St Brendan's School

Newsletter #19 - Thursday 25 May 2023

Dear Families and Caregivers,

While I was writing last week's article 'Keeping Our School Healthy in the Winter Months', I was in fact at home in isolation due to contracting the COVID-19 virus. This brings home the point of maintaining a healthy school community.

In response, each student will be provided with 5 COVID-19 rapid antigen self-tests, better known as RATS. I strongly encourage all families and carers to use the kits to assist in identifying COVID-19 infections in their child.

It is a reminder that COVID-19 is still with us and coupled with the cold and flu session, schools are in the front line. If your child is sick, whether it be with COVID, a cold or the flu, they need to stay home.

Late Arrivals

At St Brendan’s, we believe that good attendance is an essential prerequisite to learning. As a community, we will encourage and assist all students to achieve excellent levels of attendance and punctuality and to be at school on time. We expect ALL students to arrive from 8:30 am and before 8:45 am and finish the day at 3:15 pm. This will enable ALL students to take full advantage of the educational opportunities available to them.

At the start of the morning, children are given their schedule for the day's learning. A focus on learning begins at 8:45 a.m. and builds over the course of the morning.

A child who arrives late, misses out on vital introductions and information that sets them up for a successful day's learning. Late arrival leads to:

unnecessary anxiety through missing information, leading to a less productive and engaged learner.
disruption to the class, which impacts on the learning of the other students.

Students arriving late to school need to be signed in at Administration and are required to record a reason for their late arrival.

Term 3 School Closure Day

A second school closure has been organised to support the learning and teaching of our staff in Religious Education. Led by Beth Walsh, MACS Learning Consultant in Religious Education, our staff will explore knowledge and understandings of Christianity in the light of Jesus and the Gospel. The major foci will include spirituality, religious identity and fostering the skills of:

discerning
interpreting
thinking critically
seeking truth
making meaning in today’s world.

The school closure day will be held in the first week back in Term 3, Friday 14 July.

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School Uniform

One of our core school expectations is that all students will wear the correct uniform each day. The uniform signifies belonging to and pride in our school community, and is also part of ensuring a safe, secure and equitable school environment. Our uniform is sourced with the aim to provide an affordable quality uniform. Our uniform is gender-neutral.

Inconsistent wearing of our uniform, unfortunately, was very noticeable with our school photos yesterday. While the majority of students were dressed in full uniform, there were a number of students wearing inappropriate coloured clothing and footwear.

I seek the support of ALL families and caregivers in meeting this core expectation.

To support families and caregivers, we have a number of good quality and clean second hand uniforms available, gold coin donation, as well as new stock readily available.

WINTER UNIFORM

Navy long pants or Navy tunic

School Gold Polo (long or short sleeves) with Logo

School Bomber Jacket with Logo

Navy Blue/White Socks or Navy Blue Tights

Black Shoes

SPORTS UNIFORM - worn Monday and Wednesday

Navy blue school shorts or track pant

School Gold polo (long or short sleeves) with Logo

School Bomber Jacket with Logo

White or navy blue socks

Running Shoes

Last Friday's School Closure

The first school closure day for the year was a great success. These days are extremely valuable as they allow ALL staff to be together and explore the same experience, develop skills and create whole school understandings and practice. In this case, it was Big Write and VCOP.

Without the interruption of daily school life, staff entered into the professional learning with enthusiasm and excitement developing deeper understandings of:

handwriting
spelling
grammar
punctuation.

Led by Sonya, the inspirational workshops provide the opportunity, ALL TOGETHER, to learn new material, challenge thinking and have fun.

Best wishes,

Peter

Student Absentee Note

Mathematics

With the cold weather arriving so to has the need for playing indoors. Parents are always looking for ways to engage their children on wet days at home. One very simple way to entertain kids is with card games. A pack or a deck of cards is easily affordable and can be used for a variety of games which can be played individually, with a partner or with a group of family members. Playing card games improves hand eye co-ordination, increases understanding of mathematical concepts and develops problem solving skills.

Your children have learnt different games at school they may wish to teach family members.

This website will provide simple family favourite games to play with your children at home.

https://brisbanekids.com.au/6-easy-card-games-kids/

One of my favourite card games to play is UNO. I have spent many hours of fun playing this game with my boys over the years. It can be purchased from some supermarkets or stores such as K Mart. Kids at St Brendan’s love playing UNO with their friends and I am sure many enjoy playing it with their families also. This is an ideal game for number and colour recognition. It is great for teaching the rules of taking turns in a game. It also reinforces concepts of forwards, backwards etc.

So stay out of the cold and rain. Good luck and have fun!

Best wishes

Michelle Hewitt

Mathematics Leader

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Sequencing numbers

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Pairs of numbers

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Family card games

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Big Write

The lights are dimmed, there is music playing softly and the class of 23 students are peacefully engrossed in their tasks – it sounds like the setting for a yoga class, however, it’s the Platypuses’ classroom writing lesson.

With literacy as a major focus at St. Brendan's, students from Prep to Year 6 are benefitting from a respected model of teaching writing and raising writing standards, known as the Big Write.

The Big Write model is based on the premise that ‘if you can’t say it, you can’t write it’. During the past fortnight, students looked at various language features, use of adjectives and enhancing their writing with openers. They have focused on generating ideas using brainstorming and mind mapping techniques. Teachers have also continued to apply the student-friendly VCOP writing criteria to improve students’ understanding of editing and up-levelling their own work, and the proof is in the pudding. I have been blown away by the standard of work produced by all our students. You’ll find some examples attached below.

Thank-you to those parents and guardians that have assisted with this process by completing the “HomeTalk’ with their children. It’s been great to hear your wonderful ideas and 'WOW' words as well.

Kind Regards,

Sonya Bambrick

Literacy Leader

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Taso Kollias

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Alexander Brain

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Beckham Huynh

Dental Van Visit

The arrival of the Dental Van saw many bright smiles with teeth proudly on display. For those a little more reluctant, the anxious moments were soon brushed away.

24 check-ups took place with families and carers provided with their child’s dental report. The service was well received and ran smoothly.

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Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD) On School Students with Disability

Schools must now complete the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD) every year. It counts the number of students who receive additional adjustments or “help” at school because of a disability. The NCCD helps governments plan for the needs of students with disability.

Visit the NCCD Information button below for further information

NCCD Information