Open Day tours

This morning a number of our senior students hosted guided tours of our school for families interested in bringing their child to St Benedict’s next year, particularly for Prep. I cannot stress enough that if you have a child who is a sibling of a current student ready to go to Prep in 2022, you need to provide us with your enrollment application ASAP as the number of siblings we have will dictate how many other places we offer. We have 100 places total for Prep 2022 and I’m already aware of 46 sibling applications. If applications are not in for the first round of offers, we simply may not have room left. I would hate to see siblings left on a waiting list.

Enhancing Catholic School Identity Project

As we have discussed through our newsletters and recently at both the Board and the P&F, as part of the Verification cycle we are in this year for School Renewal, we are asking parents, staff and senior students to complete the ECSIP surveys. It was brought to my attention at our recent P&F meeting that some families feel that because they are not catholic or are not practising catholics, that their feedback would not be relevant. This could not be further from the truth because the survey data needs to be representative of our community which is certainly made up of families from many different faiths as well as those who are not involved with any particular faith practices. As members of a catholic school, you have chosen a catholic schooling experience for your children and this may for many different reasons and therefore your expectations could be very different from each other. I encourage you to please get involved with this survey as all members of our communities voices matter. To ensure the data is valid we need a solid number of families to get involved and we certainly don’t just want to hear from only our catholic families.

Excursions

If you have been keeping up with our school Facebook page, you may have noticed that a number of year levels have already had an excursion this term. Our Year 1’s have been to Billabong Sanctuary, our Year 4/5/6 students have been to the Port and Year 2 will head to St Margaret Creek Farm before the end of this term. Each year level will have two excursions per year. We firmly believe in the value of excursions, getting out into the community and connecting authentically with the learning happening within our school. While excursions require extensive planning, consulting and negotiations as well as a financial investment, we believe that student engagement is significantly enriched by these experiences and therefore the learning is deeper. Please understand that while this approach to learning is not new by any means, it is one that we value highly and therefore to commit to. It is another one of the great things we do consistently at St Benny’s.

Best wishes to our students who are competing in the Inter-school Swimming Carnival on Monday. You always represent our school very proudly and we know you’ll do your best.

Have a fabulous weekend. See you all next week.

Cheers

Penny Collins

Thank you to Year 2 Kingfishers who presented assembly this week about the Third Sunday of Lent, where they talked about prayer and trusting in God.  They looked at a Lent being a time to be more prayerful in an attempt to grow our connection with God and allow that wisdom to guide and transform us in our lives.  

Each week on assembly, our classes have also been presenting the school with information about each of our actions in the St Benedict’s Way of Peace.  It has been wonderful to see our students responding positively to our ‘Way of Peace’, with one day this week seeing 16 Green Slips being sent home! We are continuing to grow this in our school and will continue to encourage our students to demonstrate Persistence, Empathy, Accountability, Care for Community and Engagement!

ECSI Project - REPEAT

Thanks to the 26 parents who have already completed the ECSI Survey (which brings us to around half the respondents required to get usable data).  A reminder that the ECSI Project survey is live and we are seeking feedback from families about the Catholic Identity of our school.  Please see the note attached in the newsletter for information about how to access.  Your assistance is greatly appreciated and will help St Benedict’s to further develop its Catholic Identity.

Project Compassion

Each week, Project Compassion has a video to show how they are supporting people and communities around the world.  Please see the link below to see one of the many projects around the world and to see where your donations might be spent.  This week's story takes us to Tanzania and is about a woman named Oliva.  A reminder that each class has a Project Compassion box to receive donations, as well as boxes being available for collection in our office for your students to take home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gENizPmzsEM 

Pax

Nick 

At this time of the term, it is a worthwhile exercise to pause and reflect on the learning undertaken so far.  This reflection is important to recognise the learning not only of all our students as we prepare to look forward to next term, but also that of our staff.

Did you know this term, our teachers have also undertaken professional learning and development to ensure they are meeting the diverse needs of the students in our community.  These learning areas include:  Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Hearing Impairment (HI), Social-Emotional Disorder (SED), Speech - Language Impairment (SLI), Intellectual Disability (ID), Cued Articulation, multiple 2-day THRASS Training Sessions, Circle Solutions and MAPA.

Teachers have also engaged with Early Years Testing and Feedback to inform future teaching, Adjusted Learning Plan planning days and meetings with parents,  Alternative Curriculum Plan planning days and meetings with parents, as well as Term 2 curriculum planning days.  We have several staff also undertaking tertiary education courses in addition to their school-based professional development including TAFE, Masters and Doctoral level studies.

Our Leadership Team has engaged with additional professional development through the Inclusive Education Network Meeting, Learning and Teaching Advisor Network for curriculum, Principals Conference, APRE Conference, Chaplains Network Meeting, and the APA conference taking place in week 9.  Next week members of the school Inclusive Education Team will travel to Brisbane for the Disability and Inclusion conference, whilst members of the QCEC Research Partner Schools Project will also attend a conference in Brisbane.  

Our school officers are not forgotten in their professional development, as they are about to develop their own Professional Learning Plans, supported through the use of the professional development matrix.  Our school Defence Support Mentor has also attended network meeting days.

St Benedict’s values Love, Community, Learning, and Stewardship.  It is for these reasons that we place an emphasis on life-long learning.  By continuing to support our staff in their professional learning, so too is the delivery of best-practice support for our students community facilitated through love and stewardship of the future.  St Benedict taught us: It takes a lifetime of practice to fully develop the skills needed to engage the passion and direct the cares of a person’s life.

Yours in Support

Ros

We will be holding parent/teacher interviews on Monday 22nd March from 3:30pm - 8:00pm, and Tuesday 23rd March from 3:30pm - 6:30pm in the Hall. You will be able to book a 15-minute time slot to attend an interview using the ‘Compass Parent Portal’ from next Friday the 5th March, around 2pm. In the meantime, please ensure you are able to access the Parent Portal and contact the office for any assistance. We look forward to discussing your child’ progress. 

This week the Dolphins, as well as the rest of the 4/5/6 cohort, were lucky enough to visit the Townsville Water Police, Maritime Safety Queensland, the VTS monitoring centre and the Port of Townsville on an excursion. We made connections between our science unit and the threats to the reef when the VTS monitoring centre highlighted the importance of directing large ships away from the reef to stop it from being damaged. In our HASS unit this term we have also been learning about the Port of Townsville and how it influenced migration in Townsville, which was highlighted on our tour of the port learning all about its history.