11 August 2021

From the Desk of the Principal

I have spent the last two days attending Principal Meetings with Principals from our Townsville Catholic Education Schools. It is always lovely to return to school after these days and see the smiling faces of our students.

We have some exciting times ahead with the renovation of our Tuckshop. Today is the last day for Tuckshop in its current location. It will reopen from the BBC on Wednesday 25 August and hopefully return to its new home in October. We thank you all for your understanding and patience during this time and thank you for also accommodating the minor changes that have had to be made during this time.

Well done to all of our Reading Stars who have already completed the Premiers Reading Challenge. I look forward to presenting many more certificates on Assembly this week. 

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Glenda Scrase

Principal

gscrase1@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

From the Desk of the Assistant Principal Religious Education

ASSUMPTION OF MARY OUR HOLY MOTHER

On Sunday 15 August the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Assumption of Our Lady when according to our faith, the Holy Mother, “having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory”.
The Assumption signals the end of Mary’s earthly life and marks her return to heaven to be reunited with Jesus. While the bodies of both Jesus and Mary are now in heaven, there is a difference between the Assumption and the Resurrection. Where Jesus arose from the tomb and ascended into heaven by his own power, Mary’s body was taken up to heaven by the power of her Son.
For this reason we use different words to describe each event. One is the Ascension of Christ and the other, the Assumption of Mary.

Judy Bell

APRE
jbell17@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

From the Desk of the Assistant Principal Administration

Literacy Project

Our Year 1 teachers have been taking part in an exciting literacy project, aimed at improving students’ literacy and redeveloping the way English is taught in our school. Teachers have been collaborating with Townsville Catholic Education’s System Learning and Teaching team to see the project to fruition.

The project uses literature to teach the sounds made by letters and letter combinations (graphemes, phonemes, diagraphs), sentence structure, parts of speech, punctuation and grammar, writing and genre.

Students have explored rich texts such as I'm Australian Too and Where is the Green Sheep by Mem Fox, Liarbird and Mopoke by Philip and Laura Bunting, using them to identify sounds, high frequency words, descriptive words and different punctuation.

Moving forward the Year 1s will be using word families and word sums to look at various spelling rules, for example: 
-sleep
- sleeping (to teach 'ing')
- sleeper (er)
- sleeps (plurals)

This is to go with the research that spelling is best taught through looking at the word as a whole, not stand-alone phonemes.
Regular free writing time has also been implemented across the year level, and students are becoming more excited to write and take more risks in their writing.
Year 1 teacher Jeni Gillman has been spearheading the project, and has combined it with another project in her role as E-Learning Guide, which involves filming teachers across the school reading books to students. These are then used to provide audio and visual versions of the texts being used in class – another way to engage students in their reading.

Maxine Nolan

APA

mnolan@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

What's Happening in Our Year 1 Classes

Welcome to Year 1 where imagination is the beginning of creation and everyone dreams of becoming an artist. The students have been very busy learning about different art elements including, line, shape, colour and texture.
Art isn’t just stroking with a paint brush or drawing with a pencil. There are various processes and techniques the students have been learning to help them become artists. Through various mediums, they are learning how art can represent themselves, people and the world we live in. What the students have enjoyed the most is the opportunity to explore their own individuality. 
Just in this short amount of time, not only have we noticed the student’s creativity being nurtured but it has also boosted their confidence levels, allowed them to be better critical thinkers and problem solvers and it has taught them quite a bit about determination and patience.
We have a few weeks to go and still so much to learn. We look forward to sharing all our work with you at our end of term Art Show!!!! Invitations will be sent home closer to the date. We look forward to seeing you all there!!

Awards For The Week

Birthdays For This Week

~ Regan  2C      ~ Kalanni  3B      ~ Desmond  3C       ~ Kahlo  5A       ~ Stanley  6B

Assembly

3B will be presenting our Assembly this Friday in the BBC at 8:40am.

Our lucky Praise Note winners for last week were: Colton (PrepC), Atticus (1A), Callyn (2C), Leanne (3C), Layne (4B), Kahlo (5A), Narrah (6A).

The Good Shepherd Way

This week our Good Shepherd Way Gospel in Action value is Inclusion where we are encouraged to involve and accept others.

Our Inclusion 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 Show Respect: Before School, Classroom, Eating Area, Playground, Oval, Library and Toilets.

Congratulations to our GSCS Way VIP winners last week - Mia, Madeleine and Kelly.

FACE (Family And Community Engagement) Network News

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday 12 October at 7:00pm in the Staffroom.

We are looking for donations ahead of our Fathers' Day Stall on 1 September. Can you help?

Running Club

Running Club is held each Tuesday and Thursday on the oval and is open to all year levels and age groups. Can you help us get to Tokyo for the Olympics?

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.

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.

Library News

Playground Competition

NCCD Fact Sheet for Parents & Caregivers

Environmental Tips

Australia is a marine nation. We have one of the largest ocean territories in the world, and it drives our climate and weather, generates employment, provides food and resources, and offers lifestyle and recreational opportunities. When you look after our oceans you are looking after the future.

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