3 November 2021

From the Desk of the Principal

Friday was a day where we not only wore red for Day for Daniel but we also celebrated the wonderful work of our staff. Annually there are set celebration days for teachers, school officers, tuckshop convenors, cleaners, ground staff and even principals but here at Good Shepherd we celebrate all of our staff on the same day. As the saying goes, "it takes a village to raise a child" and we are blessed to have these wonderful people going above and beyond and helping to raise our kids each and every day. No-one's job is more or less important and it takes each of these roles for our school to operate and for our students to have success. Our staff were gifted with Good Shepherd umbrellas to remind them that “There is nothing more beautiful than a rainbow but it takes both rain and sunshine to make a rainbow.” We thank each of our staff for all they have contributed and continue to contribute to our Good Shepherd Catholic School Family.

Heading into 2022 we are looking to make a few adjustments at Good Shepherd. One change will be our session times and first break times. Currently the first session is two and a half hours, with the middle session being one and a half hours. We are looking to adjust it so that both sessions are two hours. We will then look at playing first and then eating as research shows children are more settled heading back into class on full stomachs and after having the chance to reset after play. Below is what our day currently looks like and the planned change for 2022:

2021 School Day

• Session One: 8:30am to 11:00am
• Lunch and Play: 11:00am to 11:40am
• Session Two: 11:40am to 1:10pm
• Snack: 1:10pm to 1:30pm
• Session Three: 1:30pm to 2:50pm

2022 School Day 

• Session One: 8:30am to 10:30am
• Lunch and Play: 10:30am to 11:10am
• Session Two: 11:10am to 1:10pm
• Snack: 1:10pm to 1:30pm
• Session Three: 1:30pm to 2:50pm

We hope these changes will be beneficial to all in our school community. Enjoy the rest of your week.

Glenda Scrase

Principal

gscrase1@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

From the Desk of the Assistant Principal Religious Education

Years 4-6 will be participating in the Life Education Talk About It program 9th-10th, 18th-19th November. Talk About It supports schools to deliver curriculum-aligned education in the areas of relationships, identity and puberty.
Year 4
Body Safety
Identifies physical responses to safe and unsafe situations and practice protective behaviours.
Years 5 & 6
Relationships - Evolving Friendships
Identifies characteristics of healthy and unhealthy relationships and explores managing emotions.
Puberty - Welcome to Puberty
Identifies physical, social and emotional changes during puberty and investigates sources of support.

Mission Day Activities

On Friday Prep C, w

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 INCLUSION. 

 “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” John 13:34 

Judy Bell

APRE
jbell17@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

From the Desk of the Assistant Principal Administration

Being able to sit back, relax, and get lost in a good book is something a lot of us take for granted. The ability to read is not only essential for academic success, but is also an important life skill. However, it is a skill that doesn’t always come easily.
Staff at Good Shepherd utilise a number of strategies to help students master the skills involved in becoming a proficient reader. 
One program that has seen great success is the MacqLit reading intervention program. MacqLit is a reading program for children in Year 3 and above who need some help with their reading. It takes place in groups of up to five students and takes up to an hour a day. 
MacqLit is a research-based initiative and involves over 100 lessons which target specific skills and strategies to increase reading and spelling ability.
 As well as doing the one-hour MacqLit lessons, students are provided with opportunities to practise the skills they are learning through one-on-one reading with an adult. We also rely on families to support students by regularly listening to them read.
On completion of the MacqLit program, most students have made significant gains in their reading ability. Students regularly have their reading speed and accuracy tested, with percentage increases in accurate reading speed of 300% to 400% common by the time they finish. One student finishing the program this year has recorded an incredible 1940% improvement!

Maxine Nolan

APA

mnolan@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

What's Happening In Year 2 Classes

In Year 2, we have been using fairy tales as inspiration for our narrative writing tasks. Fairy tales are captivating and provide a variety of ways to develop writing skills. Over the last few weeks, we have explored character development with The Three Little Pigs, setting descriptions with Little Red Riding Hood and story endings with Humpty Dumpty. Over the coming weeks, we will begin to use Google Docs to collaboratively and independently create our own fairy tales using the skills we have practised. Google Docs is a wonderful tool for writing that provides us with shared documents, access to images, editing tools, and text-to-speech/speech-to-text technology. If you would like to read any of our stories, please let us know and we will share them with you by email! 

Awards For The Week

Birthdays For This Week

~Keeley (PrepA)      ~Safia (PrepC)       ~Harrison (PrepC)      ~Kyren (2B)

~Sienna (2B)            ~Abbey (3B)            ~Joey (3B)                       ~Sophie-Rose (4A)

~Slate  (6A)               ~Riley  (6A)             ~Mary  (6A)  

Assembly

1C will be presenting our Assembly this Friday in the BBC at 8:40am.

Our lucky Praise Note winners for last week were: Elliott (PrepC), Averley (1C), Mason(2B), Lucy (3A), Layne (4B), Patience (5B)  .

The Good Shepherd Way

This week our Good Shepherd Way Gospel in Action value is Inclusion where we are encouraged to see all good around us.

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, Toilets. 

Congratulations to Yasien, Charlee and Leigho who were our GSCS Way VIPs last week.

FACE (Family And Community Engagement) Network News

We are looking for donations for our Christmas Mega Raffle!

Tickets have been sent home with families today.

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 on the link below.

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.

Environmental Tips

Buy less packaging: One third of domestic waste that Australians produce is made up of packaging materials, so think carefully about what you are buying.

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