12 October 2018

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Message

By Mr Kort Goodman - Principal

Welcome Back

Welcome back to all students and staff to Term 4. I hope you had a restful and enjoyable break and are ready for what is always a very busy term. With this in mind, I think that it is important to highlight a couple of key points that we believe will provide our students with the opportunity to achieve their personal best.

The first of these is the importance of partnership. At Assumption College we really value and emphasise the need for parents, students and teachers to develop a working partnership so that we can assist each other to attain the best educational outcomes for our students. We enthusiastically encourage parents to contact their children’s teachers at any time.

When contacting your child’s teachers one of the most important things that should occur during these conversations is an open and honest discussion about the student’s progress and how we can work together. Students all too often see advice as criticism and as a result they don’t act on it and their progress is adversely affected. However, when parents support and reinforce the teacher’s advice, students are more likely to act. Like parents, teachers get the greatest reward when they see their students happy and achieving to their potential. A gentle reminder that we have parent/teacher interviews next Tuesday afternoon and booking instructions were included with the end of term three reports or can be booked by contacting the office.

The second key point is ensuring that our students are attending school and making the most of their time in class. By making a greater effort to be at school, not taking unnecessary days off, having the right equipment, concentrating and applying themselves in class, students can reduce the amount of time they need to spend at home revising or completing work covered during the day. At Assumption College we are focused on improving the educational outcomes for each of our students by being more informed about the needs of the students and planning our lessons based upon this information so that target required skills, are engaging and life related. This also has the added benefit of providing extra time for all the other activities that families are involved in.

Today we pray that our students will return to school this term determined to achieve to their personal best.

ACW Strategic Plan and Annual Action Plan

At our staff meeting earlier this week we spent an extensive amount of time reflecting on our efforts this year to meet the strategic intents outlined in our strategic plan and annual action plan for 2018.

The first step in this process was to review the feedback that we received from parents, students and each other. This feedback came in three forms and included information gathered about our student’s outcomes in NAPLAN, the feedback received from the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Diocese Quadrennial Review conducted in March this year and the feedback received through the School Improvement Surveys sent to each family, student and staff member. We had 94% of our students, 53% of our staff and 39% of our parents complete the surveys, which provided us with excellent feedback from our students and adequate feedback from the staff and parents.

After reviewing the feedback, we then looked to ensure that our strategic plan continues to maintain its alignment with the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Diocese Strategic Plan and that it addresses any themes that were evident in the feedback we received.

Our final two steps will be to make some small adjustments to our strategic plan to include improvement strategies to address the themes that were evident in the feedback and to construct our annual action plan for 2019.

I would like to thank the parents who provided us with feedback by completing the survey. We greatly appreciate your support as we continue to strive to provide the best possible education for your children. A reminder that our ACW Strategic Plan can be located via the link below and any parents who wish to provide any further feedback on the strategic plan and our efforts to implement this plan can send an email to the following address: acwarwick@twb.catholic.edu.au

Have a lovely week

Kort

Term 4 – 2018 Date Claimers

Pastoral Care News

By Mr Craig Frattini, Deputy Principal

Parenting Ideas Insights

Teach Kids Not to Jump To Conclusions

By Michael Grose

Many children jump to conclusions when an unpleasant situation occurs, thinking and acting impulsively rather than thinking rationally before reacting. (This is not just the domain of kids, by the way!) While these snap judgements may be justified, in reality they are the least likely to be the right ones.

For example, imagine a boy walking across a schoolyard when he’s hit in the face by a football. He automatically thinks someone is trying to hurt him, basing his conclusion on the fact that he has been on the receiving end of some rough treatment in the past. He is angry and starts a fight with the boy who kicked the ball, with both of them ending up in trouble.

Don’t react, hit the pause button instead.

In contrast, if the boy had paused to think before reacting, he may have drawn quite a different conclusion. He might have looked at the person who kicked the ball and, knowing that boy’s general skill level, understood that the most likely scenario was that it was just an accident. He would have laughed and kept walking, or joined in the game.

Resilience is a skill.

Slowing down your thinking and avoiding jumping to conclusions is a great resilience skill that can be improved with practice. As a parent, you can model this type of thinking, reciting the possibilities out loud so your kids can see how it’s done. If you are the type of parent who instantly assumes the worst and builds mountains out of molehills, this practice could help you as well. (Don’t forget to do this when making judgements about your children’s behaviour too!)

It can be challenging to think rationally in our modern lives. The propensity of the media to focus on sensationalism and worst case scenarios in many news items doesn’t help – they simply normalise the practice of catastrophizing. “The worst recession in years…”, “Record drought figures…”, “Poll figures spell defeat for the government” – you know, the attention-grabbing headlines.

But neither we as adults, nor our kids, need to think this way. We can think differently, reach our own conclusions, and teach our kids to do the same.

Michael Grose

Michael Grose, founder of Parenting Ideas, is one of Australia’s leading parenting educators. He’s the author of 10 books for parents including Thriving! and the best-selling Why First Borns Rule the World and Last Borns Want to Change It, and his latest release Spoonfed Generation: How to raise independent children.

APRE News

By Mrs Kate Cullen, APRE

Year 10 Reminders

• World Religion Excursion Thursday 18th of October- Some forms are still to be returned for this, please do so on Monday. On excursion you will be visiting a Buddhist Temple, Synagogue and Mosque with each location having food and clothing requirements covered in your letter. Please make sure you bring your lunch and drink with you as you will eat on the run during the day depending on traffic/time as you move to each location. You will be taking notes on the day so bring your paper and pen as well. Any questions please see your RE teacher or Mrs Cullen.

• High Seas Retreat is being prepared for Year 10’s on Tuesday the 23rd of October. Wear your sports uniform for the activities on the day and remember that meals are being catered. The retreat is being run in the school hall but attend Pastoral in the morning as normal please!

Year 12 Families Keep the Date

• Memories Day Lunch with students: Tuesday the 13th November at the RSL – See flyer with reports.
• Graduation Day- 9:30 start at St Mary’s Church Friday the 16th of November

Christmas Appeal- SVDP

This week we launched the Christmas Appeal on assembly. Pastoral classes are asked to prepare hampers for local families for the Christmas break this year. Pastoral classes will be given information about the people they are preparing the basket for. The aim is that the basket will contain labelled gifts for the family members, food staples, Christmas treats and be able to have fresh fruit/vegetable and meat vouchers from local providers. Students are asked to think about how each can contribute to create baskets for Saint Vincent De Paul to distribute to local families.

Other Reminders

• The Daniel Morcombe Foundation Act for Kids BBQ Day will be on the 26th of October
• Socktober- Crazy socks day will be on the 31st of October to raise money for the work of Catholic Missions. To find out more about the work they do as respresentatives of the Catholic Church click on this link.

Henri Nouwen Reflection: Sacrament of Unity

The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity. It makes us into one body. The apostle Paul writes: "As there is one loaf, so we, although there are many of us, are one single body, for we all share in the one loaf" (1 Corinthians 10:17).

The Eucharist is much more than a place where we celebrate our unity in Christ. The Eucharist creates this unity. By eating from the same bread and drinking from the same cup, we become the body of Christ present in the world. Just as Christ becomes really present to us in the breaking of the bread, we become really present to one another as brothers and sisters of Christ, members of the same body. Thus the Eucharist not only signifies unity but also creates it.

Curriculum News

By Mrs Anna Hardy, Assistant Principal—Curriculum

Welcome back to Parents and Students. In Curriculum, we are looking forward to a busy Term 4!

Assessment calendars

Assessment calendars are available from an icon on the student’s device. All Term 4 assessment should be able to be viewed from this week.

Year 11 QCS

Congratulations to the Year 11 students who sat the practice QCS tests. Results will be available later in the term.

Term 3 Interim Reports

Interim reports for students in Years 7-11 were posted to parents at the end of term 3. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the progress of your child further please do not hesitate to contact the relevant teacher, Curriculum Leader or myself at the College on 4660 4000 or via email.

Parent/Teacher Interviews

Our last Parent/Teacher Interviews will occur on the 16th October. Please use our booking system SOBS to make appointments. A ‘how to guide’ was mailed home with the letter and report card.

Exam Blocks

Year 11 exam block will run from Monday 26th – Friday 30th November. Year 12 exam block will run from Wednesday the 7th November to Monday 12th November. All students will have normal classes up until these commencement dates. This will allow maximum amount of class time to prepare for their assessments. Exam block information (including the timetable) will be distributed to Year 12s this week and Year 11s in the coming weeks.

End of Year 12 Information

A reminder to Year 12 students to ensure they have accessed their Learner Account through the Student Connect website linked below. Students will need their LUI numbers and password to login and access their OPs from 9 am on Saturday 15th December. Students will be able to access their results more quickly if they have previously activated their learning account.

From 9am on Wednesday 14th November students will be able to access their individual QCS Test results – from A to E – in their learning account (on the Student Connect website). These results will also be included in their Senior Statement at the end of the year.

From 9am on Monday 17th December students will begin receiving their Senior Education Profiles in the mail. Depending on individual student’s circumstances and results, each profile will comprise one or more of the following documents:

• QCE
• Tertiary Entrance Statement
• Senior Statement
• Queensland Certificate of Individual Achievement.

We wish the Year 12’s the very best for their last exam block and their final weeks at school.

Student Pathway News

By Mrs Alison Porter, Program Leader Student Pathways

Congratulations!

Congratulations to our Year 10 students for their successful completion of work experience last term. We have received wonderful feedback and reports about our Year 10 students with some students securing ongoing work and traineeships as a result. “Well done!”

Congratulations also to Joshua Austin for his recent sign-up into a school-based traineeship with Reece Plumbing. We wish Joshua all the best in his work and training.

Scholarships and Financial Information

Year 12 students were provided last term with a variety of weblinks that provide information around scholarships for those who wish to study in 2019. The links also included information about general financial assistance and some starting points for those looking for university accommodation.

Tertiary Studies Application

Applications for tertiary study in 2019 are now open through QTAC (Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre). Year 12 students have had an information session about creating their QTAC account and the process of applying for university courses in 2019. When lodging a QTAC application for tertiary study, students can preference up to 6 courses. QTAC advises that students preference their courses in the following way:

• Preferences 1-2 should be a student’s desired courses
• Preferences 3-4 should be back-up courses
• Preferences 5-6 should be pathway courses.

Of course, students also need to consider the OP cut-offs and major round offer dates for courses in their preferences. Students and parents are welcome to see me for any assistance or queries in relation to student course preferences or QTAC applications.

Sport News

By Mrs Julie Collins, Program Leader Sport

Congratulations

Congratulations to Laura Scheiwe who made the Darling Downs Team for Cricket. Laura will be competing at the state championships in Brisbane in November.

Open Schoolboys Training

Open Schoolboys training, in preparation for Confraternity Rugby League 2019 started Wednesday the 10th of October. The 6 week program in conjunction with the NRL game development officers will be held at Cowboys Rugby League every Wednesday from 3:30-4:30PM.

Library News

By Mrs Mary-Anne Driver

Exciting times ahead for us in the library. We have just completed training on our new Library Management program – AccessIt. This will be rolled out over the next week or so and has a great app that will be appearing on student’s ipads shortly. This app makes it easy to search for resources in our library, as well as online resources from other sites. Students will be able to reserve books and check out what’s new in the library.

General Notices

Year 7 Artwork

Year 7 Art Students were required to choose a famous artist and replicate one of their art pieces as close as possible to the original as part of their studies last term. Some amazing pieces of art work were produced by these very talented students.

Lego Robotics Challenge

Last term the school purchased a Lego Mindstorm EV3 robotics kit as part of the Enrichment Program at the College. Students who were interested in participating were invited to join the Lego Robotics group and they have formed a great team, showing that they can work together on different aspects of building a robot. After naming the robot 'Lucy' they have now moved on to the programming and troubleshooting phase. Watch this space!

Year 9 Art Murals

We were proud to be able to display the Year 9 Art students murals in the breezway of the College at the end of last term. The students had worked hard on preparing the artwork based on the idea of the aerial view of storytelling/imagining of a journey. Each student was asked to create their own image of a journey for display seen here in these photographs.

Digital Technology Spheros

In the last week of Term 3, Year 7 and 9 Digital Technologies classes combined for a lesson using the Spheros. Sphero is a robot that can be programmed and coded using the iPads to make it perform specific tasks. The Spheros are used as a fun way to include coding to the students.

Year 8 Camp Kokoda

At the end of Term 3 two bus loads of Year 8 students travelled to Maroon Dam to partake in Camp Kokoda: a 4 day/3 night adventure camp.

All students challenged themselves and pushed themselves further than they thought possible by participating in a range of activities including absailing, the giant swing, intense hiking, canoeing and high ropes course. Students not only conquered their fear of heights and the rugged outdoors, but also living without their phone for the duration of the camp!

As well as partaking in the activities, students had to hike from campsite to campsite; set up and pack down their own tents, as well as cook and clean for the group.

Miss Woodbridge, Miss Slattery, Mrs Butler, Mr Kirby and Miss James were extremely proud of all the students for showing such grit and determination throughout the camp. The teamwork and excellent behaviour shown by all students was a pleasure to see.

Year 11 Leadership Camp

Year 11 students made the journey to Alexandra Headlands for a three-night leadership camp. There was a variety of activities that students were involved in which included team development activities, leadership activities, rock-climbing wall, pamper pole, body boarding and surfing. Students faced a range of challenges both in small groups and individually to test how they worked in groups and to learn more about their peers, leadership styles and the general qualities of leaders.

Year 8 Darling Downs Zoo & Cobb and Co Museum

Assumption College Open Afternoon

Student Travel Rebates

Australian Catholic Church

Did You Know:

The good we rarely tell anyone…..

The Australian Catholic Sector is the largest non-Government welfare provider within Australia, consisting of:

• 52 member organisations
• 12,600 employees
• 500 different services

1.1 million clients were cared for in 2017

St Mary’s Catholic Parish

Community News

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