13 March 2024

From the Desk of the Acting Principal

Week 8 , Term 1

Win a $100 Visa

Every five years, Townsville Catholic schools are required to undertake the Establishing Catholic School Identity (ECSI) surveys. The purpose of the survey is to gain meaningful insights into how our school views its Catholic identity today and how such identity might be shaped for tomorrow.

Everyone’s input is important – which is why we emailed ALL parents on Monday, providing information about the survey and link to it, asking that you take the time to complete it. Your responses are confidential and will be helpful in forming future directions for our school.

As an added incentive to participate, parents/carers who take part will go in the draw to win a $100 Visa card each week for the rest of this term. The first winner will be drawn this Friday, 15^th March. To be in the draw, just complete the survey and send the certificate you receive at the end through to the school. All instructions are in Monday’s email, which was sent via Compass.

Thank you for taking part!

2025 Prep Enrolments

If you have a little one ready to start Prep in 2025, now is the perfect time to enrol them! Enrolment forms are available from our school website, or you can drop by the office and collect one.

After school on Thursday April 18, we will also be hosting a Prep Open Session for potential 2025 Prep students and their families. Keep an eye on Facebook for more details.

Reminder- Extra Pupil Free Day: As advised last year, Townsville Catholic Education Office has approved an additional professional development day in 2024.  The date will be Friday 26th April 2024 and will be a pupil free day. This day follows on from the ANZAC day public holiday on Thursday 25th April.

Maxine Nolan

AP

mnolan@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

From the Desk of the Acting Assistant Principal Pedagogy and Learning

Talofa lava parents, carers and students!

Curriculum News

NAPLAN

Today our Year 3 and Year 5 students started NAPLAN testing. NAPLAN is an assessment that helps parents and carers to see how their child is progressing in literacy and numeracy. The assessment is based on what students learn in the classroom, and is not a pass or fail test.  Our consistent messaging to students is ‘Just do your best when you do the test’.

Good luck to all the students taking part in NAPLAN this week and next week. If your child is absent on a test day because of illness, a catch up time will be arranged for them to complete the test they missed.

PARENT/TEACHER/STUDENT INTERVIEWS

You would have received information from your child/ren’s class teacher/s regarding the upcoming Parent/Teacher/Student Interviews being held in Weeks 9 and 10. These important interviews provide a great opportunity for you to continue to build a relationship with your child’s teacher and to identify your child’s strengths and stretches.

Sports News ⚽️ 🏀 🏈 ⚾️ 🎾 🏐 🏉 🎱

On the last day of term, students will be participating in two popular annual events on the school sporting calendar, namely the Bill Nettle Rugby League Challenge and the NQ Netball Cup. Keep an eye out for further details to come from Miss Foord.

School Events 📅 

Grandparents Day

All grandparents or grandparent figures are welcome to attend our Grandparents Day breakfast, liturgy and open classrooms this Friday 15^th March. See flyer below and our Facebook page for more details.

Big Mob Brekkie

We invite our First Nations families to join us for our termly Big Mob Brekkie next Wednesday 20^th March at 7:45am in the Deadly Learner’s room.

Have a wonderful week ahead and please come and say talofa or hello when you see me around!

Rebecca Rowan

AAPA

rrowan6@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

From the Desk of the Assistant Principal Religious Education

PROJECT COMPASSION – Leaia’s Story

Samoa

While Samoa is a beautiful country surrounded by water, there is not enough clean drinking water in some areas. This makes life very hard for many families like Leaia’s. 

Leaia lives with her family on the island of Upolu in Samoa. She was worried about running out of water. Their home is not connected to a piped water system, so their only source of water was rainwater collected in old fridges.

However, due to climate change they are experiencing shorter rainy seasons and longer dry seasons. This has left Leaia’s family without enough clean water.

With the support of Caritas Australia's local partner Caritas Samoa, a 3,000 litre water tank was installed at Leaia's home. She and her family now have a steady supply of clean drinking water!

Next year, they will also have a toilet built through the program, which will further improve their health and living conditions.

“I hope this program helps other families in need, like mine. Thank you, Caritas, we are very grateful for the water tank.”  Leaia

Watch a short film about Leaia’s story here

PROJECT COMPASSION at GSCS

Don’t forget to continue to use your Project Compassion box for your donations or you can donate online via the Caritas Australia website at: lent.caritas.org.au

SACRAMENTAL PROGRAM FOR 2024

RECONCILIATION – CONFIRMATION – HOLY COMMUNION

The lesson this week was the first on Eucharist, with the second lesson on Eucharist next week. Next week is the final week of lessons.  A note will go home at your next session for the Sacramental Retreat Day on Friday 19 April (Term 2 Week 1).

Thank you to the teachers who have volunteered to lead the groups. 

Congratulations to our GSCS participants who received the Sacrament of Reconciliation last week at Ryan Community Centre. 

Rebecca Kershaw

APRE

rkershaw@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

What's Happening in Year 3

Year 3 have recently finished their six 40 minute lessons with Kylie's Swim School. It was great to see their swimming styles develop under the guidance of the swim instructors. The students loved the opportunity to relax in the cool water during our hot summer days.

Some of our students have the opportunity to attend the Sensory Room during the week. The room contains activities and equipment which engages students at a sensory level. This allows them to have their sensory needs met, develop clarity of thought and focus and provides a movement break as a means of reengaging them in the classroom on their return.

3C were the Class in the Spotlight on assembly a couple of Fridays ago. They performed a "Cup Song" which they learnt in Music with Ms Brown. They used cups to add percussion to their song. 3B were scheduled to attend the Parish Mass last week. They enjoyed running through the mass program, learning the responses and the songs so they could engage more authentically in the process. Class teachers have nominated a small group of students to engage with a social skills program with Mrs Aili. These sessions give students the confidence and practice to engage more positively in social groups and settings. Another small group has been invited to read to the visiting Story Dogs, when they visit each week on a Wednesday.

All three classes have had the opportunity to practise a NAPLAN session of 45 mins using the chromebooks. They had 42 questions to complete, covering reading, conventions of language, and numeracy skills and concepts. Summah wrote in her daily writing session "Today I did my NAPLAN practice and I didn't give up! I just kept going and going and I liked it so much! It was so fun and fun." The year 3 classes have enjoyed time with their PaLs (Play and Learn class) and one another during their Fun Friday activities. 

Library

Breakfast Club and Running Club

Both Clubs will run every morning. Breakfast Club will run from the Tuckshop from 8:10am and Running Club will be held on the Junior Oval from 8:10am as well.

The Good Shepherd Way

Term 1, Week 8

This week our Good Shepherd Way Gospel in Action value is Reconciliation where I am fair, forgiving and respectful.

Our Reconcillation prayer is below:

Term 1, Week 9

The Good Shepherd Way Gospel in Action for Week 9 will be Service where I help and respond to the needs of others.

Our Service prayer is below:

The GSCS Way

The GSCS Way is our positive behaviour support program here at Good Shepherd Catholic School.

All in our community are encouraged to:

• Give My Best
• Show Respect
• Compassion and Care
• Safe Responsible and Fair

Each week we focus on a different area of our matrix.

This week we are focusing on: in the toilets. 

In Term 1, Week 9 we are focusing on: at the tuckshop. 

Environmental Tips

Turn it off 

Artificial lighting accounts for 44 percent of electricity used in office buildings. Make it a habit to turn off the lights when you're leaving any room for 15 minutes or more. Same goes for electronics; switch off power strips and unplug electrical devices when you're not using them.

Lost and Found

Tuckshop

Wednesday - Thursday - Friday

Please contact the school office or Ann-Maree at Tuckshop with any enquiries.

CUTOFF time to order TUCKSHOP
from FLEXISCHOOLS
is 8:30am.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL ORDERS ARE TO BE PLACED ONLINE AT THE LINK BELOW. Please visit the website to set up your account if you are new to Flexischools.

Flexischool How To Guides for Parents and Caregivers
• Online help is available any time at Flexischools via the link below.
• Phone between 8am - 12pm (AEDST) on weekdays or on the parent phone line (1300 361 769). 

How-To Guides for Parents
Flexischool has spent some time over the holidays developing some quick how-to guides for  parents. If you'd like to see these, please click the link below.
They include: 
•    Introduction to Flexischools;
•    How to Register; 
•    How to Top-Up;
•    How to Place an Order. 

Teacher Contacts

Parent Portal

If you have any problems accessing please send an email to the school office at rsmssn@tsv.catholic.edu.au. 

The Parent Portal allows you to:

View your child’s timetable and the school calendar
View up to date attendance information for your child
Enter details of upcoming absences or explain past absences or late arrivals for your son or daughter
Access your child’s Semester reports
Make bookings for Parent Teacher Interviews
View a news feed of school announcements, alerts and updates
Provide consent for school events/excursions
Communicate by email with your child’s teachers
Update your contact details (email and mobile phone number).

The parent portal is a web-based system that can be accessed by clicking this link:

An app called Compass School Manager is also available for both iPhones/iPads (via the App Store) and Android phones/tablets (via the Google Play Store). When you have installed the app, search for “Good Shepherd Catholic School – Rasmussen”.
The browser version of the Parent Portal contains more features than the app.  Please click the link below to access the Compass website which has an online guide and video for the Parent Portal.

Community News

Free Parent Presentation by The HopeFull Institute's Glen Gerreyn: March 21 6:00-7:00pm

Good afternoon families,

We are excited to welcome Glen Gerreyn from The HopeFull Institute to talk on the topic of Positive Parenting. Glen is the director and co-founder of The HopeFull Institute. Glen has written several books and spoken to parents, young people, and organisations nationally spreading the message about the power of hope in directing your life purpose, inspiring action, and motivating change.

When: Thursday, March 21. 
Time:  6:00 pm - 7:00 pm.
Location:  St Margaret Mary’s College - Benedictine Place.
 
During his one-hour Positive Parenting seminar to parents, “Glen will share the five fundamental positive parenting tools, based on positive psychology research."

Topics covered include:

• How to help your child find a vision

• The rules of encouragement

• How to be where you are

• Teaching your children how to fail

• How to say you’re sorry

• Making the home a refuge

To register to come, please click on the link:https://compasstix.com/e/efsm88yf0w

We hope to see you there!