Term 1, Week 10. 2024

Dear St Saviour's Primary School Community,

As we come to the end of Term 1, I would like to take this opportunity to say a few thank yous and reflect on the past ten weeks. 

A Heartfelt Thank You

To our dedicated teachers, school officers and service staff, who pour their hearts into every lesson, thank you for igniting curiosity, sparking creativity, shaping young minds and building positive relationships. Your passion and commitment are the bedrock of our students’ success.

To the office staff, with your warm smiles and tireless efforts, you make our school feel like home. Your kindness and efficiency keep our administrative wheels turning smoothly.

And to our parents, you are the unsung heroes behind the scenes. Your involvement, support, and encouragement uplift our entire community. Whether it’s volunteering at events, attending parent-teacher meetings, or cheering from the sidelines, your contributions matter more than you know and make St Saviour's Primary the fantastic community that it is.

Moments to Treasure

As we look back on this term, we cherish the memories created. From the laughter in the classrooms to the camaraderie during school events, each moment has woven a beautiful tapestry of shared experiences.

In particular, I would like to mention all of the new students and families to St Saviour's Primary this year and wish you continued success as we enter into Term 2.

A Community of Kindness and Compassion

A distinctively, contemporary, Catholic school isn’t just about academics; it’s about fostering empathy, respect, compassion and educting the whole child. We’ve witnessed acts of kindness—big and small—within our community. Whether it’s a helping hand, a thoughtful gesture, or a friendly smile, these moments define us.

So, let’s continue into the remainder of the year to Strive in Faith, Learning and Life!

Have a happy and holy Easter.

Sam Hannant

….experiencing FAITH in the Mercy Tradition

As Term 1 draws to a close and we look toward the Easter break and holidays, it’s a good time to stop, look back and reflect. Ask yourself and your child/ren - Have I been a good memory for someone this term? Did I share my talents as often as I could? Did I share a kind word or thought with someone who maybe going through a challenging time? Lent is a time for thinking about how we can be the best people we can be and how we can continue to stay conscious of that in the coming days, weeks and months ahead.

Thank you for donating to our Project Compassion fundraiser! Each class had a collection box and the total of those was $548.80 and along with the online funds (Thanks for Nina & Penny Lucas, Asher Williams, Randuli Wijayaratne and Estelle Harlen for your online donations) of $140, our total was $688.80! We reached our goal! Thank you!!

The winning class with a total of $78.90 is Yr 4H! Congratulations and thank you!

Congratulations to Evee (Yr 3B), William and Imogen (Yr 3BH) on your beginning your Sacramental journey by celebrating your Baptisms in the last couple of weeks. Thank you to Fr Michael for making these special events so personal and meaningful. We pray for Ivana (Yr 2F) who will be Baptised on Easter Sunday!

In our classrooms during this week, students have been exploring and discussing child protective behaviours as we lead into the holidays. Some resources available include the Daniel Morcombe program and the Real Talk program provided by TCSO. Teachers will be reminding students as to who our Student protection officers are here at St Saviour’s and highlighting the importance of safe behaviours, particularly online. There are a number of parent resources which you can access at home to help support you with these discussions.

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents

A very user friendly resource is the eSafety Guide – Want to know more about the latest apps, games and social media that your child is using? The eSafety Guide includes important advice about their safety features, including how to use the settings to report online abuse and protect personal information.

https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-issues/esafety-guide

Congratulations to our award winners for Term 1. The following students were acknowledged for demonstrating our Mercy values and also recognising their efforts by being awarded the Encouragement award.

Over the last couple of weeks the leadership team have been meeting with new families who are looking to send their child to Prep at St Saviour’s next year. Having the opportunity to explain how our school brings to life its mission of ‘stiving in faith, learning and life’ has given me pause to reflect upon the abundance of ways our community wraps around our students with purpose and determination for all children to succeed. It is also a reminder of the privilege it is that families chose our school to guide their children in their learning journey and the importance of both parents and teachers working collaboratively to achieve the best outcomes for our students.   

As the term ends, I would like to thank all of you for working collaboratively with us this term.  Thank you to all those parents who participated in Parent Teacher Interviews last week.  I’m sure you can also appreciate the time and effort teachers place on providing this time for you and I thank all our teaching staff for their extra efforts not only last week, but across the term.

It has been a pleasure meeting and speaking with many different parents this term, often in difficult circumstances.  These interactions have reinforced for me the strong culture at St Saviour’s of developing respectful and productive partnerships between the school and parents.

The Parent Engagement Network ‘Life’ committee met this week and have finalised plans for our first community event for the year.  On Wednesday 24^th of April we will be holding a Disco and BBQ.  This is the day before ANZAC day holiday in Week 2 of Term 2.  SAVE THE DATE!  Further information will be sent out early next term.  We also plan to have our new library open by that date and are hoping to offer tours of the new facility on this night.

Finally, I would like to wish you all a safe and refreshing break over Easter. When retelling the Easter story sometimes children, and maybe even adults, can feel like it is a sad, somewhat violent story of Jesus’ demise.  On Good Friday we reflect upon the day that Jesus was crucified, however if we focus only on that part of the story, we are missing the true message of Easter, which is one of hope.  Easter Sunday when the tomb was found empty is the culmination of the story of hope, love and renewal.   We can draw strength from the Easter story knowing that even when bad times happen in our lives, we can have hope that good things are still to come. There is always opportunities for new beginnings when we open to God’s love in our lives.  

Enjoy the holidays!

Katie Hauser

Dear Parents, 

STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics!

STEM at St Saviour's is integrated into the curriculum in all classes to provide opportunities for students to think, plan, design, reflect and evaluate using 21st Century skills.  STEM helps develop a problem solving mineset and also requires students to use our St Saviour's Learner Qualities - determination/creativity/collaboration/thinker.  Next Term our before school STEM clubs will begin, which will give students extra opportunities develop their skills in STEM. 

Our Junior STEM Accademy will begin in Week 2 Term 2, starting at 7:45am - 8:15am. This Club will run out of the Prep H classroom and will be supported by Mrs Hawkins, Mrs Laing and Miss K.  Our Junior STEM Accademy will focus on the science and enginerring part of STEM, where students will be required to make prototypes to test, evaluate and redesign, often in small groups.  In week one of next term, a note will go out on Sentral and only 20 students will be able to be accepted.

Students in Years 4/5/6 can joing the Senior STEM Academy for an exhilarating journey into the world of coding and gamification using MicroBits! Years 4 to 6 students who are curious about technology and eager to dive into the realm of programming should come along and trial our STEM Academy. In our STEM Academy sessions, students will have the opportunity to unlock the secrets of coding while creating fun and interactive games with MicroBits and SPHEROS. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced coder, there's something for everyone. Let's unleash our creativity, problem-solving skills, and passion for STEM together! Senior STEM will run out of the 4H Classroom, Thursday mornings from 8am to 8:30am – Starting Term 2, Week 1!  Students who come along will need to bring their school devices.

We hope to have many of you at our STEM Clubs in Term 2.

Enjoy your holidays and a well earnt rest with family.

Kind regards, 

Bec Thomas

Happy Easter and happy holiday reading from the library team!

Don't forget to get your copy of "The Magic Hour" by David Wolstencroft to read as a family over the break and into Term 2. We will set a date mid term to come together to chat about this fast paced, quite magical story which is Book 1 in a planned series!

Gratitude goes to our volunteer coverers as always! Thank you to the Harlen family, the Enders family, Tarsha Scotts, Merryl Nunn and Andrea Nunn for their covering work and beautiful bookmarks this term.

We are excited to be planning our move into the new library space. As well as this momentous time in our school, we will celebrate stories, books and the work of amazing authors with "Step into Stories", National Simultaneous Storytime and Regional Readers' Cup in Term 2. Stay tuned for more on all these fabulous events!

Anne Anderson

Teacher Librarian

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St Saviour's Primary Junior Swimming Carnival 2024 

St Saviour’s Primary Junior Swimming Carnival was held on the 25th of March at Glennie Aquatic Centre. Students from Prep to Year Two participated in this carnival. It was a fantastic carnival with students gaining water confidence but most importantly having lots of fun (photos attached). 

School Sport 

Congratulations to Joe Black who made the Darling Downs Cricket team, Samuel Abot and Akeer Adol who made the Darling Downs team for Basketball and Sienna Grice who made the Darling Downs AFL team. They will all now compete in the State Championships later in the year. Mahaylie Weribone, Aya Doherty, Lily Brookman, Joe Black and Liam McHugh also made the Toowoomba Team for Touch Football and Darcy Phillips made the Toowoomba team for Rugby League. They will all attend Darling Downs trials to try and make the Darling Downs team. Good luck and we look forward to hearing all about your fantastic experience. 

Weekly Sport Stars 

Congratulations to Rose Stead and Emily Carrigan who competed at the Queensland Athletics Championships over the weekend. Emily competed up an age group as an U13 and won the shot put (3kg) with a put of 9.20m. She also came third in the Discus (750g) with a throw of 29.77m. Rose Stead did a 15 second PB running 5.01 in the 1500m at the QLD Athletics State Champs coming third qualifying for the Queensland team for the first time. Both girls are off to nationals in April. Fantastic effort girls.

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. 

Have a safe and happy Easter break and look forward to seeing everyone in Term Two. 

Cheers 

Brendan Luck 

HPE Teacher 

brendan.luck@twb.catholic.edu.au 

What a term of chess we have had!  With over 30 children participating in chess club this term, it has been a hive of activity in 5M each Friday morning.   

Congratulations to the sixteen children who competed in the Individual Chess Competition at Toowoomba Anglican School on Tuesday 5th March 2023.   

There were close to 400 children competing, with 25 schools represented.  It was wonderful to see a high representation of girls, with over 100 girls there. 

Holly Coffison, Jivanthy Francis, Maddie and Maeley Skerman and Randuli Wijayaratne (Year 3) and Alfie Benvenuti, Ollie Duke, Quinn Croft and Faye Campbell (Year 2) competed in the Novice Section in a pool of 123 children from different schools.  This was their first time competing in an individual competition and they did themselves and their school proud.  

Randuli did especially well, coming fourth overall and receiving a trophy for ‘Outstanding Female Achievement’.  Well done! 

In the Open Section, there were 258 competitors.  In this section, we had our Year 6 boys Liam McHugh, Hari Vinod and Chevy Bennett and our Year 4s – Sam Hardy, Jaishan Francis, Levi Nash and Thea Campbell .  The children secured some wins, some draws and some losses.  The students’ behaviour was exemplary, representing St Saviour’s well and they reported having an enjoyable day of chess, handball, cards, footy and socialising. 

We have had several beginners start chess club this term, and hopefully they will continue and have the opportunity to also represent St Saviour’s in the future. 

Sara McHugh 

Choir News – Sing Out 2024! 

Date Claimer: Thursday 6 June, Sing Out Twilight Concert, Empire Theatre 

The St Saviour’s Primary School Choir, involving interested students in Years 3 – 6, rehearses on Wednesdays from 7:45am – 8:25am. We are learning a number of songs to perform next term at Sing Out, an exciting choral event at the Empire Theatre. 

Our SSPS Choir will participate in Sing Out on Thursday 6 June. This will involve a daytime choral workshop and an evening concert, working with Mrs Jenny Moon, a guest conductor from Brisbane. 

The Sing Out Twilight Concert will be given by choirs from about 12 primary schools, who will combine to perform in a massed choir of about 500 young singers. Further information, including permission forms, will be sent out closer to the event.  

I trust that everyone in our SSPS community enjoys a blessed Easter and I look forward to making music with all our students in Term 2. 

Kathryn Stewart (Music Teacher)  

Office Hours - Easter Break:

The office will be open from 9-1pm throughout the holiday period.

Term 2:

The first day of Term 2 is Tuesday 16 April.  Monday is a Pupil Free Day.

Parking:

Parents please be considerate when parking around the school at 3.00pm.

We understand that car parking spots are difficult to find, but it is really important to be mindful of where you are parking of an afternoon.  We appreciate that finding a park can be difficult especially with the building works in progress, however we have had reports from families, who unfortunately have been blocked or parked in and unable to leave of an afternoon due to this happening.  Thank you for your understanding.

School Uniform Shop:

The Uniform Shop will be closed throughout the holidays however it will be open on Tuesday 16 April - normal opening hours. 

School Crossing Supervisor:

We officially welcome Susie Dart to the St Saviour's Primary School Crossing Supervisor team.  Please make sure you say hello and welcome to Susie beginning Term 2.

Congratulations Week 9 Awards