School Newsletter - Issue 1

Dear Parents,

First off a quick reminder that the weekly P&F meeting will be held in the Year 7 room this week rather than the usual staffroom while it is undergoing renovations. Sorry for the inconvenience and remember everyone is welcome to attend.

Saturday night was a very enjoyable evening. Jane Sandona was presented with this year’s Mark Mappas Award by the Diocesan Parent-Teacher Association for service to the P&F Association. Jane, albeit a reluctant and humble recipient was truly deserving of the award. It was presented at a function in the Hall at Park College.

Pictures of the Week

I have selected a few of my favourite pictures from this weeks newsletter. I hope you enjoy!

News from the Community

The weekend saw our four boys, Lyle Harrison, Arnold Marker, Bob Abbot and Matthew Gert, competing at the County Athletics Championships. Lyle's mum tells me that while none of our boys made the Regional team to compete in Warwick, they all competed strongly with lots of personal bests. Lyle made the finals (top 8 competitors) for all his events, and won a gold medal in the relay.

This morning the P&F association presented to the school two new sets of goals for the children to play soccer with on the junior sports field. A great deal of research and labour went into their local construction. Many thanks go to Paul Milk for his work on this project.

Year 10 Meetings

The Year 10 Meetings took place on Thursday of this week. In the past decade generally around 20% of the Year 10 students at the school will have moved onto apprenticeships, full time work, further education or other educational experiences. The larger numbers staying on at school then necessitates a closer examination of curriculum needs and a heightened sense of counselling on choice of subjects. As well, we need to ensure that students are mentally ready for the increased rigor of the Year 11 and 12 program. This can be best done, we believe, in a one to one approach.

The school is systematically, at the same time, attempting to improve the range of vocational subject options. To this end Mr Dean Boddis and Mr Beau Chaplin visited Manchester this week studying the approach of a number of functionally productive vocational options in schools. The ultimate aim is to ensure that as many students as possible have a meaningful educational program.

Mrs Leah Miller
Principal

Lifelong Photographer

David Sims - Year 9

I have been interested in photography for the last 3 years. It all began when my parent's gave me my grandfathers old camera. Since then I have saved up and bought myself a brand new Canon 60D and several lenses. I like to take photos of lots of different subjects to improve my skills. One day I hope to be a professional photographer.

Tri County Rugby Carnival

Steven Hobbs - Year 12

I have been part of the school's rugby team since I started at the school in Year 8. Unfortunately I was injured earlier this year and will miss the first half of the season. I still want to support my team and so I still attend each game, and even travel with them when we go to away games. I wanted to feel like I was still contributing, so I began taking photos of each game, and I have found that I am slowly getting better at taking action shots! Recently our team was invited to the Annual Tri County Rugby Carnival. This is a round robin competition that takes place over a long weekend. I am happy to report that our team played fearlessly and placed second overall! Here are some of my photos from the carnival.

Duck's Day Out

Lisa Smithton - Year 7

Over the Summer holidays my family travelled to the USA, where we did a 4 week road trip. The highlight of the trip was getting to visit Disneyland, where I bought the subject of my photographs Donald Duck! I wanted to take photos of Donald around my home doing everyday things with me. Please enjoy my photos of Donald's day out.

Mrs Harrison is organising a weekly Reading Club from next Wednesday. The club will run after school for 1 hour.

Last Tuesday Evening we held our Annual Arts Night. The evening was a great opportunity to enjoy students’ performance and art work which they have been preparing for many weeks. We were all taken by surprise, particularly the P&F, with the huge response from parents and families. The barbeque sold out within the hour and extra supplies of sausages, bread and soft drinks had to be purchased. Almost one half of the students in the school were involved in the evening in some way. Over 200 students presented drama skits, performed musical and vocal items, demonstrated various forms of cultural and modern dance; as well as showing visual arts displays of paintings, drawings, mask and jewellery making. Thank you to all students for their superb artistic efforts!

Very special thanks must go to the Arts Department Staff - Mrs Mitchell, Miss Moris, Mrs Brown, Mr Newton, Mr Palmer as well as Mrs White, Ms Freeman, Mrs Goodwin, Mr Murry, Miss Clayton, Mr Nygugen, Mr Stevenson, the Students’ Cultural Committee and all other staff who assisted in any way to help make the evening a huge success.

P&F contribution award

It is with pleasure that the P&F association acknowledges Jane Sand for her outstanding efforts and contributions made to the school over the past 10 years by nominating her for the award.

Jane has willingly given of her time and energy in every possible way during her time at the school.

Jane returned to her old high school as a parent, when her son Richard began school at the School in 2005, and Jane has continued with us, now with her youngest child, Clara in year 7.

On behalf of all past and present parents, teachers, staff and children of The School, I would like to thank you for your remarkable commitment, positive energy and efforts on behalf of the school. Jane your regular appearance will be missed when you finish at the end of this year, all the best!

Jackie Living
President
P&F Association

Sport Day

Congratulations to everyone on their great participation in the Sports Day last Monday. It was fantastic to see so many students giving all events a go to gain a participation point for their House.

Overall House Points

Thank you to everyone who helped with the organisation especially the House Captains for collecting the entries and the computer girls who entered the data on the day. A big thank you to Mr Boss for his computer skills, which made the day run so smoothly!

Venue for Round 12 Football

The football field at our Stadium will be used for the game on the 15th of this month. This is due to the upgrades we are having completed at our school grounds. Please stay tuned for updates regarding all future rounds.

Marathon Game Day

Students in the Rounders Program played a game of pitching on Wednesday. The aim of the day is to provide fundraising opportunities to go towards new training uniforms, excursions and back to the program for equipment etc. It also creates an environment for students to practice their skills in game situations and learn from one another. This is the second year we have run the event and it was a fantastic day once again. We hope students raised some money and we can continue to develop and expand the marathon event.

There were some big hits from the older students and a spectacular play from Tim Brown at third base off Steven Kelly. Well done to all that attended!

We look forward to next year's event and encourage all who would like to volunteer or sponsor the event to contact us as soon as possible. It is only through the efforts of our kind sponsors and volunteers that we can make this great program possible.

Autumn/Winter Menu

The new Autumn/Winter menu has started, this will be current for the next five weeks. The cafeteria provides a variety of both hot and cold food, including salads and vegetarian options. Special diets can be catered for. Please remember that the following items are all included with any main meals:

• Seasonal Vegetables
• Salad Bar
• Freshly Baked Bread
• Flavoured Yoghurt
• Jelly
• Plain Milk

Uniform Order Forms

Any parents that are able to come and volunteer in the Uniform Shop throughout the week would be greatly appreciated, even if it is only for a couple of hours.

If you are able to come in, please contact Sandra on 07 5414 2300

New Items Available

If you need to order new uniforms, please see the uniform list below.