2 August 2017

Newsletter Articles

Principals Report

Welcome back to staff, students and parents for Term 3. On behalf of parents, staff and students I would like to express our appreciation to Mr. Scott Mackenlay, Mr. George Simonetis and our cleaning staff for the work they do in the holiday break to ensure our school grounds and classrooms are so well maintained. To the students of Holy Rosary Catholic School who competed in dance eisteddfods or sporting competitions during their holiday break we congratulate you on your achievements. This term we welcome back Mrs. Claire Williams as our Music Teacher and we welcome Mrs. Michelle Hibberd who will be teaching in Grade 1 FH on Thursday and Friday. Mrs. Ether Sulzberger will be taking 4 weeks leave during the beginning of Term 3 and Mr. Simon Calvert will be teaching in Grade 2BS on Thursdays and Friday during this time.

During Term 3 we will be working as a community, staff, students, parents, parish and school board, to respond to the revised Archbishop’s Charter. The Archbishop's Charter for Catholic Schools provides the basis for the Archbishop to ‘mandate’ Catholic schools within the Archdiocese of Hobart. The Charter guide’s the operation, self-evaluation and strategic planning of every school within the Tasmanian Catholic education community. This Archbishop’s Charter for Catholic Schools should be interpreted authentically to reflect the unique nature and circumstances of each Catholic school and college within the Archdiocese. Copies of the Charter are available from the Tasmanian Catholic Education Website at the link below.

In order to create a genuine response to the Archbishop's Charter we are seeking parent and community member’s feedback on the following two areas of the Charter:

1. Catholic Identity
2. Learning

Please click on or copy and paste the link below into your browser to comment on these two areas of the Charter in relation to our School. A hard copy will also be sent home this week.

We will publish and present our response to the community that we will present to the Archbishop in September.

Bernadette Brooks
Principal

Prayer and Reflection

This term we are using a program titled Positive Detectives with our students. The emphasis throughout this program is looking for the positives in our lives, environment and everyday happenings. As a staff we are committed to focusing on the positives and we commenced our first staff meeting back with the prayer below. A timely reminder that we need to be people of spirit and action and to believe that all things are possible.

A Prayer for Positivity

Holy Spirit Banish our spirit of criticism;
Replace it with a spirit of affirmation.
Help us to see the glass that is half full;
The essay that is half written;
The answer that is halfway correct.
Help us to see the many students with their hands up …
Not just the few who are shouting out!
Banish our spirit of self-resignation;
Replace it with a spirit of determination.
Help us to be bold and tenacious;
To believe in ourselves;
To believe in our colleagues;
To believe in our God;
To believe that all things are possible.
Banish our spirit of procrastination;
Replace it with a spirit of energy and action.
Help us to get ourselves organised,
So we can do the things we said we would do.
Give us a sense of purpose and direction;
Help us to praise students and co-workers who keep going …
Even when the going gets tough!

Amen

Positive Detective

This term our whole school social and emotional program is called Positive Detective. Keep an eye out in classrooms for the Positive Detective toy dogs who have been hired to become private investigators. Their task is to help us find the positive moments that are all around us.

mapali

In recent years it has become increasingly evident across a number of school sectors, including our own, that a number of students require additional support with emotional regulation. After considering data and researching a variety of approaches our staff team determined that it was a priority to provide a space where students could develop regulation skills in a supportive and purposeful environment. As a result we have created a sensory space at the rear of the EYC where staff can work with students to develop skills in emotional regulation, thus enabling students to participate more fully in, and achieve greater success with, learning programs.

It was felt that the space should have a name that suitably reflected its purpose. After consultation with Aboriginal members of our school community the sensory space was named mapali, meaning calm in Tasmanian Aboriginal dialect. (mapali is always spelt with a small m).

mapali provides an environment that promotes emotional health and well-being. It allows students to develop their senses through the use of a variety of interchanging and movable objects. Experiences in mapali facilitate empowerment, self-organisation, relaxation, sensory awareness, activity tolerance and general awareness of self, peers and the environment.

mapali has a variety of uses, including:

• Sensory break from an over/under stimulating classroom environment
• Check in
• Sensory regulation
• Multi-sensory sessions
• Relaxation

“mapali” our calming space

VIEW GALLERY

“mapali” our calming space

Click images to enlarge

Code Club

This term we commenced our after school Code Club for students in Grade 5 and 6. In the classroom students are learning the basics of computer programing through such programs as Osmo Coding, Minecraft, Code Studio and Scratch to practice coding skills. Coding is programing and instructing a computer using step-by-step commands for the computer to follow. The Code Club extends students in the area of technology as they are learning problem solving skills and to look for and create patterns when coding. The applications used engage students and allow them to think critically and creatively about the task. Coding allows students to not only use technology, but also create it. In today’s society computer coding is rapidly becoming a part of every industry. This is now not only a necessary skill for IT specialists, but for all active citizens. Thank you to Mrs. McCallum who is coordinating our Code Club.

Programmers of the future!

Canteen Gold Accreditation

Once again Holy Rosary Catholic School has achieved GOLD accreditation status with the TSCA Canteen Accreditation Program. This award is a result of much work by our Canteen Manager Allison Rumbold and Assistant Kylie McIntrye and the support of the entire school community. Our schools’ ongoing commitment to providing an outstanding whole school approach to health and wellbeing is to be commended.

Playground

The swings are on their way

There is great excitement in the playground at the bottom of the oval as the swings are in the process of being installed. We look forward to the completion of the swings and the area surrounding them and sincerely thank our Parent Circle and Fundraising Groups for the purchase of the swings.

Working on the installation of our new swings

VIEW GALLERY

Working on the installation of our new swings

Click images to enlarge

Friday Football

The roster for Friday football games can be accessed via the link below.

Students of the Week

SWPBS Awards

Bronze Award

Congratulations to Millie who has constantly displayed our three expectations of Respect, Safety and Learning and received her Bronze Award for 100 Bernies.

Gold Award

Congratulations to the following students who have constantly displayed our three expectations of Respect, Safety and Learning and received their Bronze Award for 150 Bernies.

Principal’s Merit Award

Congratulations to Matilda who received a Mid Year Award at our Assembly on Monday.

Holiday Reading Bingo Challenge Winners

Congratulations to these students who were our winners in the Holiday Reading Bingo Challenge.

School Banking

If you have not signed your child/ren up for School Banking already it is not too late. Please enquire at the school office for further information.

HRCS Website

ANNOUNCING OUR WEBSITE

We are happy to announce that Holy Rosary Catholic School has a new website. It is supported by the Schoolzine platform and therefore has many interactive and multi-functional capabilities.

One of the wonderful functions is a parent calendar where parents can access their grade information, as well as other school events. One of these capabilities is that Excursion forms can be accessed under the “Calendar” tab. Locate your child’s Grade at the top of the calendar, click on the appropriate date and click on the relevant excursion. Then download the digital permission form to be digitally signed.

It is a portal of information about our school, with the ability to download and print off forms, report absences, and newsletters are also accessible from the website. This is a wonderful collaborative platform for existing and prospective parents.

A very big thank you to Mrs Jacki Jones who has devoted numerous hours to the development of our website

Family Details

Woolworths Earn and Learn

Earn & Learn is back. Get your families and friends on board with Woolworths Earn & Learn stickers. Get one sticker for every $10 you spend. Place your stickers and or full sticker sheet into the Holy Rosary Earn & Learn box at your local Woolworths outlet, or drop them into the Woolworths Earn & Learn box located in the school foyer between 26 July and 19 September. The more you earn, the more we learn. All completed sheets earn points for our school to purchase amazing educational resources from Modern Teaching Aids. So get busy shopping and collecting your stickers to enable us to receive wonderful resources for your child/ren to use at school.

Kindergarten Enrolments

Enrolments are now being accepted for our Kindergarten classes for 2018. If you have a child to enrol or know of someone who does, please pass this information onto him or her. The Education Act states that Kindergarten students must turn four years of age on or before the 1st January of the year commencing Kinder. Please contact the school office (6275 5200) for an enrolment form.

The Village

The Holy Rosary Catholic School Birth to 4 program has commenced on Wednesday’s from 9:00am – 10:30am.

Book Fair

Save The Date

Holy Rosary Catholic School Fundraisers

Entertainment Book – LAST CHANCE

The Entertainment Book closes for purchases the week ending 18th August. So if you have not already purchased one get in before it is too late.

Books can be purchased at the school office or by following the link below.

Rock Quiz Night

School Disco

Catholic Schooling

Screenagers

Are you watching kids scroll through life, with their rapid-fire thumbs and a six-second attention span? Physician and filmmaker Delaney Ruston saw that with her own kids and learned that the average kid spends 6.5 hours a day looking at screens. She wondered about the impact of all this time and about the friction occurring in homes and schools around negotiating screen time—friction she knew all too well.

In SCREENAGERS, as with her award-winning documentaries on mental health, Delaney takes a deeply personal approach as she probes into the vulnerable corners of family life, including her own, to explore struggles over social media, video games, academics and internet addiction. Through poignant, and unexpectedly funny stories, along with surprising insights from authors, psychologists, and brain scientists, SCREENAGERS reveals how tech time impacts kids’ development and offers solutions on how adults can empower kids to best navigate the digital world and find balance.

The Tasmanian Catholic Schools Parents Council in conjunction with the Australian Parents Council would like to invite you to an exclusive Q & A screening of Screenagers.

The tickets cost $18.00, however we are offering free tickets to the screening to the first 40 people who contact us via email.

Email: catholicparents@bigpond.com

Please follow the link to view the Screenagers Movie Trailer

Term 2 Assemblies and Liturgies

Parents and Friends are most welcome and kindly invited to join us for our School Assemblies which are held at 1.45pm and our Liturgies which are held at 12.00 noon on the following dates in the School Hall or St Bernard’s Church unless noted differently.

Upcoming Events