St Anthony's School Term 3 Week 2 2023

Principal's Report

It was lovely to hear the school abuzz with holiday adventures last Tuesday.  We have an action-packed term ahead.  Term 3 can often be when sickness sets in, although Winter so far has been very kind to us, let’s hope we keep those Winter flus at bay.  I do hope there’s been enough snow fall for our Year 6’s to get to experience the excitement of real snow on their trip of a lifetime to Sydney and Canberra next week!

As we enter Semester Two, I would like to thank our teachers, staff, students, and all families for a wonderful first six months of our school year as we now embark on the second half of the year and a new teaching, learning and assessment cycle.  It is always our great privilege to witness the growth in each student and I am very proud of their achievements. At the end of semester, I read each student’s Report Card and hope you took the time to read your child’s report card also.  We hope you have found our new comment format of outlining what your child has done well for the semester and goals to work on for this semester, helpful and relevant.

I know there have been conversations in classrooms so far this term around goals for the term ahead for students. Our staff also set goals and these provide excellent opportunities to ensure we are future orientated in our planning and create opportunities for reflection, feedback, and growth. It is during these times I reflect on what an exceptional catholic primary school St Anthony’s is and how as a school we offer outstanding academic, social and wellbeing support of all students and their learning. It is a privilege to be part of the St Anthony’s school family.

Catholic Education Week 2023

Next week, we celebrate Catholic Education Week.  This year’s theme is ‘Communities of Hope’

As a school, being a "community of hope" signifies that it is more than just an educational institution. It goes beyond imparting academic knowledge and becomes a place where students, teachers, staff, and parents work together to create an environment of positivity, support, and encouragement. In such a community, hope becomes a guiding principle that influences every aspect of the school's functioning and interactions.

Here at St Anthony’s, we embrace diversity and foster an inclusive environment where every student feels valued, respected, and supported, providing resources and assistance to learners with various needs, ensuring that no one is left behind.

We offer a sense of belonging and connectedness that is fostered among students, teachers, staff, and parents. Positive relationships are the foundation of the community, allowing everyone to feel safe and understood.

As a school, we set high and achievable expectations for academic achievement, personal growth, and behaviour while offering encouragement and support to help students meet those expectations.

As a school community, we instil resilience and a growth mindset, teaching students to view challenges both academically and socially as opportunities for learning and personal development. This helps them face obstacles with optimism and determination.

We have a school community where the well-being of students and staff is prioritized. Mental health support, counselling services, and initiatives to promote physical health are interwoven into the school's direction and agenda.

We celebrate achievements, both big and small, and reinforce positive behaviour. Recognising and appreciating efforts, progress, and accomplishments create a culture of acknowledgment and being proud.

We take every opportunity to engage with the wider community, encouraging partnerships with local organizations, businesses, and parents. This fosters a sense of responsibility and mutual support.

All members of our school community serve as role models, exemplifying hope, compassion, and perseverance. Their passion for education and their dedication to students inspire hope in the hearts of young learners.

By embodying these elements, a school can transform into a true community of hope, creating an environment where students are not only academically prepared but also equipped with the emotional and social skills needed to thrive beyond their school years.

To celebrate Catholic Education Week, we have a liturgy on Monday morning as part of Parade and on Thursday, 27^th July we are having a sausage sizzle and free dress day, where we encourage students to dress in clothes that may them happy!  There is no charge for these events.

On Friday, 28^th July our staff gather with other catholic schools in Toowoomba and surrounding areas for the annual Bishop’s Inservice Day.  This is a pupil free day and TCKC will be available for care on this day.

‘Shaping our Future’ Survey.

Every two years we ask staff, parents and students in our schools to share their views, to ‘check in’ on how each school within our community, and as a group of 31 schools together, we are bringing to life our purpose: to enable full and flourishing lives. We do this by asking each of you to complete a perception survey. The Shaping our future – Toowoomba Catholic Schools perception survey has been sent via Sentral on the Monday 17 July, so keep an eye out for it.

We encourage all of our parents to share their views in this 15 minute survey which closes on Sunday, 6 August, 2023. 

Parliament and Civics Education Rebate (PACER)

Next week, our Year 6 students are embarking on an educational tour of the national capital. Students will be given the opportunity to participate in a variety of educational programs with a focus on Australia’s history, culture, heritage, and democracy.

The Australian Government recognises the importance of all young Australians being able to visit the national capital as part of their Civics and Citizenship education. To assist families in meeting the cost of the excursion the Australian Government is contributing funding of $130 per student under the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate program towards those costs. The rebate is paid directly to the school upon completion of the excursion. This rebate has been factored into the total cost of the trip.

St Anthony’s Student Protection Contacts

The safety and wellbeing of our students here at St Anthony’s is a high priority.  As with all non-state schools, we have nominated School Student Protection Contacts, who are staff members that students can raise concerns of abuse, harm or inappropriate behaviour.

Here at St Anthony’s, our School Student Protection Contacts are:

• Louise Pfingst
• Katie Hauser
• Leigh Winters
• Christopher Byrne

Congratulations Mary Neilan!

I am very excited to announce that Mary Neilan is a finalist in the Toowoomba Catholic School’s Excellence Awards in the category of ‘Excellence in Education Support – Teaching and Learning’.

Thank-you Mary for the passion and support you give to the students.  Mary has been instrumental in facilitating our Reading Warriors Program and ensuring students are progressing, developing a love of reading and most importantly seeing themselves as readers. Mary, Mrs Pfingst and Mrs Hauser will attend the Excellence Awards Dinner on Thursday, 27^th July.  You certainly have our vote, Mary!

Congratulations Vann!!

Congratulations to Vann Jones who was recently selected in the Darling Downs 10 -12 years boys softball team to compete at the State Titles at the end of August.  All the best, Vann!!

Until next newsletter……God bless!

Louise

The newsletter will be an e newsletter emailed to parents on a Thursday every fortnight. Community and parent notices can still be included in the newsletter by emailing the item to the school stanthonys@twb.catholic.edu.au.

Middle Leader/APRE

Catholic Education Week

Next week all 313 Catholic Schools in Queensland will celebrate Catholic Education Week. This annual event is held to promote the special ethos of Catholic schools and to highlight the great things that take place in Catholic schools every day.  Catholic education strives to make a difference in the lives of those in our schools and in the wider community by challenging young people to live out the message of Jesus and to reach their full potential as compassionate, contributing, life-giving members of society.  The theme continues this year: Communities of Faith, Hope and Love with a particular spotlight on hope. Across the week students will be reflecting upon how we are a community of hope and how to be ‘hope filled’ people.  The touchstones of our school community make us uniquely who we are as a Catholic community and shape who we will continue to be long after our presence here is felt.  Following the ‘love of learning’ and ‘love of others’ pathway is a ‘hope filled’ step that is certainly something to celebrate this week!

We will begin Catholic Education Week on Monday the 24^th with a liturgy of the word on parade at 8.40.   On Thursday the 27^th we will have a whole school sausage sizzle in celebration of our great community.  On Friday 28^th July, all students have a pupil free day, whilst teachers across the diocese participate in the annual Bishop’s Inservice Day. This year we are privileged to be able to meet and listen to the new Bishop of our Diocese, Bishop Ken Howell.

We are God’s hands, we are God’s eyes

We are the love, the heart of Christ

Oh Spirit move our hearts and minds

That we may see, peace in our time

We are God’s Hands  

Andrew Chinn   2019

Toowoomba Catholic Schools Excellence Awards

We are very excited to have Mary Neilan one of our School Officers, named as a finalist in the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Excellence Awards. She was nominated in the Excellence in Education: Teaching and Learning Support category. Each year, nominations are called for from colleagues, parents and community members to highlight staff in our diocese, as examples of excellence across our network. From these nominations, finalists are selected and on Thursday next week at a special award's dinner, the recipient will be announced. 

Mary is a very deserving finalist in this category, and we wish her all the best! Regardless of whether she wins, it is obvious to everyone that she encounters that she supports the implementation of engaging and effective learning that puts students first and unleashes their potential. We are very lucky to have her as one of our school officers at St Anthony’s. Good luck Mrs Mary!!!!

St Anthony's Uniform Shop

The uniform shop is now located at St Anthony's, near the school office. 

Opening Hours

Monday 8:30am - 12:30pm

Wednesday 2:00pm - 4:00pm

Friday 11:30am - 3:30pm

Learning Support

Listening

Active listening is an important skill that even some adults struggle with. Properly deciphering and absorbing information requires significant focus.

We all know this can be challenging for young students, but active listening can strengthen their receptive language skills (the ability to comprehend spoken language).

Receptive language skills help your child:

• Handle social interactions.
• Answer questions.
• Understand stories.
• Comprehend what they’re reading
• Understand gestures.

While developing their social skills, your child will come to see how important it is to actively listen when others are speaking.

Paying attention to what someone is saying and responding directly to their statements or questions is a big part of healthy communication.

Have a great week,

The Learning Support Team

Prep White & Prep Blue

Welcome to Term 3!! We hope you all had a wonderful holiday! 

Thank-you for assisting your children with their 100 days of school costumes, they all looked amazing and we had a fantastic day celebrating our learning journey! 

Next Thursday 27^th of July we will be having a Free Dress Day for Catholic Education Week. Friday 28^th July will be a pupil free day. 

This term in English we are learning to recognise and create rhymes, recognising and writing capital letters and continuing to develop our reading skills. In Math we are continuing to develop our number awareness of numbers to 20, simple addition and subtraction.  In Science we are learning about describing items and what they are made of. We will commence our Geography unit this term as we begin to look at different homes and examine what makes a place special.  

Yr 1 Blue and White

Welcome back parents to a new term, Term 3.  We do hope you all had an enjoyable and relaxing break.

Over the last week we have been getting back into school routines, reviewing some of what we had looked at last term and introducing some of the topics for this term.

Some of these topics include exploring the series of stories of “The Very Cranky Bear”. We shall also be investigating nouns, verbs and adjectives.

In Mathematics we will continue our learning and developing strategies with addition and subtraction, as well as describing duration through looking at months and years.

In week 3 we will be celebrating Catholic Education Week and please remember that on that Friday, 28 July it is a Pupil Free Day due to the Bishop’s Inservice Day.

Please remember that learning begins at 8.40 am each day and concludes at 3pm. Sports uniform is worn on a Monday and Tuesday, and formal uniform the rest of the week. We would also like to remind the students to return their library books on Thursday, ready for borrowing on Friday.

Till next time

Mrs Emma Daniells and Miss Jacque Houghton

Yr 2 White

Term 3 has started with a bang! Year 2 White has enjoyed learning about data, with a favourite thing being our skittle graphing. The class worked so hard to earn the reward and did an amazing job recording their colours. We were very surprised to learn that the colours were very even. 

In HASS, we started to learn about Aboriginal language. Ask your child if they know the Aboriginal word for kangaroo or turtle and see if they can remember.  

In Science, we are learning all about the forces of push and pull. The class is enjoying finding different things around the classroom and school that need to be pushed or pulled and even those that can be both!

Nicole Collis

Year 2 Teacher

Yr 2/3 Blue

Welcome back to 2/3 Blue

We are officially past the half way point of the year and we will be very busy working towards our end of year goals.

This term we will focus on fiction stories and delving into character traits and settings of stories and for our Yr 3’s we will also look at how authors create the mood of the story. Our numeracy will continue to develop our understanding of numbers to 1000 for Yr 2’s and beyond 10 000 for our Yr3’s.  This is a difficult concept and takes quite a while to develop. In our Hass and Science activities we will be developing our understanding of Australia’s neighbours and important places within Australia and our cultural celebrations here and abroad. 

Last term a number of children had very low attendance.  I think I have mentioned before that every day is important.  If a child misses just one day per fortnight they will have missed a whole year of school by the time they reach Year 12.  No student can afford that – so please – if they are not ill, send them to school – we will take care of them!

God Bless

Kathy Spencer

Yr 3 Gold

Welcome back to Term 3 which is notoriously busy! We were excited to have a new student Lylah start with us this term. 

In English, we have been investigating sentences and clauses. In Maths we have revised topics from Term 2 and have started working with Data. In Religion, we have discussed what "Fair" means and how we can make sure we are being fair to others.

Please note: our library day has now changed to Monday and our PE day is now Tuesday. 

Yr 4/5 White

Yr 4/5 Blue

Welcome back to school for Semester Two!

We have hit the ground running this term with some new whole class goals. This term I am challenging the students to think about the presentation of their work and how they set out their books. We have been speaking about the best way to present information, clear formats, and pride in our work.

This term we are deep diving into our writing and working at extending our skills and quality of the texts we produce. Last week we introduced the idea of WOW words. WOW words are the words that make a reader go “WOW”. Each week I will be providing the students with a basic sentence, their challenge is to come home and edit this sentence to make a reader say, “WOW”. This week the students are making great the following sentence: The owl was flying at night.

By now I am sure you have heard about our “Planet Project.” The students are very excited about this project and their planets are becoming very creative. Please note that the students will be given ample time to complete this task at school, however, there are a few that are too excited and want to do some at home as well. I just ask that everything is at school each day so that they can continue to work on it over the coming weeks.

Until next time,

Mrs Terri-An Nolan

Terri-An.Nolan@twb.catholic.edu.au

4/5 Gold

We’ve hit the ground running – having had a very busy week 1, even though it was only 4 days long! 

We’ve begun learning about the Earth’s surface and how it changes over time in Science, introduced the importance of laws for HASS, as well as begun exploring shapes and nets in Maths. Nano Nagle and the concept of Kindness have been our area of focus in Religion and we’ve made a start on this term’s English unit, where we will learn all about how to persuade someone to our way of thinking. (And all this in the first two weeks!)  

With all this activity, we definitely have a busy term ahead of us; and it is up to each one of us to stay focused and make the most of every learning opportunity. Perhaps this snippet will help us stay on task.  

“It’s not about perfect. It’s about effort. And when you bring that effort every 
single day, that’s where transformation happens. That’s how change occurs.”  

Kind Regards

Leigh Winters

Year 4/5 Gold Teacher

Yr 6 Blue

Welcome back to Term 3! We have certainly had a few fast-paced days since our return.  During week one we began delving deeper into Australia’s System of Government as we prepare for camp.  We formed learning teams to research information on different topics to create a gallery display in the corridor.  We enjoyed working in teams – this can be a learning curve in itself!

Mr Chris, our school counsellor, also visited us to talk to us about the Zones of Regulations. We thoroughly enjoyed his visit, and we look forward to him returning to work with us again soon.

Next week is the week we have been looking forward to for months! If there are any last-minute questions or concerns in relation to camp, please contact me as soon as possible. 

Until Next Time,

Mrs Kingsford & Year 6.

Library News

Performing Arts

TCS Arts Fest 2023

THANK YOU so much to all the parents and families who supported their children and made it possible for them to be a part of the Catholic School’s first every Arts Fest. It was an amazing experience. I was so proud of our students – their enthusiasm was contagious, their behaviour was exceptional and they were absolute stars up on the stage. Click on the Facebook link below to see a video summary of many of the concerts and workshops. You will see some familiar faces!

https://www.facebook.com/ToowoombaCatholicSchools/videos/3695273040705955

‘Pirates of the Curry Bean’ – Senior Musical for 2023

Our Year Six students have been working hard all year to learn their lines for our school musical. They are well on their way to being absolutely perfect. Well done to the students. We extended an offer last week to our Year Five students to join an OPTIONAL chorus to support the students in the musical. These students will be required to stay after school on Wednesday till 4.15pm. Students can then be collected from the Memory Street Stop, Drop and Go area. Interested students took a note home with more information last week. There are spare copies of this note available from the front office. Year Five chorus will begin in Week Three (next week) so that we can have one good session while the Year Six students are on camp.

Children’s Choir for St Anthony’s Mass

This choir is open to ANY student at St Anthony’s from Prep to year six. We lead the singing at St Anthony’s parish at the 8.30am mass on the first Sunday of each month. Our next turn is on Sunday 6^th August. I have started running through the hymns in class time – so most students should be familiar with them. This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to be a part of parish life. I know that many of our elderly parishioners look forward to this month all month! If you wish to sing, please come along by 8.10am for a final practice and to check the microphones! 

C-Gen – Queensland State School Spectacular

Congratulations to some of our amazing ex-students who were part of the incredible C-Gen in Brisbane last week. There were 1800 students involved in an absolutely amazing concert at the Convention Centre. It was just wonderful to see. Well done everyone!

Thanks for your support

Anne-Maree

Parenting Support and Information

2023 Non Government Schools Census Collection

The Australian Government Department of Education will be collecting certain information about St Anthony's, our staff and the student body as part of the 2023 Non Government Schools Census Collection.  Please see further information below. 

Parentline

Parenting can be tough. But you don’t have to do it alone. When things
become challenging, it’s important to know that you can always talk to
someone about what’s going on.

If you’re a parent, carer or family member living in Queensland or the Northern
Territory, you can call Parentline from 8am – 10pm seven days a week, for the
cost of a local phone call.

St Anthony's Outside School Hours Care

Our Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) services provide the opportunity for children to grow and develop their social skills in a leisure based environment nurtured by our Catholic ethos.  

The services offer a combination of before school, after school, Pupil Free days and vacation care led by a team of qualified educators.   Our educators work with all children to create fun and recreational experiences so that a child’s wellbeing, learning and personal development are a priority. The services provide a variety of indoor and outdoor activities to support the diverse interests of all children.  

St Anthony's OSHC Toowoomba

Phone: 0458 937 154 or 0458 897 293

Email: ANTcare@tckc.qld.edu.au