11 May 2022

From the Desk of the Principal

I am currently on long service leave and will return to school on Monday 16 May. Maxine Nolan is Acting Principal in my absence and is assisted by Rebecca Kershaw (APRE). 
I hope you are all continuing to keep well and I look forward to catching up with you all when I return.

Glenda Scrase

Principal

gscrase1@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

From the Desk of the Assistant Principal Religious Education

Mini Vinnies

Mini Vinnies is the Primary School section of the St Vincent De Paul Society. It offers Year 5-6 students a chance to assist the work of the St Vincent De Paul Society. One of the worthwhile activities that our Mini Vinnies group participates in is visiting residents at Parklands Aged Care. This is a great opportunity for our students to put their faith into action. The residents love the visits and so do our Mini Vinnies!

Parklands have recently informed us of two changes:

• Parents are no longer allowed to stay during the visit.
  I have been told by a representative of Parklands, that due to a Federal Government directive, parents are no longer allowed to accompany their child into the lounge area. This is a shame as I know that quite a few of you enjoy visiting the residents as much as the children do but we must abide by their rules.
• ALL students attending Parklands with Mrs Kershaw need to have completed the ‘Covid Screening’ form for entry to Parklands. As they are under 16 years old they are exempt from vaccination.

Our next visit on the 14th May, all Mini Vinnies who are attending should have returned their permission and Covid Screening forms to Mrs Kershaw. 

Our Lady of Fatima – Feast Day – May 13th
This Friday the 13th May commemorates the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three children in Fatima, Portugal on the 13th of each month from May to October in 1917. Our Lady appeared to Lucia, age 9, Blessed Francisco Marto, age 8, and Blessed Jacinta Marto, age 6, while they were tending sheep; they described her as “a woman all in white, more brilliant than the sun”, and her message was to do reparation for sins that offend God, and to pray constantly for the conversion of sinners.

She asked for devotion to the Holy Trinity, and for praying the Rosary daily for world peace. Word spread, and by the final apparition on 13th October, 70,000 people showed up to witness the Lady and the sign that she had promised; they witnessed the sun make three circles and zigzag around in the sky.

During this holy Season of Easter, may the Easter gift of "grace and mercy" be ours through the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary; she who is "our life, our sweetness and our hope" - the Mother of the Risen Lord!
Our Lady of Fátima, pray for us.

Rebecca Kershaw

APRE

rkershaw@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

From the Desk of the Assistant Principal Administration

Parent Portal for Compass

The Compass Parent Portal has now been opened to parents of Good Shepherd Catholic School. Each parent is issued with an individual login name and password for the parent Portal. You should have received an email with these details earlier this week. 

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. 

Car Park Safety
Just a reminder that parents/carers are expected to collect children from the pickup zone in front of D block. It is not appropriate, and is not safe, to have young children walking to the shops, PCYC, the street corner or other areas for collection. The bus zone near the Prep building is reserved for buses, and parents are asked not to collect children from that area.
When collecting children, if you are waiting in your car we ask that you move forward as far as possible to allow more cars to fit into the pick up zone. If you are parking, you are to walk across the carpark and collect your children. It is not safe to stay at your car and call them across the carpark. Please do not get angry with staff if they do not allow your child to cross the carpark to you – they are merely acting in the best interests of our students and trying to keep all students safe. We thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Roadwork Update
Townsville City Council plans to upgrade the road along Allambie Lane between Riverway Drive and Salt Bush Boulevard, Kelso. This project is proudly funded by the Queensland Government through the Transport Infrastructure Development Scheme (TIDS), and Townsville City Council.

In response to community-led requests, Council will widen Allambie Lane to allow dedicated turn lanes in and out of Rasmussen State School and Riverway Plaza. As part of these works, Council intends to:

• widen and reconstruct an associated section of pavement and line mark accordingly
• construct identified sections of kerb and channel, including associated driveway crossovers and portions of driveway accesses
• install concrete medians, pedestrian refuges, dedicated turning lanes, and a raised crossing to improve road user safety and traffic flow
• include a dedicated bicycle lane 
• install regulatory and hazard signage where required.

Council has scheduled the first stage of these works for the 2021/22 financial year, although the actual starting date has not yet been advised.

Maxine Nolan

APA

mnolan@gstsv.catholic.edu.au

What's Happening In Our Year 3 Classes?

This term in Science, Year 3 have been learning about the Sun, Moon and Earth. The students have looked at myths from around the world about the Sun, Moon and Earth.  They have completed research and created flipbooks with all these facts. Last week, we compared the sizes of the Sun, Moon and Earth to objects we had in our classroom and the students were amazed that the Sun was 109 times bigger than the Earth!

Awards For The Week

Birthdays Being Celebrated This Week

~Indianna(1A)  ~Faith(1B)  ~Ally(2A)  ~William(2B)  ~James(3A)  ~Troy(3C)  ~Esha(3C)

~Sahara(4B)      ~Kingsley(4C)

Assembly

1B & 4A will be presenting our ANZAC Assembly this Friday in the BBC at 8:40am.

Our lucky Praise Note winners last week were: Kenzie(PrepB), Payton(1B), Naleekah(2C), Cole(3A), Eden(4B), Amelia(5A).  

The Good Shepherd Way

This week our Good Shepherd Way Gospel in Action value is Hope where we see good all around us.

Our Hope 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: In The Playground.

Mother's Day Raffle

Thank you to everyone for supporting our Mother's Day Raffle. We raised just over $1100, well done!!

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.

Library News

We will also be sending home brochures on Thursday. The library will be open for parents between 8:00am and 8:30am and 2:30pm and 3:30pm each day next week.

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.

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. 

Environmental News

Protect out Turtles

• All turtles lay their eggs on land.
• Hatching turtles have an egg tooth at the end of their beak to help open the egg.
• Turtle shells are built into their skeleton.
  

Teacher Contacts

Community News