panel in person or by telephone. All feedback remains confidential.

Please contact the school office if you are interested in speaking to a reviewer. You may also register your interest by emailing madonna.sleba@twb.catholic.edu.au or ssps@twb.catholic.edu.au .

Yours sincerely

Madonna Sleba

Principal

Dear Parents and Carers,

As we reach the half way mark for Term One, we also find that Ash Wednesday and LENT are upon us next week. It is a time to stop and think about how we are preparing ourselves for Easter. With the students we will be taking time to reflect on how we can become a little more like Jesus. What will our Lenten journey look like? For Ash Wednesday, Fr Michael has made himself available for most of the day, so will be meeting up with class groups to discuss the significance of the day prior to distributing the ashes.

Right across the school, during Lent, classes will be discussing CARITAS' 2019 Lenten theme of "Give Lent 100%". Project Compassion focuses on "the many ways that CARITAS works around the world with local partners to offer hope to people most vulnerable to extreme poverty and injustice. Through an holistic approach, CARITAS is working with communities providing hope for a just and fair world regardless of their ethnicity, political beliefs, gender or religion."

Students and teachers will be looking at real stories of children and families across the globe and over the next few weeks we will share some of those stories and the students' responses to them.

Today, while writing this, eight of our Year 6 leaders have joined with student leaders from other primary Catholic schoools to spend a day learning and planning for Just Leadership as part of a CARITAS: Just leadership Day. Pascal, Amelia, Lottie, Talia, Lindsay, Bridget, Connor and Khai will be taking on the role of helping to promote further awareness across the school, not just during Lent but throughout the year.

FUNDRAISING/ Awareness: While Project Compassion is our focus between now and the end of term, our Free Dress Day last Friday raised $600 which has been sent to Townsville to assist families impacted by recent floods. Thank you very much for your generosity.

Service Days later this term: In the last week of each term this year, we are asking each class to hold/ run a service based activity. The hope is that this will lead to more ongoing outreach throughout the year. Further discussion and planning with teachers will take place over the next couple of weeks however I happened to cross paths with the ROSIES crew next door as they were returning from their own outreach on the weekend so I asked them was there any practical way that the SSPS community could assist them. Being a primary school, we cannot actually join them on their weekly trips into the community. Along with a few other suggestions which we will look further into, I was given the following list of things that are often asked for/ required by the clients of ROSIES who are usually not living comfortably at all. The following items were suggested:

noodles

small tins plain tuna

small containers of shampoo and conditioner

small tin or packs of fruit

paper towels

combs/ small hair brush

There will be a basket in the school office, so if/ when anyone is able to donate something, it can be collected there for later distrubution to Rosies.

WELCOME CUPPA under the GUM TREES: Our wonderful Pastoral Care Team is hosting afternoon tea from 2:20pm tomorrow (Friday). Everyone is welcome to attend and we would love to have you come and say "hello". 

2nd Hand Clothing Pool: Please note that Cathy Condon is unavailable to coordinate the Clothing Pool so if you require second hand uniforms please contact the school office.

STEM PUNKS

In 2019, St Saviour's Primary, with the assistance of staff at the Toowoomba Catholic Schools' Office has been lucky enough to secure the services of the STEM PUNKS company to work with the teachers and students around the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  

The teachers have had an initial introduction with the company and six teachers have been able to spend an afternoon working with Damien from STEM PUNKS looking at 3D Printing and DRONE education.  A big focus of Damien's presentations was the fact that using the STEM tools needs to be for educational purposes, so the teachers had to code their drones to move around the classroom (see photos below).

STEM PUNKS will be working in classrooms with students and teachers from next Thursday.  If you would like more information, please feel free to visit their website https://www.stempunks.com.au/ 

CLASS DATA CONVERSATIONS

This week the Year 3-6 teachers have spent time looking at reading results from whole school testing, individual reading assessment and teacher observations.  The purpose of this was to identify areas that the class or individual struggles with and then to plan teaching episodes around those identified areas to help improve student outcomes.  This will also be happening for the P-2 teachers in the coming weeks.

SCHOOL CHOIR

It was fantastic to see so many students at choir on Wednesday morning with Mrs Spalding and Mrs McVeigh.  A reminder that choir takes place on Wednesday mornings before school.

STUDENT PROTECTION CONTACTS AT SSPS

Student Protection is taken very seriously at St Saviour's Primary.  We do remind your children of who they can talk to if they feel unsafe, however it is always good to get a reminder from home as well. 

Of course, students can feel free to talk to a member of staff who they feel comfortable with, however we do have four designated student protection officers who are Ms Madonna Sleba (Principal), Mr Sam Hannant (APA), Mrs Rachel Harlen (Year 6 teacher) and Mrs Anne Woodcroft-Brown (School Councillor). 

CENTRAL ZONE TOUCH TEAM

Congratulations to Kalai Leifels and Grace Oughtred who have been selected in the Central Zone Touch Football Team to attend the Darling Downs Trials.  Good luck girls!

Central Zone Swimming

It was fantastic to see around 20 students from St Saviour's Primary participate in the Central Zone Swimming Carnival last Wednesday.

Congratulations to the following students who have been selected in the Central Zone Team to compete at the Darling Downs Swimming Trials next Wednesday in Gatton:

Chloe Barram, Emma Barram, Lillian Cook, Lainey Currie, Harper Eagleson, Hannah Marsh, William Boland, James Currie, Dominic Marsh and Dominic Seaby.

My name is Elizabeth Poulton and I am the Learning Support Teacher (LST) at St Saviour’s Primary and I am pleased to be working with the school community this year. Although your child’s class teacher is the main point of contact to support student learning, my role at school is to support teachers to provide the best outcomes for all students in our school. This is best done by:  

• Regular meetings with staff regarding student’s progress. Twice a term, Student Support meetings are conducted to give class teachers an opportunity to discuss student’s progress either academically or socially, after parental contact has been made.
• Advise on strategies to implement in classes to address specific needs.
• Attend teacher planning meetings to advise on required adjustments for students.
• Learning support intervention – Priority is given to the earlier years in the school and students with identified needs in other classes. LST will usually work within the classroom, only withdrawing student to access individual programmes. Parents will be notified and permission requested, if their child requires some leaning support intervention for a period of time.
• Advise class teachers on the best way to utilise school officers in their room to assist individual students or small groups.
• Liase with TCEO School Counsellor, Speech Language Pathologist and Occupational Therapist after a referral has been suggested through the Student Support meeting and coordinate the process.
• Communicate on behalf of the school with external allied health professionals e.g. doctors and specialists regarding a child’s academic progress/behaviours at school.
• Advise parents on external agencies they may like to access.
• Inservice teachers on current government legislation eg collection of data regarding student adjustments.
• Inservice teachers on current educational pedagogy to implement in their classes to address learning needs.

My office is located near the main administration area and I look forward to working with you all this year.

Wellness Week

The hallmark of a safe and supportive school is whole-school wellbeing. In week 6 we are celebrating 'Wellness Week', which focuses on promoting wellbeing among staff, student and parents. Keep an eye out for all our wellness activities, which can be found in the newsletter and via SchoolZine!

The Brave Program

The BRAVE program is a free online self-help program that contains both resources and information for young children,children, teenagers and their parents. It is designed specifically to help young people with anxiety overcome their worries and improve the quality of their lives.

No matter how old or young you are, everyone experiences anxiety at times. We here at the BRAVE program know that worrying about things all the time is tough. The BRAVE program was developed to help young people and their parents develop skills and coping strategies so that your worries and anxiety don’t stop young people from doing the things you want or need to do.

The BRAVE Team also know how hard it can be to make the time to fit everything in! The BRAVE program is an online program that you can work through at your own speed in the privacy of your own home.

Currently there are 3 programs

• Young Children Program (Ages 3 -7)
• Child Program (Ages 8 -12)
• Teen Program (Ages 12 -17)

You can watch Demo’s of each program and also do a 20 minute trial to see if this program may suit Visit The Brave Program to find out more information about each of these programs. 

Year 5/6 Student and Adult Book Club - Expression of Interest

Please advise the library staff if you are interested in reading Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer https://www.eoincolfer.com/artemis-fowl along with your Year 5 and /or Year 6 student as part of our first Book Club for 2019. This much-loved story features a 12 year old criminal mastermind and a world of dangerous, high-tech fairies. It is the first in a series of 8 books and will be released as a film later this year.

Book Buzz and Book Match

During browse and borrow sessions students have an opportunity to share an aspect of what they are reading or have recently finished reading by drawing a Book Buzz card and responding to the prompt or question.

All students have been expected to choose books they feel are a good match for them and which they are motivated to give time to reading. Please support your student to develop a sense of joy from reading by taking an interest in their choices and, where appropriate, sharing the reading with them.

Anne Anderson

Teacher Librarian

Shrove Tuesday Pikelet Sale

Mini Vinnies students will be selling pikelets for 50 cents at 11am next Tuesday 5^th March.

The students’ families will provide the pikelets and students will be giving their morning tea time to run the stall. Please support this fund raiser by buying a pikelet or by donating pikelets, butter or jam to help the Mini Vinnies group. Donations may be left at the library next Monday or Tuesday morning.

SCHOOL FEES:

Just a reminder that school fees are due today.  Thank you to those families who have finalised their term 1 school fee account.

SHREDDED PAPER:

Can you use shredded paper?  We have a fairly regular supply of shredded paper which we are hoping to find a "home" for, rather than end up in the bin.  If you can use it, or know someone who can, please contact Judy Smith via email ASAP.  judy.smith@twb.catholic.edu.au

ASTHMA MEDICATION:

Please ensure if your child does require asthma medication at school, we do require an asthma plan from your child's doctor.  Asthma medication will be kept in the classroom, however, we do require an action plan to accompany the asthma medication.  

SZapp:

Just a reminder that you can log on to CareMonkey via the Szapp.  If you have had any changes to your child's profile or you have changed address recently you need to update this via CareMonkey.  Booking for Parent Teacher Interviews will also be taking place via the Szapp so keep an eye out for more information in the next few weeks about how to book your parent teacher interview time.  Interviews have been scheduled to take place on Monday 1 April (Week 10).  

Week 6 of this term has been designated ‘Wellness Week’. To this end, the Wellness Committee has organised a number of events for students and their families and staff that focus on being grateful for what we have.

These are the activities for the week:

• Simultaneous meditation throughout the school at 1:30 pm Tuesday 5^th March
• Staff meet together for a coffee prior to school on Wednesday 6^th March
• Picnic Lunch on Thursday 7^th March at the school oval.  To focus on our gratitude for the environment, children are encouraged to bring a lunch that has minimal packaging.  Parents are very welcome.
• Throughout the week, students will build a Gratitude Walk for parents along the pathway from Lawrence Street into the school.  Parents are invited at any time to read the expressions of gratitude left by the students.