Dear Parents, Staff and Student

Today I write my last newsletter for St Clare’s for 2021. This brings mixed emotions as I prepare to move to Cairns in the near future.  St Clare’s has been in my heart since I was 5 years old and always will be. One of my biggest blessings in life was being appointed as principal here in 2017. The staff, students and families in this school community are very special and I wish everyone all the best for the remainder of 2021.

The past few weeks have invited much reflection about my time as principal at St Clare’s as I prepare for my principal appraisal in Week 8.  The opportunity to offer feedback via the survey link sent last week to all staff and families is open until this Friday May 28th. I appreciate the time taken by those who have provided feedback as this will assist me to set my goals moving forward.

My last day at St Clare’s for 2021 will be on Friday June 4^th. I am hoping we will have positive news from CES in the coming week regarding the Acting Principal position at St Clare’s.  An official letter will be sent to all families once someone has been appointed. The leadership team and staff at St Clare’s are dedicated and caring and I trust that St Clare’s will be in good hands for the remainder of this year.

This morning we celebrated a Pentecost Mass and it was clear that the spirit was alive in all who were present.  The symbolic display focusing on the Gifts of the Spirit was absolutely beautiful and it is testament to the staff and students who designed each box representing the gifts. The main artwork of the spirit linking to each was completed by our artistic Yr 3 teacher Jo Wall.

200yr Celebrations of Catholic Education

Yesterday, Mrs Andrews and I travelled to Cairns to a National Mass that was celebrated across all states, territories and dioceses on the Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians to commemorate 200 years of Catholic education in Australia.  Three of our House Captains, Riley, Charlize and Erin, accompanied us to represent St Clare’s. During the mass Bishop James Foley blessed commemorative 200 yr pins for staff of all schools and prayer cards that will be distributed to families this week.

Safeguarding Children Conference

The 2021 Safeguarding Children Conference is being held on Saturday, 29 May 2021 at the Pullman Reef Hotel. This is a free event and parents and community members, as well as school staff, are able to register to attend. A flyer for this conference is attached to this newsletter. I will be attending this conference as I find it a valuable one with great keynote speakers.

Executive Director visit

Tomorrow we will have our Executive Director, Mr Bill Dixon, from Cairns Catholic Education visiting.  This will coincide with our Staff Biggest Morning Tea for the Cancer Council. We look forward to Mr Dixon’s visit and showing him our new learning spaces.

Peace be with you all,

Narelle Harney

Welcome   Community   Hospitality

200 Years of Catholic Education in Australia

Catholic Education is celebrating 200 years in Australia, marking the bicentenary of the first Catholic school established in Parramatta in October 1820.

Over 200 years, Catholic schools have grown to become the largest provider of schooling in Australia (outside government) with one in five school age students attending a Catholic school.

Nearly 40 per cent of Catholic schools are located outside of metropolitan cities in regional, rural and remote communities.

A National Mass was celebrated in states and dioceses throughout Australia yesterday on the Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, the Patroness of our great nation of Australia.  We pray that our Blessed Mother continue to inspire the hearts and minds of our Catholic Education system both educators, staff and most of all students. Some of the Year 6 school leaders travelled to Cairns with Ms Harney and Mrs Andrews to celebrate this momentous occasion with Bishop James who is the longest serving Bishop in Australia. A wonderful celebration bringing together the 30 Catholic Schools in the Diocese along with staff and students.

Confirmation and First Holy Communion

Congratulations to the children who received the Holy Spirit in Confirmation and First Holy Communion on Sunday. It was a wonderful celebration and children were excited to be able to celebrate the sacraments along with their family and friends. The mass was co-celebrated by Fr Joby and Fr Peter Miller.

Thank you to Father Joby, Tania Gilbert and for all those involved in the ministries to make the celebrations so special and memorable.

Pentecost Mass

Today we celebrated Pentecost with a school Mass with Father Joby.  Each class focused on a gift of the Holy Spirit and gave examples of how we can live our lives like Jesus would like us to do using each gift.  Each class decorated a gift box with symbols to represent each gift.  Their creations are amazing. Thank you to Mrs Wall for her artistic Spirit design that is the focal point for our display on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  The students sung their hearts out with our final song, Holy Spirit Rock.  It was a wonderful community celebration bringing the St Clare’s charism of Welcome Community and Hospitality together.

Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP)

As we celebrate 200 years of Catholic Education in Australia, we are reminded of the call to action in our communities to heal the hurts of our shared history. In May 2020 the Executive Director of Catholic Education, Bill Dixon, introduced Cairns Catholic Education Community’s inaugural Reconciliation Action Plan.

As part of this plan, some Year 6 students participated in a workshop with Antoinette Cole, who is Leader Formation – First Nations from Catholic Education. Together, the group of students designed a reconciliation icon to represent our school community. It is linked to the mission statement and values of St Clare’s.

Here is a little bit more about it: You can see the people around the icon, representing the St Clare’s community. Although every one person in the community is unique and different, we are all encircled by love and joined together by our faith. In the middle, the sun, mountain and stream of water symbolize the world God has created. It acknowledges the respect that we must have for the land on which we live and the trust we must have in it (and each other) to provide for our needs. The mountain was designed to reflect Mt Tyson, the base of which St Clare’s is situated. The cross on the mountain represents our faith and is in the centre to remind us that this should always be our guiding light.

We are excited to showcase our St Clare’s RAP icon! This is the shared vision for reconciliation developed by Hannah, Makayla, Kaitlin, Corrinne, Aiden and Marty.

With God’s blessings,

Helen Andrews

School Calendar

Payment of outstanding fees would be appreciated as soon as possible. 

Please contact the principal if you have any issues of concerns. 

Thank you to all families who have made their payment.

In the Australian Curriculum, students develop personal and social capability as they learn to understand themselves and others, and manage their relationships, lives, work and learning more effectively. Personal and social capability involves students in a range of practices including recognising and regulating emotions, developing empathy for others and understanding relationships, establishing and building positive relationships, making responsible decisions, working effectively in teams, handling challenging situations constructively and developing leadership skills.

At St Clare’s there are many ways we teach and support students to develop personal and social capabilities.  One way is through the Zones of Regulation curriculum.  This program supports students to learn how to identify their emotions and the emotions of others.  By identifying which “zone” the emotion is located, students can more readily identify learnt strategies to help them self-regulate and to be “ready for learning.” 

One of the strategies students learn when they may be in the Red or Yellow Zones is Lazy 8 breathing.  The Red Zone typically represents heightened states of alertness or very intense feelings.  The Yellow Zone is also used to describe a heighted state of alertness but is less intense and includes feelings of frustration, anxiety, excitement, silliness, confusion and nervousness.

Many students have been learning to use the Lazy 8 breathing to assist with regulation.  It is important to practice this technique regularly and when students are not experiencing a Red or Yellow Zone emotion.  This practice supports mastery so students can access the technique when they have heightened emotions.

Recent announcements by the Queensland Government confirmed that "school banking" will cease in July 2021. Due to school events we wish to advise that the last day banking will be done at St Clare's will be in Week 8 (Thursday, June 10th). Children can continue using their accounts directly with the bank. Huge thank you to the parents who have volunteered to coordinate banking at St Clare's over the past years. 

Book Club Update: Unfortunately, there has been a delay with the bookclub orders that were placed earlier this month. Hopefully, we will see our books in the next week or two. 

Last Wednesday, Year 1 visited the Tully Library to celebrate National Simultaneous Storytime.  The theme for this year was Space and we had some aliens and space men in the Year 1 room! 

The students all enjoyed listening to astronaut Dr Shannon Walker read the story “Give me Some Space” directly from the International Space Station.

Other classes read the story during the day and completed activities.

National Simultaneous Storytime was ‘out of this world’ this year.

Coordinator: J Sichter  Helpers: T Condon  S Davis

Bakers: R Miller  R Churchill (Cupcakes)

Friday 4/6/2021 -

Coordinator: J Berge Helpers: K Wilson R Hodgson 

Bakers:  A Bevan    M Dowie  (Cupcakes)

Friday 11/6/2021 - 

The P&F have done many projects over the years to benefit our children, the most recent being the fantastic new sports shed. The P&F are interested in hearing from any parents who may have some ideas on how they feel the P&F can help benefit our children this year or in the near future. Any ideas can be emailed to secretary.tully@cns.catholic.edu.au or if you prefer next time you see one of our fantastic committee members, Jo Solien, John Clifford, Kelly Slattery or Paul Grimaz feel free to let them know. Our monthly meetings are held on the 3^rd Tuesday of the month @7pm in the school library, our next meeting is on 15^thJune 2021. We hope to see some new faces and some great new ideas.

Thanks

P&F Committee

Dear Sir/Madam

Australian Government Mobile Service Centres travel extensively throughout rural and regional Australia. A Mobile Service Centre will be visiting your area soon.

Staff from Services Australia travel with the Mobile Service Centres and can assist people with Centrelink and Medicare payments and services.Information about Department of Veterans’ Affairs programs and support services for veterans and their families is also available.

Our Mobile Service Centres have disabled access and customer Wi-Fi to assist in creating myGov accounts and accessing online services.

The attached factsheet includes further information about the services available.

We would appreciate it if you could assist us in promoting this visit in your local community. This could be by publishing an article in your local newsletter or on your community noticeboard and by printing the attached poster and placing it in prominent locations around town and on public noticeboards.

The week prior to our visit we will be posting a message on our Facebook page.  When our post goes live we will send you the link to share with your community members.

More information about the Australian Government Mobile Service Centre is available on our website: servicesaustralia.gov.au/mobileoffice

You can view the Mobile Service Centre YouTube clip here: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzOdOHIi9Ws