Newsletter Term 4, Week 10 2022

Dear SJC Families and Friends

Welcome to the final newsletter of the year. Another year where COVID, whilst it now seems a distant memory for some, has again influenced the running of our school.  I would like to thank all families for your support during 2022 and for choosing to entrust the education of your young person with us.  We are privileged that you have chosen to do so and my hope is that you are satisfied with the collective efforts of staff to help each child attain their best.  I trust that you have some wonderful Christmas plans and that your time with your family is a happy and holy one. 

It would be remiss of me to not acknowledge and applaud the efforts of our students during 2022.  Our recent HSC success is a testament to this. In my words below (my farewell speech from Week 9, you will read how I often encourage students to make the most of the opportunities presented to them.  We are blessed at St Joeys to have so many staff who commit to providing chances for students to learn to a high level and pursue their passions and interests.

Again, thank you to all families for your support, companionship, kindness and care. I wish you all well.

Kind regards

Mr Scott Thomson
Principal

Farewell Speech to Students on December 6

I would like to start with a story to give context to my speech today:

An ex-tropical cyclone descends on a small town, and the rain soon turns into a flood. As the waters rise, a particular local, a person of great faith, kneels in prayer on their deck, surrounded by water. As they pray on the deck, one of the locals comes up the street in a canoe.

"Better get in. The water is rising fast."

"No," says the local. "I have faith in the Lord. He will save me."

Still the waters rise. Now the local is up on the second storey of the house, continuing to pray with hands out when another guy shoots up in a tinny.

"Come on. We need to get you out of here. The dam is gonna break any minute."

Once again, the local is unmoved. "I will remain. The Lord will see me through and rescue me."

After a while, the dam wall breaks, and the flood rushes over the local’s house until only the pitch of the roof remains above water. The local is up there, clinging to the TV antenna when a helicopter descends out of the clouds, and an SES volunteer calls down through a megaphone.

"Grab the ladder. This is your last chance."

Once again, the local insists the Lord will be their saviour.

Predictably, the local drowns.

A very faith-filled and loving person, the local goes to heaven. After a while, they get an interview with God, and they ask the Almighty, "Lord, I had unwavering faith in you. I prayed throughout the flood. Why didn't you save me from that flood?"

God shakes his head. "What did you want from me? I sent you a canoe, a tinny and a helicopter."

There are many messages that you can get from this modern parable; God’s mysterious ways, the generosity of our fellow humans, the power of prayer or the power of God. For me, the most powerful message derived from this story is that of opportunity and taking them when they are presented to you. 

I want to speak with you all about the opportunity that I have decided to take up and in doing so, bid farewell to you all. 

For the older students in the Doyle Centre, you have heard me speak many times. Maybe, too many times. However, I would like to reiterate one of the more consistent messages that I have pushed during my six years as principal of this great school; that of opportunity. I speak often of the blessed position in which you find yourself attending a school like St Joseph’s. As we speak, a number of students have seized the opportunity to take part in an overseas trip to New Caledonia. On Sunday just passed, a number of our students took up the opportunity to serve those less fortunate than us when they ran a stall for our parish at the Tweed Combined Faith Markets where complimentary food and activities were enjoyed by those in need. Last week we had students attend sporting events, help out with our Year 6 Icebreaker Day, contribute to the Christmas Hampers, take part in filming and editing, raised funds for the Christmas Appeal and learn to the best of their abilities. 

These are but a few of the many opportunities presented to you throughout the year. 

8 weeks ago, an opportunity was presented to me. A friend passed on a job advertisement for a role at St Joseph’s Nudgee College. Prior to that text message, all of my energies and efforts were focussed on making 2023 at our St Joeys an even better year than 2022. I was presented with a very difficult decision; not apply for the position and possibly live with regret, or apply and see how I go. I ultimately chose to apply and was successful. One of the determining factors in coming to that decision involved trying to live the message that I preach. This was an opportunity for me to gain experience in a very different school and a very different system. I have taken this opportunity that sadly will see me leave this great school after six years. 

I would like to take a moment to thank all those who have made these six years so memorable. Like anything in life, being principal at a school was not without challenges and difficulties. Life, I have often told you, will always present challenges. They will consistently be presented to you during your time on Earth. Challenges are good because when we overcome these challenges, real growth, learning and satisfaction occur. In saying that, the rewards of leading this school have far outweighed these difficult times. Each day I find joy and satisfaction in the work that I am so honoured to do. I am privileged that I get to interact with such a high number of wonderful human beings each day and that provides a real sense of joy. 

When I commenced in 2017, I spoke to the staff about my priorities in this role. And that, students of SJC, was YOU. I have been unapologetic about putting each of you at the centre of every decision that is made and I hope that in years to come, you will remember me as a principal who gave you the time of day, that I did my best to get to know you all and that I cared. 

I will deeply miss this school. Whilst I am very excited to commence a new chapter in my life, it is a very bittersweet time. I am confident that this school is in a good place and I look forward to hearing about the amazing things that will happen in years to come. Thank you to each St Joeys student, past and present that I have had the honour and privilege to work with since 2017. 

I would like to also thank my colleagues, the staff of SJC, for what you have done for me. Your commitment to our students and care for this community will forever be remembered as I look back in years to come. 

Finally, and I know they will not like this, I would like to thank my wonderful family for their love and support. I cannot imagine what being the principal’s kid must be like but they have always been understanding and supportive of me during my time here. 

As I do with our graduating Year 12 students each year, I leave you with the following:

As you move through life, be sure to do so with 

sincerity in your endeavours, 

humility in your achievements, 

courage in your convictions 

and wisdom in your decisions. 

Go forth with Peace through Justice.

Thank you and goodbye.

End of Year Letter 2022

Parents and carers will receive this afternoon a link to the End of Year Letter 2022, which contains information relating to the start of the 2023 school year.

Stationery List for 2023

The Stationery List for next year can be found here.

Compass School Management 

Next year we will be moving to a new school management platform called Compass. The Compass platform will become our school community communication tool from 27 January 2023.

The Compass Parent Portal is an online portal that allows you to access up-to-date information about our school and your child’s progress.

Compass is a web-based system that is accessible on any modern web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari etc) and also via the Compass School Manager App (available for download via the App Store on your device - Google Playstore OR Apple Store). Every family receives a separate login to Compass.  This login information will be provided to you via email and an SMS during the week following 9 January. 

The Compass platform includes many different features and you’ll have the ability to: 

  • Receive notifications about school events, news and information 
  • Review your child’s attendance 
  • Communicate with your child’s teachers 
  • Monitor your child’s assessment tasks
  • Download and view your child’s SEAAR and academic reports 
  • Book parent-teacher interviews 
  • View your child’s timetable and the school calendar 
  • Pay and provide digital consent for events (no more permission slips) 
  • Pay school fees.

For further information refer to the Compass Parent Guide. 

Vaping: How to Support my Child if they are Vaping

Although advertising and peers can heavily influence your teen’s decisions, the impact you have as a parent, carries enormous weight.  Research has found that parental involvement and a positive outlook can make a significant difference in healthy decision-making, both now and in the future.

Take a Health Approach

If you discover that your teen is vaping, address it as you would any other risk to your child’s health.  Try to resist the urge to lecture, yell or punish your child.  It is important to keep the lines of communication open and show your child that you are concerned about their health and safety.

Although purchasing vapes containing nicotine without a prescription is illegal in Australia, many vapes labelled as nicotine-free do contain nicotine.  Your child may need support to stop vaping as nicotine is very addictive.  The more your child vapes, the more both the brain and body will get used to having nicotine, and the harder it is to go without it.  When a person stops vaping, even for a short period, they can experience withdrawal, including strong cravings, irritability, fatigue, headache, sleeplessness and difficulty concentrating.

Conversation Starters

Make sure your child recognises how much you care about them and that the conversation is coming from a place of unconditional love, support and concern for their wellbeing.

Use the conversation starters below to understand if your child may be continuing to vaping to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

  1. Do you continue to vape even though you want to stop or think it’s hurting you in some way?
  2. Do you feel anxious or irritable when you want to use your vape but can’t?
  3. Do thoughts about vaping interrupt you when you are focused on other activities?
  4. Do you vape at school?  How often?
  5. Have you ever tried to stop vaping but couldn’t?
  6. Do you feel like you have lost control over your vaping?

Support to Quit Vaping

Read this helpful infographic for suggestions about how to support your child to quit vaping.

Sources:

smokefree.gov

NSW Health TabaccoFree

In Week 5 we saw the return of our annual art exhibition “OnShow”.

Our Creative Arts students across all year groups were able to exhibit their work for our school. The audience were treated to a sea of colour and creativity with various drawings, paintings, photographs and prints.  The Year 12 HSC major works demonstrated strength in their visual representation of various global issues and technical proficiency.  Thank you to Mr Carroll and the Year 9 Music students for performing on the night.

Thanks also to the parents and friends for coming to support the exhibition.

Mrs Nicole Taylor
Leader of Learning - Creative Arts

Redeveloping a Learning at Home (Homework) Policy for 2023

In this, my last post for the year, I would like to let the community know of the College’s progress towards redeveloping a Learning at Home (Homework) Policy. 

It is fair to say that over the past few years the College has drifted in its demands for students to be working outside of the classroom.  The demands of the online learning environment that came with lockdowns in the past years meant that student expectations to do more were relaxed.  Coming back from those years we need to re-establish learning outside of normal lessons as a necessary habit for success. Learning should not stop when a student leaves the classroom and there is an expectation that learning at home (homework) is across all year levels, increasing with each year group from Year 7 to Year 12.  The updated Homework Policy (still in draft at this stage) will assist all children with realistic expectations that support student learning but do not make homework a bugbear for parents and guardians.

The data on homework is clear.  Our updated policy is aligned with the research on homework for secondary students which shows the capacity for homework to provide an additional 5 months of impact on a student’s learning over the space of one year.  Additionally, learning at home has the potential to free up class time for the consolidation of more deep- and transfer-level complexities of learning allowing teaching to progress and accelerate.  Consistent homework practices also build the work ethic necessary to manage and succeed in learning in Senior school and beyond.

The Learning at Home (Homework) Policy will be issued to students and parents at the start of the 2023 school year.  Over the past few months, the Leaders of Learning have been redrafting the policy.  A few weeks ago, teachers met as a staff to go over the policy and to provide feedback on how the policy can be implemented successfully.  In these conversations, teachers have considered the feedback from the recent Tell Them From Me (TTFM) surveys.  A snippet from the data that indicates homework habits for the College are way below average is below (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Students with positive homework behaviours

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Below is a sneak peek at sections of the policy as it appears at the moment (in draft form).

Some features of the policy are that the homework issued to students needs to be:

  • clearly understood by students
  • purposeful
  • integral, rather than an add-on, to learning
  • quality rather than quantity
  • accompanied by timely, high-quality feedback
  • surface-level tasks that require little to no assistance from parents/guardians to complete
  • supported by parents to maximise the effect

For a student with good personal organisation of time and resources, the following guideline for the expected time spent on homework is up to 10 minutes per grade.  The guidelines at SJC will be:

Year 7:            30 - 70 minutes per weekday

Year 8:            40 - 80 minutes per weekday

Year 9:            50 - 90 minutes per weekday

Year 10:          60 - 100 minutes per weekday

Year 11:          70 - 110 minutes per weekday

Year 12:          80 - 120 minutes per weekday

The role of parents/guardians in creating work habits outside of the classroom is crucial and parents are encouraged to take an active interest in their child’s homework. Parents/guardians should regularly check the student diary for the homework issued and assist their child, particularly in the junior years, to be organised to complete the homework in an environment that is, where possible, free from distractions such as mobile phones, tv, music and household noise. 

Parents/guardians are encouraged to support and assist with the homework but not to complete the homework for their child.  If the parent/guardian has concerns regarding the completion of homework they should write a note in their child’s diary next to the homework and/or contact the subject teacher.

Overall, the College looks forward to the implementation of this policy as a step in the right direction for building students who are self-driven learners with a sound work ethic whilst, at the same time, creating opportunities in the classroom for a broader range of learning experiences.

As always, I would love to talk more with you about learning and teaching at the College so feel free to contact me.

A few simple tips to get your kids reading this summer

A holiday break away from school is definitely needed over Christmas and the New Year for your children and their teachers (I don't think I am just speaking for myself on this one).  One of the consequences of a longer break, though, is that many children regress in their learning.  I'm not advocating for more school, it's just an unfortunate fact.  Keeping up with basic skills for children of all ages is necessary if your child is not to go backward.

It's not uncommon that children who don't like to read won't pick up a book all summer and, as a result, the child's reading level and ability takes a dive.  This doesn't need to be the case, though.  Although forcing children to read when they don't want to can be painful, parents can put in place some routines that ensure children maintain reading levels and, in some cases, create habits that are long-lasting.  Try the following:

  • Get your child to read for 15 minutes before they get onto screen time.
  • How about reading for 15 minutes to wind down before bedtime?
  • You want a lift to Tweed City or a friend's place? You'll need to read for 20 minutes for that to happen.
  • After lunch, each day is 20 minutes of quiet reading time.

It doesn't really matter what your child reads.  Comics, magazines, novels, articles - anything will do but I recommend hard copies (that is, not something on a screen).  And before you say, "That teacher’s got no idea!"  I've tried many of the suggestions above with my three kids and if you're consistent and are prepared to stick to your guns they work!

Happy holidays and a Holy Christmas.  See you in 2023 and, as always, I would love to talk more with you about learning and teaching at the College so feel free to contact me.

Mr Carlo Trimboli
Leader of Pedagogy

carlo.trimboli@lism.catholic.edu.au

The TAS faculty wish all of you a very Happy and holy Christmas and hope that some of the treats we created with the students made it home to you.  Year 9 Food Technology made some great Gingerbread People that they placed in our Christmas Hampers to be donated to families in need.  Year 10 Food Technology enjoyed making, and decorating, Gingerbread houses.  Students in other TAS subjects produced some great products which I am sure they are very proud of.

Ms Karen Parker
Leader of Learning - TAS

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Jingi Walla to our St Joey’s community!

During Term 4, some of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have participated in a variety of activities and experiences available to them through various programs.  We commenced the term with a few of our Year 10 students attending the Titans Deadly Futures program for 2022.  Jake, Noah, Blake and myself were engaged over four weeks that took us off site to Paradise Country to learn about cultural practices and skills of leadership and resilience that will better prepare us for our futures.  We were able to meet students from other schools around the GC and have great yarns with the man himself, Preston Campbell, and we all got a lot out of it.

We also had visits for some of us in Year 10 and 11 from Mel at the NRL Titans School to work program which we look forward to participating in next year as it saw Indi and Issac Year 12 recently graduate from that program with a fun day out at MovieWorld.

This last week saw Jake in Year 10 fly down to Melbourne for the RISE program- a residential science experience which he said was fantastic and made some great new friends and now perhaps wants to go onto university when he finishes Year 12, good stuff Jake!

In January I will go to Sydney to engage in an engineering program and Alysha in Year 11 will participate in InspireU at UQ for a week of ISTEM events, I can't wait! 

Rounding off the term we have had a big milestone for our Year 12 students Indiana, Isaac, Beau and Shae who were able to complete their HSC and finish school. We congratulate them on this big achievement and wish them all the best for their future endeavours in what they choose to do.

Thank you for joining me one more time before we finish this term off.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all the families of our school.

Thomas Busbridge (Year 10)

A note for Parents/Carers of Indigenous students: 

Our Lismore Diocese Marist Fathers education grant applications are now open for 2023, please contact me for further details on email: lexene.busbridge@lism.catholic.edu.au if you would like further information or have any questions.  You can apply using this link.

With another year drawing to a close I would like to thank all of our students, staff, families and community of St Joeys for your support, assistance and cooperation throughout this year, and particularly Mr Thomson for his unwavering support of our students and being such a wonderful advocate for our local Bundjalung culture, we wish him well in his future endeavours at Nudgee College. 

I wish you all good blessings (Bugalwan) to you and your families for the coming festive season and a very happy and safe New year.

Bugalbeh (Thank you)

Mrs Lexene Busbridge
Indigenous Education Support

High school students who live at home or away from home may get ABSTUDY payments for this year if they claim by 31 December.  If students are eligible, they or their parents could get payments for 2022 if they claim now.

This could include payments for each term if students lived at home and attended school 85% of most terms. Their parents need to be getting a Centrelink payment or have a Health Care Card.

Check out the ABSTUDY for high school students post!

Work Readiness Pathway - Community Service

We are so lucky to be able to integrate regular service and volunteer work into our Work Readiness Pathway through our Employability Program which runs alongside Catholic Faith in Action in students HSC year.  This term, Year 11 WRP students, spent time in classes at St James Primary School, built a chicken coop, baked and fundraised and helped Lunch with Friends and St Joseph’s Parish organise a Christmas luncheon for people experiencing homelessness in the Tweed Heads/Coolangatta area.  Through these initiatives, students were able to contribute positively to their community and school, while also developing employability skills such as teamwork, communication, financial literacy, leadership and initiative to name a few.

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“This term, we have been going to St James Primary School and assisting teachers with their classes.  From Kindergarten to Year 6, we have supported students with arts and crafts, poetry writing, spelling practice and other activities.  This has been a great opportunity to step out of our comfort zone, make a difference and also learn how to interact with younger students.” Liv Macnaughtan

“Building a chicken coop for St James was a great experience.  It was nice to have time out of the classroom and work with students from St James on this project.  We got to teach the year 6 students some of the skills we’ve learnt in construction like how to use an electric drill.  At times it was challenging because the instructions that came with the chicken coop weren’t very good so we had to problem solve and work as a team to put it all together.”  Sam Derrick

“Every second Wednesday we have been baking muffins, cakes and cookies in the Food Technology room and selling these at school the next day to raise money to buy chocolates to put on the tables at the Christmas lunch for the homeless.  We had to work together in the kitchen, communicate with each other and use financial knowledge when selling the baked goods.  It was a lot of fun, especially working with classmates in the kitchen.”  Lachlan Cameron

“I recently had the opportunity to participate in a Christmas lunch for the homeless with my class.  It was an incredibly rewarding and humbling experience, and I am so glad that I was able to be a part of it.  As we prepared the food and set up the tables, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and anticipation.  I knew that we were doing something good, and that we were going to make a difference in the lives of those who were less fortunate.  When the homeless individuals arrived, we welcomed them with open arms and big smiles.  We served them a delicious meal, complete with all of the traditional Christmas trimmings.  It was heartwarming to see the joy on their faces as they ate and chatted with us.  One of the best parts of the experience was getting to know the people who came to our lunch.  They each had their own unique story, and it was fascinating to hear about their lives and experiences.  I was struck by their resilience and determination, despite the challenges they had faced.  Overall, the Christmas lunch was a huge success.  It was so rewarding to be able to give back to our community and make a positive impact on the lives of others.  I am grateful for the opportunity, and I look forward to participating in similar events in the future.”  Tex Funch

Ms Hannah Lindschau
Leader of Learning - Work Readiness Pathway

On 8 December, Lowes provided the following flyer with regards to its operation for the end of 2022 and the commencement of the 2023 school year.

As you will note, the On-Campus shop will reopen on 16 January with the hours of 8:00am to 1:00pm.  Parents and carers can telephone the shop (Ph: 07 5523 9300) during the times stated, or they can make an online purchase using the following link.

Lowes has also provided some information about the incoming NSW Back to School Voucher Program that will come into effect for the 2023 school year.  As soon as we have any further news, we will share it with the SJC community.