St Anthony's School - Term 2 Week 8 2021

Principal's News.....

Welcome to our Week 8 newsletter!  We are officially down to our last 11 days of the term.  Our last day of this term is Friday, 25^th June and Term 3 commences on Tuesday 13^th July.

St Anthony’s Feast Day

June 13 is the feast day of St Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of our school.  This is a significant occasion in the religious life of our school and one we celebrate each year. Tomorrow we are having a whole school mass in the church at 11.30am followed by some fun rotational activities and then the presentation of our St Anthony’s Day awards.  Teachers have nominated one student from their class who espouses the qualities of St Anthony.  St Anthony is most known for the saying………“Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak.  

Parents of students receiving these awards have been contacted and are invited to our awards ceremony to be held on the astro turf outside the Year 6 classroom, commencing at 1.10pm on Friday.

2021 Premier’s Reading Challenge

This year, we are encouraging students to participate in the Premier’s reading Challenge.  Reading plays such an important part in students’ lives during their school years and beyond.  The Premier’s Reading Challenge is a state-wide initiative for students from prep – Year 9 and aims at encouraging students to engage in reading for learning and pleasure.

The challenge is open from May 10 and closes on August 27 with many prizes up for grabs.

To register, log onto https://readingchallengeeducation.qld.gov.au and follow the prompts to complete the ‘Individual Reader Registration’. 

Every student who registers from St Anthony’s goes into a school draw to win a $50 QBD voucher.

Let’s get reading!

School Fees

Term Two’s school fee invoices were emailed to all families a couple of weeks ago. Please double check your emails including you spam or junk mail just in case it has landed in either of those folders. If you have not received an invoice for Term Two, please contact the school office asap so we can identify the glitch and reissue the invoice.  

My sincere appreciation is extended to all families who continue to honour their financial obligation to the school. Timely payment allows the school to continue to provide the best possible resources for all the kids who attend. It would be most helpful if all outstanding school fees could be paid by the end of this term. Thank you for your continued support. 

Athletics Carnival

Don’t forget to set aside Monday 21^st June for our annual school athletics carnival. This will be an all day event at the O’Quinn St oval. Students will need to be dropped at the oval from 8.00am and picked up by 3.00pm.  We hope to be all wrapped up by 2.30pm.

There will be NO canteen operating on the day and students will need to provide their own sunscreen, hat, food and water.

Discus and 800m will be held at the same location on Monday, 14^th June.  Students eligible to participate will walk to the oval and back on this day. Discus permission forms have been sent to parents of eligible students via the school portal.  Students can only compete in discus with parent permission and Mr Tattam is our qualified discus instructor who will be overseeing this event.

Following discus and 800m next Monday, high jump will be held on our school oval on this day also.

Age champion medals will be presented to both boys and girls 9 – 12 years following our carnival on Monday, 21^st June. There will be no runner-up medals.

All classes in PE this term are developing and practising skills in events being held at the carnival.

Resilience

Resilience is one of the skills we focus on in our ‘You Can Do It’ Program and is such an important skill in dealing with life today.  We all get knocked down in life and resilience is the skill that helps us get back up.

Here are some resilience tips from Parenting Expert, Michael Grose.

Resilience is a 21st Century parenting concept that every parent needs to understand.

Some kids are resilient by nature – their temperament helps them to be mentally and psychologically tough. You know those kids. They get straight back up after a setback or disappointment. Rejection in the playground doesn’t faze them. Unfortunately, not every child has such natural resilience.

The good news is that most of the research shows that resilience can be nurtured and developed, particularly when parents themselves are resilient and they actively foster it in their kids.

Resilient kids share four basic skill sets- independence, problem-solving, optimism and social connection. 

Building Resilience

From a resilience perspective parents need to coach kids through some of their more challenging moments and reviewing what they may have learned for next time. Avoid solving all their problems for them.

You can promote a lasting sense of resilience in your kids by:

• Having a positive attitude yourself. Your attitude as a parent impacts on their ability to bounce back from some of the difficulties they face. Make sure you model a ‘you can do it’ attitude for your child when he meets some of life’s curve balls.
• Look for teachable moments. Many kids’ learning opportunities are disguised as problems. Make the most of these opportunities so that kids can grow and learn from some of the challenges they face.
• Make kids active participants in the family. Active participation in a family develops the self-help, problem-solving and independence skills of kids that are necessary for resilience.
• Build kids coping skills. There are plenty of strategies you can pass on to kids to help them cope when life doesn’t go their way, including acceptance, getting away for a while, and normalisation.

Promoting resilience in kids is a not a single event but a continuous process that requires adults to be supportive and empathetic when things don’t go their way. It also requires you as a parent to have an understanding of resilience, so you have faith in yourself, and your child’s ability to cope.

Until next newsletter……..God Bless!

Louise

louise.pfingst@twb.catholic.edu.au

APRE News.....

Sacramental Program

Congratulations to Sharna Mason, Caiden Smith, Christian Magat, Puondak Mawien, Xavier Cullen, Jimmy O’Neill, Libbie Everitt , Brax Lugg and Sidney Geran who all made their sacrament of Confirmation last Wednesday.  The final step of initiation, making their first Holy Communion, occurred last weekend for some and the rest of the students will have their turn this weekend.   These two sacraments are a very special undertaking for these students as they are formally stating their desire to be  a part of the Catholic community as they strive to strengthen their relationship with God.                                                                                           

Mini Vinnies Winter Appeal Fundraiser

Don’t forget to make the most of the final few Monday’s of term and purchase your Hot Chocolate to support the St Vincent De Paul Winter Appeal.  The Mini Vinnies group are also calling for donations of warm clothes in these last two weeks of term.   As the weather gets cooler and you begin to pull out your winter woolies, please consider donating to the Winter Appeal any items that are in good condition but may no longer be useful to your family. 

St Anthony’s Feast Day

Tomorrow we celebrate the feast of our Patron saint St Anthony of Padua.  A famous quote from St Anthony is “Actions speak louder than words, let your words teach and your actions speak.”  Even though St Anthony lived in the 12^th Century, his words still resonate!   St. Anthony is well known for his great preaching ability, his knowledge of God’s Word and his love of the poor. Perhaps we can’t all teach and preach like St. Anthony, but we can live out Jesus’ message in the way we look after and treat those around us whether at school or at home.  We can be people of action!

katie.hauser@twb.catholic.edu.au

Middle Leader News

It is the time of year when teachers are gathering, analysing and confirming their understandings around what a student knows, understands and can do in preparation for reporting at the end of term.  At St Anthony’s we abide by the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Reading Improvement Strategy guidelines that track how student learning in reading is progressing.  Teachers have recently completed PM Benchmark assessments and PROBE comprehension assessments to give them information concerning student’s progress in reading.   All three aspects of reading are assessed; accuracy, fluency and comprehension.

This information helps teachers plan whole class, small group and individualised instruction and informs ‘where to next’ for the term.  This information is also a factor, (but not the only consideration), in determining a student’s final assessment grade for English in their report card. Please see your class teacher if you require any further information.

Reporting in Semester 1 – A-E Definitions

In the latter half of 2020 after a period of review and refinement, TCSO released explicit definitions of the five point scale that explains an A – E grade, based on Australian Curriculum guidelines. Please see these guidelines below. They will also appear in your child’s report card.

Something that often needs reemphasis is, if your child receives a C it means they are meeting the expectations of the curriculum for that learning area and year level.  If you require further explanation of these guidelines, please do not hesitate to speak with your child’s teacher.

katie.hauser@twb.catholic.edu.au

Prep KJ & SJ

With only two weeks left of the term before holidays, we have been busy in the classroom, completing activities and doing assessment.  In writing, we are continuing to work on starting our sentence with a capital letter, spaces between our words and a full stop at the end.  We encourage the children to also write at home. In both prep classes, we have enjoyed hearing about the adventures of William the Whale and Sally Seahorse, as they continue to have visits at home with each student.  In Math, we are focussing heavily on our numbers up to 20, now also counting backwards from 20.    In HASS, we have been talking about families.  The students all drew their own family and we’ve discussed how families are different.  We have also looked at what families like to do together and what and how they celebrate various occasions, like birthdays and Christmas.  We are very proud of the student’s achievements this term. 

kylie.jones@twb.catholic.edu.au

samantha.jaeger@twb.catholic.edu.au

Yr 1 HS

Welcome to the final few weeks of Term 2! In class we have been very busy demonstrating our knowledge ready for report cards. Students have worked hard this term to progress in their reading, writing and number knowledge. Keep up the good work at home with reading and sight word practice. This valuable home practice consolidates and supports their learning at school and helps their confidence across all learning areas.

If you haven’t already, please send in any old shoeboxes you have as we will need these for our Science Unit to build a habitat for our focus animal in weeks 9-10.

I am noticing a lot of hats, jumpers and jackets aren’t clearly named and these items are being misplaced. If they are clearly named it is easier to return them to their owners.

holly.sheehan@twb.catholic.edu.au

Yr 1 RW

Welcome to week eight, we are almost at the finish line of another fun filled term. Students have been working hard to complete the research, planning, writing, editing and publishing of their Aussie animal report. In math we have been exploring addition strategies and in Religion we have moved on to look at the sacrament of Eucharist. We have also been investigating the needs of living things, with a focus on their external features and habitats. Next week we will start planning the design and production of a (model) habitat for an imaginary animal. If students have any shoe boxes at home it would be great if they could bring them in so we can use these for the production phase. We were also lucky to have local firefighters come and give us a talk on fire safety. The men will be back next week to hopefully show us their fire vehicle and some of the things they use and do. I hope you all have a wonderful end to your week.

Bec 

rebecca.white@twb.catholic.edu.au

Yr 2 OT

So much has happened in the last two weeks. The students in 2OT thought it was pretty special to have a whole morning dedicated to them for our under 8’s day! They had a blast! We also had the privilege to lead the Reconciliation Liturgy on assembly. I was very proud of each and every one of them as they all did a tremendous job. During last week, the students recognised the role they must play when it comes to reconciliation. They understand if they play their part, they can help build a community at St Anthony’s that value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, histories, cultures, and futures.  

ory.tattam@twb.catholic.edu.au

Yr 2/3 VN

What a busy week in 2/3VN.  In Math we have begun looking at multiplication as repeated addition and have used groups of and arrays to assist us see this pattern in numbers.  In English, students have been writing their narrative assessment in which we have been focusing on the structure of a narrative, paragraphing, spelling, language features and the overall creativity of their texts.  We are going to publish these texts using the laptops and Microsoft Word.  In doing this, students will learn how to: log on to the computers, type and edit using Word, saving and how to copy and paste images from the internet into a Word document.  We will send home a copy of this finished writing task for you all to read as a family!

vicki.nauschutz@twb.catholic.edu.au

emma.daniells@twb.catholic.edu.au

Yr 3 RM

The past few weeks have been very busy...In English we have examined the elements of a narrative and become authors ourselves. In Maths we have been working with money and have started our Chance investigation. In HASS, we have been developing our skills to pose good questions and have been completing an inquiry using these skills.

We have recently noticed a lot of fidget toys being brought into the classroom. These are only useful if they help children to focus, and we are finding that this is not the case. We would ask that you please remind your children that they should not be bringing these items to school unless they have been previously approved by us. Fidget toys that are not approved will be stored until the end of term, then returned to their owner.

rebecca.more@twb.catholic.edu.au

Yr 4 SC

This week I’m happy to report that Yr 4 have been again very busy indeed!  Starting with Thursday 27^th May when the majority of the class had a wonderful day playing cricket.  Our two teams so successful that they were to face each other in the final – unfortunately time ran out on the day – but I believe they will face each other to find the victors!!  Well done to you all.  We have also had a great time building mouse traps as part of our Technology studies.  We took a problem – the current mouse plague – and worked to find solutions.  After initial internet research revealed a number of ways to trap and catch mice, the students designed and built their own, improved version of a mouse trap.  The children did a fabulous job – thank you to the parents for the donation of materials from home – it’s safe to say no self-respecting mouse would come anywhere near our room at the moment!!   In Science we have looked closely at the Rock Cycle and lots of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks – thank again to those parents who allowed samples to be brought in by the children – we used the magnifying glasses to have a very close look at them!  Our research into South America or Africa continues and will wrap up this week – the students have done a wonderful job researching and putting their booklets together.  The students have been working on expositions in English and in Maths we have been working on a “Number of the Day “each morning as well as fractions, decimals, factors and multiples.  They have found some of it quite challenging but to their credit have not wavered in their commitment to learning.  Good job Yr 4SC – persistence in learning always pays off in the end!! 

Enjoy your week!

Kathy Spencer

kathleen.spencer@twb.catholic.edu.au

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Yr 4/5 RS

Dear Families,

Today Year 5’s are visiting Brisbane Museum and Boggo Road Goal. Next week Year 4’s excursion is to Highfields pioneer village.  It’s great to take our learning out of the classroom for some first hand simulated experiences.

We have been working well in all KLA’s.  You may have heard that we are researching a continent and the countries within it. We are finding out more about the landscapes and people of Africa, South America, Europe and North America.

We have planted a kitchen garden and hope to be able to sample some results when the vegies grow. We will have a pizza party with our produce before the end of term! 😊😊

It is a reasonable expectation that each student makes the most of their school hours with positive and respectful behaviour. We present our best selves in the classroom, in Specialist lessons and in the playground.  When we are tired, that is when we must not give up; we persist and always do our best.  If we are troubled by something, we talk about it with someone in our network. We will also consider the feelings of others which is called ‘empathy’ and putting ourselves in the shoes of another person.  We have friends and acquaintances in our school and are respectful and inclusive to each and every person.  Let’s maintain that very important goal thank you, students.

Have a great week everyone.

Robyn and Barbara.

robyn.smith@twb.catholic.edu.au

barbara.hair@twb.catholic.edu.au

Yr 5/6 TN

WOW! What a fortnight it has been. A big congratulations to the class for their effort and the quality of the assessment tasks that have been completed. We have seen some exciting science experiments from the year 6 students, the year 5 students have designed their own 1788 settlement. The students have used every adjective they know to create character descriptions and played with patterns to create interesting cats for visual arts. To finish the term both grades will be attending excursions in Brisbane. I will save the excitement and photos of these trips for the last newsletter.

Until next time, stay warm.

Mrs Terri-An Nolan

terri-an.nolan@twb.catholic.edu.au

YR 6 LW

We are hard at work practicing our narrative writing skills in Grade 6. Here are a few examples of the creative genius that has emerged!  

leigh.winters@twb.catholic.edu.au

Yammer Group

Last week was National Reconciliation Week. This year’s theme was “More Than a Word. Reconciliation Takes Action.” The purpose of this week urges us as a community to move towards braver and more impactful actions. 

As Reconciliation is a journey for all Australians we shared in activities across the school. We coloured for a competition, read stories in the library and played outdoor games

terri-an.nolan@twb.catholic.edu.au

Music News

Year Six Musical - Sunday Rehearsal 

I am planning a Musical day on Sunday 13th from 10am to 2pm. I was originally hoping to have most of the students attend so that we could try to run through the show from the beginning to the end! However I've been made aware of soccer carnivals and other clashes - so I've adjusted my plans.

I will be at school - in either the hall or the music room between 10am and 2pm on Sunday. I'd be grateful for any student (or parent) help at any stage during that time. I hope to work out a timetable by Friday afternoon and will send it home with the Year Six students. 

COSTUMES: I have lots of costumes borrowed from TAS and Choral that need to be sorted and tried on - and costume notes that will then need to be written so that students know what items they will need to contribute from home. (Always easy things like black pants, skivvies and so on.) 

SETS: I have sets that just need to be 'put together' or finished off. I'll need items like zip ties or velcro sticky dots, paint and so on. We have most of what we need here - but once again we can use the time to make a list of what is still needed so that we can sort it out before the holidays. 

REHEARSAL: And then we will have some time to polish up scenes and songs. 

LUNCH: We may order some pizzas for a shared lunch - or feel free to bring along a snack to eat around midday. 

Children's Choir at Family Sunday Mass

Thank you to the lovely group of children who sang at the 8.30 mass last weekend. It was just wonderful to have such a large group of singers. I think it's the nicest sound we've made for a long time. I am very grateful to your families for bringing you along to contribute to the life of our parish. 

Solo Poetry in the Eisteddfod

I am meeting with our solo poets this week - they should have a poem to take home to start learning for the Eisteddfod (after the holidays). I will get the dates out to you when I find out!