1 September 2021

From the Desk of the Principal

Book Week never fails to disappoint! Well done to all of our families and friends on our students outstanding costumes this year. The Book Week Parade was lots of fun with a special thank you going to Mrs Cameron for her compering of the event.

Book Week also saw our students spending time reading in various locations around our school. We also welcomed author Boori Monty Pryor to our school on Thursday and he was a special reading guest at Yalga. Thank you also to our Adopt-A-Cop Peter Alexander and our staff for donating their lunch times to read with our students. 

This Friday is a Pupil Free Day. Our teachers will be spending the day at school focusing on learning and teaching initiatives while our school officers will join other school officers from across Townsville schools improving their practice around cued articulation and classroom friendly strategies.

Next week we will of course be celebrating Good Shepherd Day and our 25th anniversary. We hope you can join us throughout the day for the celebration.

Sunday is Fathers' Day so I would like to wish our fathers, step-fathers and grandfathers a very Happy Fathers' Day. Thank you to Amanda and Cel from our FACE Network for running a stall to ensure our students could buy something special for their father figures this Sunday.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Glenda Scrase

Principal

gscrase1@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

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From the Desk of the Assistant Principal Religious Education

PARISH - SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS

We are very lucky to have a great partnership with our parish priests. They are always happy to visit classrooms to talk with the students and answer questions.
Fr Joseph visited the Year 3 classes on Tuesday to talk about the Beatitudes. He was asked a few profound questions too! ‘What would have happened if Jesus didn’t die on the cross?’

THE GOOD SHEPHERD WAY

The Good Shepherd Way is our Gospel in Action here at Good Shepherd Catholic School. It encourages students to live out the following ten values by thriving to follow the action associated with it:
•    Community - I connect and engage
•    Compassion - I show care and concern for others
•    Endeavour - I challenge myself to do my best
•    Hope - I see good all around me
•    Inclusion - I involve and accept others
•    Justice - I make right choices
•    Love - I share my good heart with others
•    Reconciliation - I am fair, forgiving and respectful
•    Service - I help and respond to the needs of others
•    Stewardship - I care for all of creation
Each week we focus on one of these values and an award is presented at assembly to a student in each class who has demonstrated the value that week.

This week we are focusing on RECONCILIATION. 

“Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” Luke 15:11-32

Judy Bell

APRE
jbell17@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

From the Desk of the Assistant Principal Administration

Cybersafety and the use of technology to intimidate, threaten or annoy others is in ongoing issue in today’s tech-reliant society.
Parents often are pressured into allowing their children to have social media accounts before the recommended age, and children also create these accounts without parental knowledge.
Parents can monitor what their children access in a variety of ways, including use of parental control - software tools that allow you to monitor and limit what your child sees and does online.  
According to the e Safety Commission, parental controls can be set up to do things like: 

•    Block your child from accessing specific websites, apps or functions (like using a device’s camera, or the ability to buy things). 
•    Filter different kinds of content — such as ‘adult’ or sexual content, content that may promote self-harm, eating disorders, violence, drugs, gambling, racism and terrorism. 
•    Allow you to monitor your child’s use of connected devices, with reports on the sites they visit and the apps they use, how often and for how long.  
•    Set time limits, blocking access after a set time. 
•    If a device or program is shared by multiple members of your family, you should be able change the tool settings to reflect each user’s age and skills.

Parental control functions are built into many devices, including mobile phones and tablets. Apple operating systems from iOS12 enable you to restrict access to browsers and applications, in-app purchasing, social networking, inappropriate internet content, sharing of data (including photos and location), media streaming and online gaming. Although Android has no general built-in parental control features, Android devices can be controlled using Google Family Link. More information on how to access these features is available on the e Safety Commission site by clicking the below link.

I highly recommend parents make use of the free information available on the e Safety website, and in particular the information tailored for parents. It can be accessed by clicking on the below link or going to www.esafety.gov.au.

Maxine Nolan

APA

mnolan@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

What's Happening in Our Prep Classes

Recently the families of students in Prep A generously donated food items for the friends in Townsville who “sleep rough” and who access the OrangeSky mobile laundry. I packaged up the items and took them to the service when they were visiting one of Townsville’s temporary accommodation sites. The Act of Kindness was gratefully appreciated. Our class also hosted Jarli’s baby brother, with his Mum and Dad, and he had a bath at Prep as part of our Health unit this term. The students have been talking about how they have grown physically and the sorts of things they can now do by themselves which they couldn’t do as babies, toddlers or in Kindy. They have also set goals for themselves, such as riding their two-wheeler bike without trainer wheels, and getting across the monkey bars in the school playgrounds. As we move towards the end of their Prep year, we are promoting an increase in independence as learners and in many self-care tasks. These are important skills as they head towards starting Year 1 in 2022.

Prep B students are learning about how the characteristics of weather affect their daily lives, why places are special to people and how to take care of them, different ways to be safe and healthy in their environment.  Maths focus has been measurement and using mathematical language to describe length, capacity, weight and time. In English they are working on blending sounds quickly to develop their fluency in reading and improving their writing skills as they ‘Have A Go’ at writing about their weekend, school or complete a dictated sentence by the teacher. 

In Science Prep C are having a great term learning about the weather. We have drawn different types of cloud cover, talked about the temperature of the air and listened to weather reports, in preparation for our assessment where students become the weather reporter. Students enjoy talking about the clothing and the activities that are best suited to different types of weather as well as the types of food we enjoy in different conditions. Last week we learnt about how the air moves and to help us see the difference between ‘calm’, a ‘breeze’ and a ‘gale’ we made wind meters. We learned that if we stand on the verandah, or between buildings rather than out on the oval the speed of the wind is altered. We did enjoy seeing what happened to our wind meters in different areas.

Awards For The Week

Birthdays For This Week

~ Willow PrepB         ~ Rubi  PrepB        ~   Abbie  1A          ~ Lucy  3A           ~ Jaxon  3C

Assembly

4B will be presenting our Assembly this Thursday in the BBC at 8:40am instead of Friday.

Our lucky Praise Note winners for last week were: Harmony (PrepC), Katy (1C), Kloe (2A), Lucy (3A), William (4A), Matthew (5B), Olivia (6B).

The Good Shepherd Way

This week our Good Shepherd Way Gospel in Action value is Reconciliation where we are encouraged to be fair, forgiving and respectful.

Our Reconciliation 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: Tuckshop, Office, Assembly, Community Centre, Moving Around School, Pick Up Zone. 

Congratulations to our GSCS Way VIP winners last week - Riley, Georgia and Lachlan.

FACE (Family And Community Engagement) Network News

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

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.

Playground Competition

Environmental Tips

September  - Save the Koala Month
The Australian native Koala is now threatened with extinction in many parts of Australia.
Koalas are protected by law but their homes and food aren’t. Koala babies are called ‘joeys’. They are marsupials and have two thumbs on their front paws for climbing. There are a number of Koalas living on Magnetic Island. 

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