Week 3, Term 2, 2022
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
I trust you all enjoyed the lucky last of our trio of public holiday Mondays. These short weeks have done little to impede an action-packed start to Term 2. The long anticipated move into our new administration and staff facilities has finally come and the staff could not be happier. Enormous thanks to the school community for your patience with this building project, particularly our staff who have had no real staff facilities for months and continued to remain on task throughout. Sincere thanks to Liza Ringdahl, Hayball Architects, Mr Paul Bryant, Toowoomba Catholic Schools and members of our school board, your contribution and support was most appreciated. I could not have done it without you.
This week I gathered with my colleagues at the Leadership Forum which was hosted by St Mary’s School, Warwick. The theme for the conference was: Staying on Mission: teaching, learning and getting better at it. Various topics were discussed: Toowoomba Catholic Schools Strategic Plan; The Principal as Strategic Leader; Parent engagement models, hybrid learning, critical incident training to name a few. These days are always jammed packed and this forum was no different. We had the opportunity late one afternoon to walk and view Queen Mary Falls which was a highlight for both Ms Collins (Principal, St Saviour's College) and myself as well as an opportunity to discuss our continued support of each other's strategic directions for our schools.
NAPLAN
In Weeks 4 and 5 of this term, our Years 3 and 5 students will participate in NAPLAN. In doing so, they will join students around the country in a series of tests that assess the literacy and numeracy skills of our young Australians. NAPLAN is a nationally mandated set of four tests: Writing, Reading, Language Conventions and Numeracy. It provides schools and government authorities with information about how education programs are working and what areas need to be prioritised for improvement. The data derived from NAPLAN serves to ensure all Australian students receive an education that provides them with the skills they need to meaningfully and productively participate in the community.
Notably, NAPLAN is only one aspect of how St Saviour’s Primary School measures our students’ literacy and numeracy skills. It does not serve to replace ongoing assessments made by teachers about each student’s performance but it does complement internal assessment items in identifying opportunities for growth for each individual student.
It is worth noting that our Year 5 students have never participated in NAPLAN due to the cancellation of NAPLAN in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this will be the sixth year that St Saviour’s Primary School participates in online testing as we successfully facilitated online testing for NAPLAN in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021. Year 3 and 5 students will be fully prepared for this year’s testing.
Students in Year 5 will use their personal device to participate in NAPLAN Online via the NAP Lockdown Browser, which has been downloaded last week. Year 3 will use the school iPADS to complete their tests. They will also require a set of headphones (earpods cannot be used in order to maintain the integrity of the tests). To see a sample of what your child’s NAPLAN tests will look like, please visit the NAPLAN Public Demonstration Site and view this online brochure for more information.
A key benefit of NAPLAN Online is ‘tailored testing’ which gives students questions that are suited to their ability, enabling more precise results. Our experience in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021 also suggests that it improves the engagement of our students. Refer to the NAPLAN test schedule outlined by Mr Sam Hannant in this newsletter.
Mother’s Day Stall
I know many of our children are eagerly anticipating buying an appreciation gift for their mum’s this Friday at the Mother’s Day stall. Thanks to our parent helpers for making this happen for the children.
Finally, in honour of Mother’s Day this coming Sunday and in recognition of the important role mothers and mother figures play in all our lives, I’ll end this week with a beautiful prayer from the Wodonga Catholic Parish.
We pray for all mothers, may they cherish their child with tender care and unconditional love.
We pray for the mothers who are separated from their children especially because of the COVID-19 pandemic and because of war, poverty, conflict, violence and for any other reasons.
Comfort them, strengthen their hope, let them feel your loving embrace that wipes every tear away.
We pray for all mother-figures, those who have loved,
surrounded and shaped us with motherly care and compassion.
We especially pray for our own mothers who have nurtured and cared for us,
their sacrifices and care gave us a glimpse of the extent of your love for us.
Thank you for them.
Grant health, blessings, and well-being for those of our mothers who are still alive.
We also remember those mothers who are no longer with us.
While they live forever in our hearts and memory, grant them eternal rest. Amen.
In May, the month of Mary, we ask for our Blessed Mother’s blessing on all mothers and mother-figures in our St Saviour’s Primary School community.
Many blessings
Madonna Sleba
Principal
Dear Parents and Carers,
I take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy day for Sunday, with some time spent in appreciating what our Mothers are doing or have done for us. I hope too, that your child/ren show you by their thoughful actions and kind words, just how much their parents and carers mean to them.
Weekly Parish Mass: From next Tuesday, classes from SSPS will be joining with Fr Michael and parishioners for a weekly 9am parish Mass. Year 6s will be going next Tuesday, May 10 with Year 5s going the following week. After that, the order (at this stage) is, Year 3, Year 2, Year 1, Prep, with Year 4 attending in Week 10. This of course is after our Sacramental Group has made their 1st Communion.
Parents and families are very welcome to attend as well and we hope that you can join us sometimes as this will be a regular event now for the rest of the year.
Sacramental Program: Resources and an email have been sent home to families with information about the program this term.
Please note that the first Cluster Group is being held today (Thursday 3:30pm in the Cathedral Centre).
Pastoral Care Team: For several years now, SSPS has had an active Pastoral Care Team, comprised of a diverse group of parents and coordinated by me. The aim of this group is to maintain our strong, welcoming community through activities such as hosting and greeting new families and providing assistance to those having a tough time.
Due to restricitions imposed by COVID and also the lack of space/ staff room, fridge etc the Pastoral Care Team has not been as active as before. However, I am pleased to get the word out that I will be sending out a group email in the coming days " to rally the troops" again, so that we can restock our fridge with meals and determine an opportunity to welcome everyone back, particularly new families.
If you would like to be a part of this group, or at least find out more about what that means, please email me at judy.smith@twb.catholic.edu.au and I will be in touch.
Fundraiser for school in Lismore devastated by recent floods: St Carthages in Lismore was severely inundated by recent floodwater, with a teacher I know and her early years class, losing everything. See photos below...
Classrooms are unuseable and even the oval is not deemed safe for the students to play on.
As a gesture of solidarity, we are going to have a "Free Dress Day for Lismore" next Friday 13th, asking all students to bring a gold coin which will be collected and sent to St Carthages.
And finally, today we celebrated Administrative Officers' Day with our three amazing "front of house" ladies, Julie, Jodie and Alex. SSPS is sooo fortunate to have these ladies who "do what they do" and always with a smile on their face. A huge "Thank You" as the rest of us could not do what we do, without you!
Administrative Officers' Day is actually tomorrow (Friday) so please feel free to show your appreciation too, if you get the opportunity.
Enjoy your weekend,
Judy
Dear Parents and Carers,
As Ms Sleba has mentioned above, one of the major events taking place this term is NAPLAN. As you may be aware NAPLAN takes place in primary schools for students in Years 3 and 5. NAPLAN is a point-in-time assessment that allows parents and carers to see how your child is progressing in literacy and numeracy against the national standard and compared with peers throughout Australia. At the classroom level, NAPLAN provides additional information to support teachers’ professional judgement about student progress and also helps to inform furture learning.
In 2022, NAPLAN will take place in Weeks 4&5 of Term 2. Please see the exact dates below:
| 10 May Writing Tests | |
| 11 May | Year 5 Reading and Conventions of Language Tests |
| 12 May | Year 3 Reading and Conventions of Language Tests |
| 16 May | Years 3 & 5 Numeracy Tests |
Catch-up tests will take place in the following week for those students who are away on these dates.
All tests will take place online, apart from Year 3 writing which will be paper based. Year 3 students will use iPads supplied by the school and Year 5 students will use their personal Surface Go device. It is important that all students have their own headphones (as per the booklist) available to them on these days.
If you have any further questions regarding NAPLAN or you are considering withdrawing your child, feel free to contact your child's teacher or myself for advice.
SCHOOL COUNSELLOR POSITION
Today was the final day for our current school counsellor, Mrs Christina Peak. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Christina for the knowledge and wisdom she has provided in her time at St Saviour's Primary. She has made a valuable contribution to our community and I wish her luck in her future endeavours.
We will be welcoming back Miss Anne Woodcroft-Brown on the 18th May. Miss Anne has been on maternity leave since the arrival of her first child last year.
Thank-you again Christina and welcome back Anne.
IGNITE LEARNING & LEARNING DISPOSITIONS
For the parents and families who are new to St Saviour's Primary, I thought an introduction to the St Saviour's Ignite Learning Project and Learning Dispositions would be a welcome addition.
The Ignite Learning Project is in its second official year at St Saviour's Primary. This project is based on quality research into education and school improvement to help develop a culture of learning, a common language of learning and a community of learners. Within this, we aim to develop expert learners. Amongst other things, these expert learners know how to learn and have developed the dispositions or capabilitties to become a lifelong learner.
At St Saviour's Primary the dispositions that we have developed are below. They are based on feedback from parents, students and staff around what our learners need to become experts.
Feel free to discuss these with your child/learner at home and ask what they are learning about at school and how they are using these dispositions in their learning.
Sam Hannant
APA
We had the pleasure of welcoming Integrated STEM to our school last Thursday. The day was a great success, where the students' curiosity was very much sparked! It was a full day out from traditional learning for all Year 5 and 6 students. They had the opportunity to learn from professionals in the STEM industry and took many things away from the day. Below are a few responses from our Year 6 students:
Lucy
I loved the circuit session because it was really interesting. We learnt how to use breadboards and male male chords to light up an LED. I also liked the motion sensor session. We used a motion sensor to create a buzzer. I learnt that if you connect the right amount of chords and stay determined it will always turn out.
Scarlett
At the end of the day, we designed our own weapons using Tinkercad, working in groups of 3. We used the design thinking process, which helped us to create a weapon that could attack other battle bots.
Piper
At the end of the day, Fraser talked about how he has made a robot that cuts the right amount of fat from meat so that he could reduce the cost of processing meat. He was having some technical difficulties cutting off the right amount of fat and needs to redesign his robot to be more precise. Fraser has also designed some equipment for John Deer. He put cameras on the sprinklers so they can detect where the weeds are and only spray them, not the crops.
The same company that ran the day is running some after school workshops in Term 3. Spots are limited and filling fast! See more details on the poster below or email me at Nicarla.prentice@twb.catholic.edu.au.
Hopefully there will be some budding engineers, architects, computer programmers and website designers out there keen to give these workshops a go!
Warm Regards
Nicki Prentice
Congratulations to the following children who were presented with Encouragement Awards and Cornerstone Value Awards on Assembly last week. These children were absent from school last term when these were presented.
We are back to regular browse and borrow sessions for all classes! Please remind your children to bring their loans in their bags each week. Students are welcome to borrow from 3 pm-3.15 pm Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday if they miss their regular class day. I trust you can share in the joy of reading your student's library choices with them because modelling a love of reading is a powerful example to set.
Lunchtime activities in the library (1 pm-1.25 pm) will commence next Tuesday, everyone is welcome!
Our Readers' Cup team of four Year 6 students has the task of reading five set books to take part in the regional competition to be held on Tuesday 14th June. Thank you for your comittment Abby, Amelia, Lucy and Piper and keep reading!
The following is the current focus for weekly library lessons;
Year 3 - Asking questions and locating information from different sources to explain the celebration and significance of Chinese New Year
Year 4 - Asking questions and locating information from different sources to gain knowledge of the first voyage of Captain James Cook, its purpose and outcomes.
Year 5 - Gathering geographical information from maps to understand the landforms and vegetation of Australia
Year 6 - Gathering information to understand fake news, how we can detect it and what behaviours reduce its harmful effects
Happy reading everyone!
Anne Anderson
Teacher Librarian
Thanks for completing your Term 2 Book Club order online by this Friday 6th May.
Your orders earn rewards which are used for wonderful new library books!
Michelle Standing
Book Club Organiser
Health (P-2) Term Two
Prep students will be learning about their personal identity, safe areas to play at home, school and the wider community and emotional responses they experience in different situations. Year One will be focusing on respecting differences, their feelings and other people’s feelings to different situations and safety situations, and strategies. The learning focus for Year Two is their personal responsibility to keeping themselves and peers safe, emotional responses and body clues and looking at advertising. I will be teaching health lessons to Prep to Year Two in Semester One and Health lessons to Year Three to Year Six in Semester Two.
PE (P-2) Term Two
Students in Prep to Year Two are completing a Cricket unit learning how to throw, catch and bat. Students will also learn modified Athletics activities in the lead up to the school athletics carnival at the end of Term Two. Students will also be engaged in station activities where six stations are set up and they rotate between them throughout the lesson. These activities involve passing, catching, kicking, dribbling with feet, hands and hockey sticks, shooting hoops, scooter boards, skipping, goal shooting, ups and downs with tennis racquets, hopping, jumping, skipping, side stepping, animal crawling and balancing.
PE (3-6) Term Two
In Term Two, students will participate in Athletics, learning how to execute Shot Put, Discus, High Jump, Long Jump, Sprints, Relays and Ball Games. The skills the students have acquired will then be utilised in the school athletics carnival at the end of Term Two.
Central Zone Cross Country
On Friday the 29th of April, Rose Stead, Aya Doherty, Mahaylie Weribone, Finnegan Hannam, Grayson Nissen, Mia Casagrande, Ayen Gakeer, Sophia Hooper, Taylor Wann, Casey Weeden, Thomas Prust, Addison Guy, Maddison Kratzke and Jamie Lowe competed at the Central Zone Cross Country. All students did a fantastic job on the day with Jamie Lowe, Taylor Wann, Finnegan Hannam, Aya Doherty and Rose Staed qualifying for the ZONE team and will now be competing at the Darling Downs Cross Country (Pictures Attached).
Discus Permission for Athletics Training and Event
During Term Two and Term Three I will be conducting Discus training in the lead up to St Saviour's Primary Athletics Carnival. As Discus is considered a HIGH risk activity, parent permission is needed for your child/ren to participate in training and the event at the School Athletics Carnival (if applicable). All training will be conducted by Mr Luck who is a qualified HPE teacher and an accredited athletics coach. Can you please fill out permission form on Sentral for your child to be able to receive training at school and complete in Discus at the St Saviour's Athletics Carnival? Please note that if no permission is received, then your child will not be able to participate.
FREE Afterschool Cricket Sessions (Year 1 – Year 6)
Cricket Queensland has been organised through Sporting Schools to deliver Cricket sessions on Tuesday afternoons from 3:00pm – 3:45pm from the 10th of May 2022 to the 31st of May 2022 (four weeks). There are only 30 spots for this opportunity for your child to come and try cricket in a fun and safe environment. The first 30 parents to email myself will secure the spots for this afternoon activity. Please email brendan.luck@twb.catholic.edu.au. Please note that no teacher will be at these sessions, and they will be run from a representative from Cricket Queensland.
School Sport
Congratulations to Ariana Jeffrey who made the Darling Downs team for Netball and Sophia Hooper who made shadow. Evie Phillips and Lucy Hardy also made the Darling Downs team for Hockey and Claire Wilson made shadow. Mammoth effort and we are all cheering for you.
Zone and Darling Downs Trials
All Zone and Darling Downs trial information will be placed on the 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 fill out paperwork and return to me. 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.
Upcoming Events (Term Two)
- Athletics Carnival (9-Year-Old – 12-Year-Od) Thursday, 16th June 2022
- Athletics Carnival (Prep – Year 6) Friday, 17th June 2022
Cheers
Brendan Luck
HPE Teacher
New Administration office:
Our new office is now complete and we have officially moved into our new adminstation office. You'll now locate us at the entrance to the school. Just head up the stairs to the main building and turn right. We are very lucky to work in such a beautiful space.
Term 2 School Fees:
Term 2 School Fees are due Friday 20 May. Invoices were sent home last week to families via email. Please contact the office if you did not receive your Term 2 account.
Congratulations Claire:
Congratulations to our Year 6 student Claire Wilson who has been cast to perform in the Toowoomba Choral Society's School of Rock Musical. We can't wait to see you on stage Claire!! Well done.
