18 August 2017

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Our College has participated in a variety of Science Week activities focusing on the role of Science and Scientists in our Community. Many of our teachers have organised activities which span multiple years levels culminating in visits from Scientists and an excursion to Festival of Bright Ideas expo. Science is an exciting field of endeavor which aims to helps to solve many of the problems we face today. The College is committed to an increased focus on Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) learning and opportunities both now and into the future.

In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis highlights the important role of education plays particularly in solving some of the world’s problems:

There is a nobility in the duty to care for creation through little daily actions, and it is wonderful how education can bring about real changes in lifestyle. Education in environmental responsibility can encourage ways of acting which directly and significantly affect the world around us, such as avoiding the use of plastic and paper, reducing water consumption, separating refuse, cooking only what can reasonably be consumed, showing care for other living beings, using public transport or car-pooling, planting trees, turning off unnecessary lights, or any number of other practices. (211)

Sacrament of Reconciliation

Congratulations to Tori Direen, Charlotte Direen, Jack Wallace, Maiya Jones, Lochlan Turnbull, Travis Walter, Darcy Direen and Jack Hunter. These students received the Sacrament of Reconciliation on Monday, with Father Deva. These students have been preparing for the Sacrament with support from Mrs Karen Newbon and Mrs Connie Thomas.

Preparations for the Sacrament of Confirmation

Please keep the following students in your prayers as the prepare for the Sacrament of Confirmation in the coming weeks: Darcy Direen , Jack Hunter, Lochlan Turnbull, Maiya Jones, Travis Walter, Hamish Innes, Tori Direen, Jack Walter, Jack Wallace, Charlotte Direen and Max Cordwell.

Creator Spirit, strengthen these students with your gifts of grace,
to love and serve as a disciple of Christ.
Grant that they may grow into the fullness of the stature of Christ.
Fill them with the joy of your presence.
Increase in them the fruit of your Spirit: the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of love, patience and gentleness, the spirit of wonder and true holiness.

Feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop

Last Tuesday, the College gathered to celebrate the Feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop. This important occasion was marked with a Liturgy in the MacKillop Performance Centre, led by our Student Leaders. Thank you to Mrs Connie Thomas and Mr Wayne Neilson for their preparations of the Liturgy and Music. Celebrating the Feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop is important for our College, Mary MacKillop was a co-founder of the Sisters of St Joseph, who established our school in 1896. Her famous quote is "Never see a need without doing something about it”. This spirit still lives among us here at the College in our day-to-day lives.

Changes to Staff in Year 5/6

Mrs Hall will be moving to fill the position of one day a week in year 6. We thank her for taking over from Ms Sulzberger. We are finalising staff to fill the important role for students in year 5. This is far from ideal but we are endeavouring to make this transaction as smooth as possible. Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If you have further questions please feel free to contact me.

God Bless,

Allan Clark

General Information

Apple for the teacher promotion

This week, the College was notified that our talented and energetic Kindergarten teacher Mrs Louise Rowe has been nominated in the 101.7 HOFM 2017 Apple for the Teacher competition. This competition is seeking out Southern Tasmania's favourite Primary school teacher, the teacher that goes an extra mile for their students – I am sure we can all agree that Mrs Rowe is the perfect candidate!

To support Mrs Rowe – all you need to do is click on the link below and follow the prompts: (you can vote as many times as you like).

Congratulations

Congratulations to Harry Brereton who was part of the Tasmanian representative team in the School Sports Australia Cross-Country. This national event was held in Tasmania at the Police Academy, Rokeby between the 11- 14 August. Harry did exceptionally well, placing 21st in his Individual Race and he also participated in the Cross-Country Relay Team for the 11-year-olds. Well done on a great achievement!

Harry Brereton

The College is always seeking to congratulate and recognise the efforts and achievements of our students. If you have any photos and information about your child’s achievements that we can share, please email them to our Promotions Officer Miss Jaimi Armstrong (stjames@catholic.tas.edu.au) for inclusion in newsletter and Facebook page.

Retreats

Over the next two weeks, our Secondary students will be participating in Retreats. Our Year 7 and 8 students will work with Making Jesus Real Coordinator Marty Ogyle and our Year 9 and Year 10 students will be working with Fr Brendan. These sessions will focus on a range of topics and activities to build confidence, faith and teamwork. Our staff will also be participating in twilight retreats over the next few weeks.

Book Fair

The College Book Fair will be held 21-31 August 2017. There is a great variety of books and items available for purchase. Students can view the books and items in Library lessons and at lunchtimes. Parents are welcome to view items in either the mornings or afternoons or by appointment contact College office 62 951 541.

For those students who received a voucher on prize day last year, the voucher can be spent at this book fair. Vouchers need to be spent in one order and unfortunately change cannot be given. The Book Fair is a great fundraiser for the College Library. Connie Thomas - Library Technician.

Little Lights – Birth to Four Program

Kindergarten Enrolments

Book Week

SMS Absence Notification

The College now accepts SMS absentee notifications. Please SMS: 0488 863 246 with your child's name, grade and absent reason. Please save this number in your phone for future reference.

Contact/Medical Details Update

If any student contact and/or medical details have changed since the completion of the 2017 forms sent home in Term 1, please contact the College office to update. If you have previously supplied the College with an Epi-pen and/or other medication; which may have since expired, a replacement is required.

College Uniform Shop

The College Uniform Shop has moved, now located within the College the shop is open (term-time only):

• Monday’s 2.30pm until 3.30pm
• Wednesday’s 2.30pm until 3.30pm

Orders can be placed via phone or email. Ordered items can then be collected from the College Office or sent home with students.

Woolworths Earn and Learn 2017

The College is participating in the 2017 Woolworths Earn and Learn program. Anyone from our College community who normally shops at Woolworths can collect stickers, please continue to support local businesses as you have always done. The stickers can be placed in the collection box at the College or in the labelled box at your local Woolworths. After the promotion, the College can use the stickers to redeem a range of educational equipment and resources from major educational supplier Modern Teaching Aids. Thank you for your support and start collecting.

MS-Read-a-thon

Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Recipe

JB HI-FI Information

Looking to buy an iPad or MacBook?

The College has access to the JB HI-FI Bring Your Own Device Portal. The portal provides parents with discounted Apple products and accessories. This is a private arrangement between JB Hi-Fi and the buyer. Parents/Students are under no obligation to use this service and the College receives no commercial gain from JB Hi-Fi. For more information visit the link below and enter the school code: STJCS2017.

Excursions

Festival of Bright Ideas

Last Friday students in Years 5, 6 7 and 9 attended the Festival of Bright Ideas in Hobart. The festival hosted over 1800 students the Schools Day. This is the first time our College has attended this event which focuses on the innovative and inspiring aspects of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Many organisations from the STEM sector provided engaging and educational activities and promoted different Science careers as important, achievable and locally relevant. It was wonderful to see students enjoy the activities, that often relied on their ability to problem solve and ‘think outside the box’.

Christine Galbraith Activity Organiser.

Young Scientist Presentations

Last week the College welcomed three “Young Tassie Scientists” from the University of Tasmania. This dynamic program is designed to coincide with National Science Week activities and to engage and motivate students about Science and related careers.

Our first guest was Mouse Man: Master of Mammals Tim Gibbons who shared with the gathering his love of animals and how this passion propelled him towards a career in Zoology. Tim challenged the students to investigate a variety of animals and shared with the student’s obscure facts about these them. Our students were amazed to learn that jellyfish don’t have a brain! It was great to see the students asking Tim questions about his passion and his career pathway, particularly about his studies at University. Tim has completed a Bachelor of Science with a double major in Zoology and Geography.

Things then got complex as Life Mathematics: Aviva Samuelson showed the gathering how math’s can be fun! In a session, that questioned simple daily routines and impact of math’s and its influence in these simple tasks challenged the students. Using a real-life example of snowboarding, the students with the assistance of Aviva learnt how to factor in stability points when moving. Aviva is a PhD student in the Mathematics faculty and shared her story about more to math’s including her opportunity to travel to Budapest where she met many famous mathematicians! The students thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to apply math’s to many real-life situations.

The session ended with Loving Nature: EJ Yeoh who shared with the gathering her immense love of animals. The students were amazed to learn that EJ grew up with lots of animals including 10 dogs! EJ and the students partook in a Science experiment using PH indicator to show acidic and non-acidic mixtures. Students had the opportunity to examine different specimens and ask EJ lots of questions about the different animals she has studied. EJ has just finished her Honours project at UTAS where her research examined how lizards choose their foods (crickets) based on carbohydrate, protein and fat composition. This is important for understanding how food and nutrition can improve animal and human health.

Reconciliation Launch of Tasmania

Last Wednesday, Student Leaders and Staff represented the College at the official launch of the Reconciliation Council of Tasmania. The event was attended by many dignitaries including the Governor General and Premier of Tasmania and a large gathering of the Aboriginal Community members who travelled from all over the State. The gathering also consisted of many school students, wider community members and politicians.

Reconciliation Council of Tasmania Launch

Kaleidoscopes and Seeing Double

Over the past lessons the Year 9/10 Photography class have been exploring double exposure and kaleidoscope photography and have used various means to achieve the desired effects.

The double exposure pieces, the process of laying one image over another so both images are visible and create a new image were made both using the cameras to manipulate the images and using the editing software on the computer. There are distinct differences in the work made on the different platforms, as visible in the results. While the camera is a lot easier to use, being a process that only involves selecting photos and allowing the camera to do the rest, it does limit what one can do with the images. There is more freedom concerning the editing software on the computers as well as more sophisticated settings. However, the images made on both platforms were splendid and it was a very successful unit.

The kaleidoscope images were manipulated using the same software on the computers, allowing the students to alter the colours, lightness, size and amount of the kaleidoscopes. For a type of photography that may seem limiting in what in can and cannot do, there is plenty of variation from one image to the next and the results speak for themselves.

The first couple of weeks of term three have yielded some excellent results and there is no doubt that the work produced over the following weeks will follow the same trend. Below are some examples of our class work. More to follow! Maxi Taylor- Year 10 Media Arts (Photography).

Body Safe Presentation

Last week the Year 10 students had a visit from Joe. Joe is a representative from the BodySafe Program. The program is an interactive and dynamic program carefully aligned with the Australian Curriculum (Health) which discusses prevention of Spinal Cord Injury and physical trauma (such as motor vehicle accidents). Joe has an acquired spinal cord injury and shared with student’s part of his story. Joe challenged the students to perform simple daily tasks from the perspective of having limited abilities and functions.

Kaleidoscopes and Seeing Double

Community Notices

PCYC Kids Night Out

Salvation Army Pantry

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