APRE NEWS 

Our students had a great, colourful time this morning in the 3rd edition of our annual Fun Run. There were lots of smiles as well as tough competition for others.  We really must congratulate all of our students who did a wonderful job in being organised and ready to start their races, and their sense of ‘fun’ in participating in this event.

Here are overall House Points for today's event:

1st: Gumoo (Blue) - 134 points

2nd: Yalga (Red) - 124 points

3rd: Dthulla (Green) - 117 points

4th: Dulgun (Yellow) - 106 points

We certainly missed having our community cheer squad here today, but look forward to having everyone back when we are able to.  We understand this would have been difficult for many of our parents and grandparents, who love coming along and watching these events.  We really appreciate how well our community did in not coming onto the school grounds at this time. 

A BIG thanks to Miss Rowe who organised the event and ensured the students were ready to race, Mr Apap for his help in setting up and of course the P&F for providing icy-poles for all of the students - they were greatly appreciated!

Please see below a list of results for each age level:

EXPLAINING NEWS EVENTS TO CHILDREN

I’m sure we’ve seen and heard many of the news events from around the globe throughout the start of the year.  Many families might be worried about how their children might take hearing about or seeing some of these news items.  I found some articles and have posted links below which you might find helpful for tips on how you might talk to your children about current events.  As always, you know your children and circumstances best, and need to make choices for you family surround this knowledge.  

• https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/explaining-the-news-to-our-kids
• https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/news.html
• https://www.scholastic.com/parents/family-life/social-emotional-learning/social-skills-for-kids/how-to-explain-scary-news-to-kids.html

Contemplative Corner 

Gazing at an picture/image

• Choose one image to contemplate (it might be online, in a picture frame on the wall, in a book, a photo, literally anywhere)
• Sit or stand and look at your chosen image. for at least a full minute. 
• This is a lot longer than you might think; you’d be surprised how quickly most of us look at a painting, photograph, or sculpture.   
• If you grow restless, shift your gaze to focus on a different part of the image, or scan slowly from one side of the image to the other.  Or very slowly move closer to and farther away from the image.
• Answer the following questions:
• What did you first notice about this image?
• What else did you notice as you kept looking at it?
• What thoughts went through your mind while you were looking at this image?
• What feelings or memories (if any) did it bring up for you?

REFUSE           REDUCE             REUSE           REPURPOSE       RECYCLE

WASTE WARRIORS - OUR RECYCLING CENTER @ St BENNY’S

As a part of our school ePROJECTS, there are many recycling projects that Students and Staff support here at St Benedict’s Catholic School. Although recycling is everybody's responsibility, it is specifically managed and promoted through our year 3/4 eProject ‘Sea and Soil Shepherds.’ 

We hope that our commitment to these projects encourages our families to take these ideas back into their own homes and where possible create a positive shift towards conscious waste disposal.   

Students across the school collect, sort, weigh and recycle many items, diverting hundreds of kilograms of unnecessary ‘waste’ from landfill every year. 

We utilise this opportunity to measure and track data on our efforts and by collecting this data, we can share our efforts with our community and demonstrate that the contribution each of us can make by making small changes and working together can have big results and great impacts on our environment. 

Did you know that Plastic Bottle Lids if placed loose into your recycling are not currently able to be processed at our Townsville Materials Recovery Facility (our local Recycling Centre)?

• Due to their size, they might slip through the sorting machinery and processors and cause jams.

• To reduce contamination nothing smaller than a credit card/business card/palm of your hand is acceptable in the yellow lid bin.
• Bottle caps explode off the bottles when crushed in the bailer/compactor and do not remain on the bottles anyway.

Did you know there are organisations such as Envision who recycle these products and can create new plastic products such as benches for schools? We are supporting these initiatives by collecting washed plastic bottle tops and once several kilograms are collected - sending off for conscious recycling.  So far we have recycled over 5 kgs of lids. This is over 1000 lids.

Did you know we are collecting Bread Bag Tags - another small single use plastic item used by almost all of us. Used once, and then thrown out with the bag (which is soft plastic and can also be recycled, more on that later.) Once we have a significant amount collected, these will be sent off to an organisation called Aussie Bread Tags for Wheelchairs - who are making wheelchairs for children in South Africa.

Our Food Scraps from student lunches, our staff room and from our Tuckshop are collected by students, weighed, documented and then dispersed through one of 3 food waste recycling systems. We have 4 Compost Bins, a Worm farm and our Eggs Benedict Chickens. By managing our own food waste here on site we will be diverting approximately 900 kilograms of food waste from landfill each school year and repurposing it to create food for our chickens and compost for our gardens. 

We also collect Soft plastics from classrooms, our staffroom and tuckshop. Gathering together and disposing of this via the Redcycle recycling bins at our local supermarkets. These soft plastics are then recycled by an organization called Replas into items such as park benches and garden edging. You can do this at home too!. Simply gather your carrot bags, extra plastic shopping bags, plastic wrappers and when you do your next grocery shop, pop them into the special bin at the front of your local Woolworths or Coles supermarkets.  By implementing these habits at home you are also supporting the ethos and the lessons we share here in the classroom and around our school every day. 

Lastly, Did you know we collect our E-waste such as broken headphones and electronics, Batteries and Printer Cartridges and we divert these to recycling centres for correct processing.   

On top of all of this, we are equally vigilant in our use of standard curb side council Recycling such as paper, cardboard, glass and also collecting Cans and Bottles for Containers for Change. 

Please support our school efforts by collecting your bread tags, plastic bottle lids, and batteries and dropping them into our office . We would be happy to recycle these for you :-) 

Each year our students in grade 4 also visit the local Materials Recovery Facility to see how household recyclables are processed. We have also maintained a relationship with the Boomerang Alliance since 2018 with the creation of Boomerang Bags sold at our annual ECOfest by  students and utilising this partnership to learn about the Boomerang Bag movement. We have also connected with community organisation Tangaroa Blue on multiple occasions to learn more about Marine Debris and plastic pollution and its impact on our environment. 

Recycling and Waste Solutions are not just a function of school waste management but an integral part of our school Mission and Vision at St Benedict’s and our commitment of Stewardship and Care for Creation. 

Information shared by Mrs Trigg 2020.

A few helpful links are:

https://ozbreadtagsforwheelchairs.org.au/

https://www.replas.com.au/

https://envision.org.au/envision-hands/

https://www.ozharvest.org/what-we-do/environment-facts/

https://www.redcycle.net.au/

Book Club Reminder