I am so looking forward to tonight’s Mulkadee performance. I am always amazed at the quality of the performances after only working together for one week. As a diocese we are so blessed to have leaders that value the Arts in this way and create this opportunity each year for our students. I would really encourage any students who have thoughts about trying something to build their confidence to have a go. Let’s face it anyone can sing in a 600 student choir but the skills that they develop are far more than the artistic ones. The social skills of meeting so many new people, the persistence to be involved in long days (yes, it’s singing but believe me they work all day) and the challenge of stepping out of your comfort zone is so worthwhile and then there is the final performance which is always just so exhilarating. Thank you toTerri Ann Rabig and Nick Christie who have been transporting our students each day.

Community Health

Again, as we have seen in the media we can see that staff and community illnesses are on the rise with the third wave of Omicron, Influenza and the multitude of other things affecting the health of our community. We have had multiple staff away this week along with lots of children. Replacement staff for many sectors like nursing, hospitality and education are extremely difficult to come by and we are again feeling the pressure with this too as are most schools. Luckily we have a very flexible team who are very supportive of each other and we have been able to juggle people; often meaning we move specialist teachers onto class to ensure our students always have a teacher. We are also very lucky to have a group of relief teachers who mainly work with us so they know our systems and processes and our students.

Please assist in helping us to maintain a healthy community by keeping children who are sick at home and wearing masks if you are around our school and not feeling 100%. We are all trying to find that balance between getting on with things but also not contributing to making situations worse. I appreciate how much pressure each of you are also under and I think a lot more understanding of each other’s pressure points can go a long way to building and maintaining a positive community.

Behaviour Management

Did you know our school uses the Zones of Regulation to support students to understand their feelings? We know that most behaviours come from students reacting to their feelings and emotions- good and not so good behaviours. We use the Zones of Regulation to align with our Levels of Consequence. 

For example when I am in the Green Zone (happy and best learning zone) and my behaviors therefore include participating positively in my learning- ie. showing persistence, empathy for others, being accountable for my actions, caring for our community, and / or being engaged in my learning (PEACE) than my consequences will include things like positive praise from my teachers, class rewards systems, affirmation from our leadership team when shared and PEACE stickers to share the experience with parents and celebrations on school social media and in newsletters (we are building on this part).

However, if I am in the Red Zone (angry, frustrated- and all of us have these feelings; even adults so there is nothing wrong with the feeling/emotion), I need to be able to make a choice. If I access the ‘tools’ from the Zones of Regulation that all classes have and discuss regularly (eg. go get a drink of water or go for a walk (create some time and space to calm down), access a squeeze or fidget tool (to express pent up energy) etc.) and I manage to get back to the Green Zone there is no issue but if I react with hitting, swearing or punching there is a Red Level Behaviour Consequence which can include time out from certain activities, meetings with parents, and suspension and exclusion from school.

These examples are the two extremes with Yellow and Blue Zones in between with Yellow and Orange Level Behaviour Consequences as well. Please note that Blue Zone (tires, sad, bored) doesn’t have a direct correlation with a behaviour level on purpose because it can often be attributed to other needs but can still lead to a behaviour consequence depending on the behaviour choices when feeling that zone.

I hope this makes some sense to you as parents. We do have some visual magnets for parents if you want to embrace the system at home.

Next week is Catholic Education Week. We would love to see parents come along for our feast Day activities on Friday 29 July.

Please have a lovely weekend.

Cheers

Penny

Welcome to the end of Week 2!  Of Year 5/6 Dolphins presented assembly today on the Feast of Sts Joachim and Anne (the grandparents of Jesus).  Throughout the prayer, they were thankful for the gift of grandparents and prayed that we might value their wisdom and knowledge that they share with us - continuing to serve them as they have served others throughout their lives.

Mulkadee

I have been blessed to attend the Mulkadee Youth Arts Festival this week along with 7 students from St Benedict’s and over 800 more students from around the diocese of Townsville.  It’s amazing to see students working with their gifts and truly shining throughout the week.  I look forward to watching the concert tonight and seeing the students share their talents with a 2000 strong audience - each year it truly is a great spectacle!   

FEAST DAY

On Friday July 29, we will be celebrating our St Benedict’s Feast Day (which is officially celebrated by the Church on July 11.  We put in annually in week 3 as we see this as a wonderful way of celebrating our school charism as a part of Catholic Education Week.  Unfortunately, Fr Clement has traveled to Africa to visit his family, and so are unable to have a priest with us to celebrate mass - instead we will have a whole school liturgy.  Still,  ALL parents and friends are invited to join us for both our whole school liturgy at 9:00am in the Hall, and also for St Benny’s Got Talent, also in the Hall!  We hope to see you there!

Pax,

Nick

Visiting Teachers

We have had a very positive and busy week hosting teachers from some other TCE primary schools in our Diocese.  This week we hosted teachers from St Patrick’s. Winton in our 5/6 classes; St Francis, Ayr in Prep and St Colman’s, Homehill in Prep, 1 and 2 classes.  We are very proud of the teaching and learning processes, classroom spaces and school officer support approach here at St Benedict’s and welcome the opportunity to showcase and share our approach with other schools.  We have enjoyed hosting teachers from these schools who have come to observe, learn from our teachers, interact with our students and take these insights away to their own schools to implement.  We look forward to more visits from other schools in the future.

Visiting Specialists

The past 2 weeks have seen a number of our Townsville Catholic Education Office (TCEO) Advisory Visiting Specialists (AVS) come and meet with various staff to discuss student needs and support.  We have hosted our Inclusion Specialist Tim Birthisel,  Speech Therapist - Tegan Golding and look forward to hosting our Hearing Specialist - Karyn Parnell and our English as an Additional Language/Dialect Specialist - Rebecca Rowan in the next couple of weeks.  These visits provide us with valuable support and strategies to continue to assist our students have a successful education.

P&F News

Next week on Tuesday Evening will be our P&F meeting.  7pm at school or online via the zoom link.  Watch the Parents Page for the link.  We look forward to having many people join us.

Events
We have decided to cancel our Picnic by the Billabong on Saturday as a result of community illness and various other community events happening that day.  In place of this, we are looking forward to a fun Disco Night evening on Thursday 11th August from 6 - 7.30pm.  There will be a sausage sizzle, steak burgers and we will move our Bake Sale to this night as well.

We will be looking for some volunteers on the night to assist with a few little jobs and some BBQ duties.  If you think you can provide some time, please let us know.

MS Readathon

The MS Readathon challenges kids to read as much as they can in August and raises money for vital support services to families with multiple sclerosis. 

The stats so far are:

• 15 students registered!
• $673 out of the $1000 goal raised (wow!)
• 16 Books read so far (what a great head start for reading in August!) 

 CLICK HERE TO REGISTER YOUR CHILD OR CHILDREN TO READ and then join our school! 

Co-Teaching

Being at St Benedict’s you may have heard the teachers or children talking about Co-Teaching! Have you wondered what this actually means? I will endeavor to give you a snapshot into co-teaching at St Benedict’s. Co-teaching is the practice of grouping teachers together in classrooms to share the responsibilities of planning, instructing, and assessing students. Overall, this means teachers in each of the year levels are working together to plan for, review, and evaluate teaching and learning. Two, three, or four heads are better than one, right!  Furthermore, many teachers at St Benedict’s also deliver the teaching collaboratively. Co-teaching within the classroom can look different throughout the day. Some ways that teachers may co-teach include: 

• Team Teaching: Both teachers teach both classes for an explicit lesson (these are short sessions and age appropriate)
• One Teach, One Support: One teacher teaches and the other assists (again, short sessions)
• Parallel Teaching: 2 classes are split into 2 groups (sometimes by classes, sometimes in a different way) and are taught by 1 teacher. 
• Station/Group Teaching: Students work independently and collaboratively while both teachers take groups for guided learning. 

At St Benedict’s we value collaboration immensely, for staff and students. This is shown in the way the Leadership Team has a shared office with our principal, the staff collaborate when teaching and planning, and our students collaborate with each other many times throughout the week. 

Some benefits of Co-teaching and Co-planning include: 

• More heads are better than one! Co-planning encourages teachers to bounce ideas off each other, and use their own unique expertise, to plan the strongest, most creative lessons.
• Students are able to connect with different personalities.
• All students are included which increases self-confidence and self-esteem, academic performance, and increased social skills.
• Strong classroom communities.
• Teachers have shown to have increased professional satisfaction, opportunities for professional growth, and for personal support. They also feel more energised, creative, and have more fun teaching. 
• Provides for more on-task time as both teachers are able to manage behaviour.  

I found this wonderful quote in a report called ‘School Learning Environments and Change.’ “Will co-teaching solve all education problems? Obviously not. But in the hands of two teachers who are committed…, co-teaching enables them to create an excellent, joyful classroom community in which adults can teach and students can learn at their best.”  I am so proud to work in a school with such dedicated and innovative teachers. 

Yours in Learning, 

Aleesha Rockemer

(Learning and Teaching Adviser)

Quest for Knowledge
Quest for Knowledge is an “It’s Academic” style competition where teams of Year 6 students from the Diocese of Townsville compete using a ‘first-in’ buzzer method answering a series of questions which cover literacy, numeracy, general knowledge (incorporating areas such as science, history, religion/scripture and tradition), Indigenous studies and current affairs. 

Congratulations to our team for 2022:

 Sarie Beeton, Peyton Toigo, Sophia Van Der Ros, Scarlett Torkington and Macy Smith. 

The year 1 wallabies have been reading the book Napangardi’s Bush Tucker Walk. Just like Napangardi, we went on our own bush tucker walk and made a Coolamon using recycled plastic bottles and paper mache.  A Coolamon is a traditional Aboriginal carrying vessel with curved sides. Their shape, like a canoe, suggests the journey of life. Their uses include: carrying water, fruits or nuts.