Thank you to our P&F for your organisation of our Mother’s Day Wine and Cheese evening. It was a beautiful setting and a lovely relaxed evening with lots of wonderful ladies. We look forward to adding this to our annual calendar each year. Now for our Dads, what do we do for Father’s Day down the track?

This week, our Year 3 and Year 5 students have participated in NAPLAN (National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy). While there is much media hype around this testing period each year, we generally encourage our students to do their best and remember that it is just one series of tests at a couple of points in time of their long learning journey. We are very proud of the efforts of these students and know that they can demonstrate what they know and can do in many ways.

This morning we had our long awaited Fun Run. It is so good to be able to have parents back on our school grounds and cheering on the kids. Thank you for making the efforts with dressing up in house colours. They looked great and it really added to the event. Big thanks to Mrs Stevie-Lee Rowe for all her organising of the event, especially with all the elements that added to the fun with a bubble machine and the obstacles. Well done to our older students who won their race and will now represent our school at the Inter-school Cross Country.

Next week we have a couple of incursions happening with Talk about it for our Year 5 /6 students and a visitor from Townsville Beekeepers for our Year 1 students. Each class will also be doing something for National Simultaneous Storytime on Wednesday.

Have a fabulous weekend. See you all next week.

Cheers

Penny Collins

Welcome to the end of another week!  We started this morning with the Year 3 Kookaburras leading us on assembly on the ‘Feast of the Ascension’.  They told us how before Jesus ascended into heaven, he gave his apostles the task of building the kingdom of God, to preach by example.  They explained that we can do this by being people of justice, compassion and peace everyday through building a world that is based on love, kindness and understanding.    

Fun Run

Congratulations to all of our students who were able to participate in our fun run today!  I get the pleasure of starting the races and it was wonderful to see a smile on the faces of most of our runners.  What produced an even bigger smile awaited students at the end of the race, with an icy-pole presented to all competitors - a big thank you to our P&F for supporting this.  While a fun event, we also had an overall winner, with Dthulla (green) taking home the win by only 5 points!  We also presented students who were 10, 11 and 12 years of age who have now been chosen to represent our school at the interschool cross country later in the month. We wish them all the best!

Laudato Si

Next week (May 16-25) is Laudato Si Week.  For those unaware, Laudato Si is a document written by Pope Francis which calls all people to care for our common home - earth.  This document played a big role in shaping many decisions being made when building our school, and is still in the forefront of many decisions we make today.  Pope Francis has called ALL people to take part in Laudato Si week, as it is everyone’s responsibility to care for our earth.  Below is a link to a website which has some ideas you may wish to undertake with your family.  Whilst being “green” is a “cool” thing to do, our call to stewardship here at St Benedict’s is ultimately faith based - we are called by God to be stewards of creation.

LINK: https://www.caritas.org.au/resources/library/laudato-si-week-booklet/   

Pax

Nick

This term we are having a schoolwide focus on our St Benedict’s Way of PEACE: 

P: Persistence - Using our manners always especially ‘please’ and ‘thank you’

E: Empathy - Saying sorry to others and understanding their hurt (even if the hurt caused was not intentional)

A: Accountability - Ensuring we put our school equipment away, though we could also extend this to school hats and school jumpers

C: Care for Community - Aspiring to be a litter free school by putting rubbish in the bins and most importantly, the right bins

E: Engaged - Engaging in our faith by saying Grace before meals

It has been great to see evidence of students taking on our focus and demonstrating PEACE.  In particular I have noticed Persistence in our students doing run club.  Many students are pushing themselves to complete an extra lap each day or week, and when collecting pegs for those laps, using wonderful manners.  Such a small gesture can make a real difference to the positive way interactions take place, not only with school staff but also one another.  Thank you and keep up the good work everyone. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord.

Next week our Yr 5’s and Yr 6’s will participate with the Talk About It program through Life Education.  This program helps students to learn about and understand about healthy relationships, identity and puberty.  The program is curriculum aligned and allows students, teachers and parents to have open lines of communication about these important issues facing our developing young people.  We encourage you to have conversations with your children at home about the program and the topics discussed.  Click here for more information.

Defence News

Please see the attached flyer.  Click here to register