31 March 2021

From the Desk of the Principal

It is hard to believe this is the final week of Term 1. Time definitely does fly when you're having fun.

Our Year 6 students have been having a wonderful time on their camp to Magnetic Island. I would like to thank Mrs Kershaw, Ms Niland and Ms Ryan as well as our parent helpers Lisa, Ashun, John and Peter for ensuring the students have had a great experience and challenged themselves to try new activities.

Tomorrow we also have a number of Year 5 and 6 students competing in the NQ Netball and Bill Nettle Rugby League Challenges. The netballers will be attending with Mrs Bradbury and Mrs Mennell and the footballers will be attending with Miss Nott and myself. I would like to thank James, one of our Dads, for volunteering his time to come in at lunchtimes to help prepare the students ahead of the footy tomorrow. I am confident the students will represent Good Shepherd well and will enjoy competing at these events on their last day of term.

I would like to thank you all for continuing to follow COVID protocols when on site at school. I recognise what a challenging and confusing time this can be for many of us so I thank you for continuing to follow rules and restrictions that are set from agencies other than our own.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support of myself and our staff across the first term. I wish you all a happy and holy Easter break and pray that it is safe and you all return rested, recharged and ready for the the fun and frivolity of Term 2 on Monday 19 April.

Happy Holidays :)

Glenda Scrase

Principal

gscrase1@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

From the Desk of the Assistant Principal Religious Education

Holy Week

This is a very special week. On Thursday we celebrate the day that Jesus ate the Last Supper with His apostles. This was the first Mass, when He gave His Body and Blood to them in what still looked like bread and wine. He also made them priests by giving them the power to turn bread and wine into His Body and Blood to offer them to the Father.

On Good Friday we remember the suffering and death of Our Lord. He was beaten and made fun of, and had to carry the heavy cross. Then He was nailed to the cross, where He hung for hours before He gave up His life to God for us.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday is the celebration of Christ's resurrection from the dead. It marks the end of Lent. Jesus’ resurrection is a triumph of good over evil, sin and death. It is the singular event which proves that those who trust in God and accept Christ will be raised from the dead. Since Easter represents the fulfillment of God's promises to mankind, it is the most important holiday on the Christian calendar.

During this week each class will participate in an activity which takes them on a journey from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. At each stop along the way the students will hear and reflect on a Gospel story, re-enact this story and pray together. 

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Project Compassion at GSCS

$950 has come in so far – THANK YOU for your generosity!

Blessings for Easter.

Judy Bell

APRE
jbell17@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

From the Desk of the Assistant Principal Administration

Last Thursday students across Years 3 and 5 took part in a “co-ordinated practise test” for NAPLAN online. The idea of this test was to have as many schools as possible across Australia online in order to test the system during heavy demand. I am happy to report that Good Shepherd fared well, with no significant issues with our technology.
I am also happy to say that most students coped well with the practise test. The test went for 45 minutes and was a combination of numeracy, language conventions and reading. It was important that students participate, so they are exposed to the structure of the test and become familiar with tits format. The NAPLAN practise test is not marked, and there are no results recorded.
The “real” NAPLAN tests are scheduled for week 4 of Term 2, starting with the writing test on Tuesday 11 May. Year 3 students will do this test on paper, while Year 5 will complete the test online. Students will then participate in the online Reading test on Wednesday 12 May, online Conventions of Language on Thursday 13 May, and online Numeracy on Monday 17 May. It is worth noting, that the longest of these tests takes 50 minutes. 
NAPLAN is not a test that can be studied for, and students are not expected to do so. The best preparation for the tests is attendance at school, a good night’s sleep and a healthy breakfast on the day. More information about NAPLAN can be found here.
If you have any concerns at all regarding NAPLAN and your child’s participation in it, please speak to your classroom teacher, our Inclusive Practises Teachers, or myself.

Maxine Nolan

APA

mnolan@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

What's Happening in Our Year 5 Classes

What a busy first term it has been. We have had swimming lessons, the swimming carnival, and had visits with our PALS in 2B and PrepC. We have had meetings with our Kinder PALS from Mary Mackillop, where we are all enjoying buddy reading and then this week some of our students will be participating in the Bill Nettle Cup to play Rugby and the NQ Netball Carnival. We have attended Parent/Teacher and Students meetings this last week where we established some learning goals we can strive to achieve throughout the remainder of the year. This week we did a practise for NAPLAN so we now know how to log on next term for our real test.
We are all looking forward to Easter and hope that everyone has a happy and safe term holiday. 

Staff News

Our PE Teacher Mr Mark Wilson has tendered his resignation and is returning to secondary teaching. We are in the process of recruiting a replacement for Mark to commence in Term 2.

Our Year 4 School Officer Mrs Lisa Jones has filled the void of Mrs Cullen's absence in Term 1 and will be returning to relief school officer work. Mrs Cullen has taken the remainder of the year off and we are in the process of recruiting a replacement to commence in Term 2.

Mrs Sarah Rayward has completed her final practicum studies in Prep C and is now a qualified teacher. 

We thank Mark, Lisa and Sarah for their contributions to our Good Shepherd Catholic School community this term and wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

STEM Challenge

By Mackenzie Ellerton (Year 5)

On Monday, 29th March, Kai, Paige, Ethan and Mackenzie from Year 5 went to Townsville Grammar School at Annandale for a K'nex Bridge Building Competition. We were one of twelve teams on the day. Our team had to design a bridge using K’nex and test it out by seeing how much weight it could hold.  

We had an hour and half to design and build our bridge. There were some James Cook University Engineering students who demonstrated some different types of bridges - arch, suspension, truss and pre-stressed. We found out that using triangles as part of our design would make it very strong. They came around and gave us tips while we were building our bridge.

We had quite a few attempts until we ended up with our final design.  When it was finished, each group had to have their bridge tested to see how strong the design was.  Firstly, our bridge was put on a scale and weighed. It was 0.270 kg. Next it was suspended over a frame and a hook was added.  Weights were slowly added until our bridge finally collapsed!  Our design was able to hold 5.7kg!

There were 12 teams altogether and our bridge was the fifth strongest bridge.

Awards For The Week

Birthdays For This Week And During The School Holidays!

 ~ Campbell  PrepA    ~ Matilda  PrepA    ~ Payton  PrepB    ~ Christian  PrepB     ~  Teddy  PrepC       ~ Nathaniel  1A          ~ Yasien  1A                ~ Keona  1B              ~ Sienna  1C                 ~ Chelsea  1C                 ~ Rion 2A                      ~ Tyler  2A                 ~ Caiarn   2A             ~ Jacob  2A                    ~ Anna  2B                     ~ Toby 2B                     ~ Henny  2C               ~ Vivian 3A             ~ Nicholas 3B               ~ Amilia  3C                   ~ William  4A              ~ Riley  4A                  ~ Peyton   4A         ~ Charlee   4A              ~ Amelia   4B               ~ Joeviah   4B              ~ Indigo  4B                ~ Zac  4B                  ~ Matthew  6B

Assembly

There is no assembly this week.

Our lucky Praise Note winners for last week were: Madeleine (PrepA), Audrina (1B), Henny (2C), Nate (3A), Alyssa (4A), Heidi (5B).

The Good Shepherd Way

This week our Good Shepherd Way Gospel in Action value is Stewardship where we are encouraged to care for all of creation.

Our Stewardship prayer is also 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 Compassion & Care: Assembly, Community Centre, Moving Around School and the Pick Up Zone.

FACE (Family And Community Engagement) Network News

Thank you to all the families that purchased tickets in our Easter Raffle. Thank you to Cel and Amanda from our FACE Network for organising another fabulous Easter Mega Raffle. Congratulations to the following winners:
1. Dot Easton
2. Pam Mennell
3. Joshua Horrocks
4. Shakira Lovett
5. Ange Haynes
6. Rhys Sengstock
7. James McDowell
8. Shelley Larsen
9. Kirby Larsen
10. Adam Jenkins
11. James McDowell
12. Mia Beavis
13. Maria Haslett
14. Martin Lawlor
15. Maria Haslett
16. Lacey Dudley
17. Joshua Russell
18. Kylie Adkins

Have You Enrolled For Prep 2022 Yet?

Students turning 5 by 30 June 2022 are invited to enroll for Prep 2022. Applications are available from our School Office. Alternatively they can also downloaded from our website at https://www.gstsv.catholic.edu.au/enrolment/enrolment-package/

Tuckshop

Wednesday - Thursday - Friday

Please place your order with Flexischool no later than 8:30am on the day you wish to order. You will find a menu on our webpage. If you wish to place an order of cupcakes for your child's birthday please place your order the week before.

Environmental Tips

Replace Disposables: Wherever possible, replace disposable products with reusable ones (i.e. razors, food storage, batteries, ink cartridges (buy refillable cartridges), coffee filters, furnace or air conditioner filters, etc).

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