Our Year 6 students had a wonderful trip to Canberra to take in all the sights and sounds of Australia's capital city. The staff who accompanied the students were incredibly proud and impressed by the behaviour of the students whilst travelling. They even commented that the flight attendants were so amazed by how quiet and well bahaved they were, they actually wondered if the students were even on the plane! Check out our gallery of photos from the trip.

The Australian Government recognises the importance of all young Australians being able to visit the national capital as part of their Civics and Citizenship education. To assist families in meeting the cost of the excursion, the Australian Government has contributed funding of $60 per student under the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate program towards those costs. The rebate is paid directly to the school upon completion of the excursion.

This week I share a short prayer for perseverance. 

Holy Lord, 

Thank you for grace. 

Please help me move beyond the hurdles that trip me up and give me strength and wisdom to look up and find hope around me. 

Amen 

 
Immaculata Mission School 2020 - To Know God, To Love God, To Make God Known 

What is it: A ten-day live-in formation school for young people, with talks on the faith from awesome speakers, daily Mass & prayer, Eucharistic Adoration, praise & worship, fun & fellowship & lots more! 

When: 1-10 January, 2020 

Where: The Glennie School, Toowoomba QLD 

Who: 15-35 year olds 

Special guest speaker: Dr Ralph Martin (USA), Professor of Sacred Theology, international speaker on evangelisation and the spiritual life.  Dr Martin is a consulter to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation and has spoken in over 30 countries. 

Other guest speakers: Archbishop Julian Porteous, Vince Fitzwilliams, James Parker, Jess Leach, Paul Elarde, Sisters of the Immaculata & more. 

How much: $390 (cost includes all accommodation, food, speakers and activities) before 18 Nov, $450 after 18 Nov 

For more info or to register: www.sistersoftheimmaculata.org.au/ims 
or 0406 372 608 

 Mini Vinnies Christmas Appeal 

We will again collect donations to support St Vincent de Paul’s Christmas Appeal.  We look forward to presenting St Vincent de Paul with amazing hamper supplies again in 2019.  A letter has been sent home outlining this appeal.  Donations can be placed in the College Office or in Classrooms until Week 8. 

Excellence Awards

This year we will have only one awards ceremony on Thursday 14 November beginning at 9:00am in the MPC.  Families are encouraged to gather with us as a whole College to celebrate the endeavours of our students in 2019.  The awards this year will focus around excellence in the four dimensions of our College Life: LYF – Spirituality; Sport; Culture and Academia which align to our areas of focus as seen on our College Statement.  A full list of the Awards and their criteria will be distributed via SZApp next week.  We will also announce 2020 student leaders and Farewell as Year 12 students at this ceremony. 

Cate Brennan

Deputy Principal Religious Education

Learning is taking place across the Early Years in many different shapes and forms. At OLSCC, we use age appropriate pedagogies to underpin our teaching and learning. Age-appropriate pedagogies support Early Years teachers to apply a range and balance of teaching approaches in their classroom practice. There are several things teachers consider when choosing which approach to take, including

• The children’s interests and capabilities
• The curriculum
• Evidence of the children’s learning
• School and community contexts

The approaches include direct teaching, explicit instruction, inquiry learning, project based learning, play based learning and projects.  All of these assist us in promoting independent learning with our students. Above are some of our Year 1’s taking their learning outside the classroom, blending explicit teaching and inquiry learning as they explore money.

This week on our Early Years Assembly, we explored the notion of The Learning Pit. Originally developed in the UK by James Nottingham, The Learning Pit assists students in thinking and talking about their learning. The students could recognize that when faced with any new learning or challenge, whether that be academic, such as learning to read, or sporting, such as learning to swim, or any other learning in life, we may feel nervous or excited to begin. As we dive into the learning pit and deepen our learning, we often face confusion. We need to call on all our learning dispositions of persistence, resilience, optimism, motivation, creativity, curiosity and independence to find a way out of the pit. As we engage in this process, our learning grows and deepens until we find success. And then the process begins all over again! Our Early Years students were terrific at identifying that we never really complete this process, as we continue learning into adulthood. As I told our students on Monday, I have been in the pit many times this year, as have all of our teachers, for this is how we grow and develop! I have enjoyed many fruitful conversations with students since our Monday assembly, and have been thrilled to hear them confirm that leaping OVER the learning pit is not of any benefit to them, as they could recognize that the actual LEARNING will not have happened if they take this option. We need to allow ourselves to wallow in the pit and grow from the experience!

4J are happy to welcome a new classmate, Phoenix Fleming. Thanks to Molly and Keira for helping Phoenix settle in!

Katrina Walton

Assistant Principal Early Years

Junior

Touch Football

A boys and a girls team will attend the QLD All Schools Touch Football Carnival next weekend at Cleveland. Final details will be passed onto students early next week. Students are expected to attend all games in College Sports uniform.  No representative attire is to be worn. The standard of dress at all sporting events should reflect the uniform standard expected at the College.  College Sports caps are now available at the Office for $15. These are to be the only head-wear worn on the field.

Aquathlon

Congratulations to all students who competed in the Darling Downs Aquathlon trials in Dalby last Friday. Carla Nobbs was selected in the Darling Downs Team to attend the State Championships in Hervey Bay in March next year. A fantastic effort from Carla after spending the prior five days on Year 6 camp in Canberra. All results are listed below.

Girls – 64 Competitors

Carla Nobbs 6^th,

Isabel Johnston 18th

Lauren Ramage 35^th

Olivia Ham 41^st

Alex Boland 45^th

Boys 62 Competitors

Lachlan Fraser 20^th

Hayden Koehler 36^th

Hamish Colquhoun 53^rd

Senior

SWQ Rugby Sevens Series

Any late draw changes or wet weather information will be available via the SWQ Sevens Series Facebook page or at https://www.downsrugby.com.au/sevens-rugby

Round 3 Results Tuesday Games

13 Girls

Loss to Downlands College 35-12

Win vs Lockyer District SHS 20-5

15 Girls

Loss to Glennie A 25-0

Loss to Downlands College 20-0

15 Boys

Win vs Faith Lutheran 31-10

Win vs St Joseph’s College 36-5

Round 2 Results Thursday Games

13 Boys

Win vs Faith Lutheran 29-7

Loss to Downlands College 24-12

Open Boys

Win vs St Mary’s B 22-5

Loss vs Scots College 31-17

Week 4 Draw

Tuesday 5 November

• College Coach will leave at 3.15pm and return at approximately 9.00pm

Thursday 7 November  

• Private Transport

2020 Confraternity Shield Rugby League and Netball Training

The 2020 QISSRL and QISSN Carnivals will be held in Brisbane in the first week of the June/ July holidays. The Rugby League Carnival is open to any boys turning 16 or older in 2020. The Netball Carnival in open to any girls in Years 9-12 in 2020. Training for both teams is on Monday mornings from 7.00am – 8.15am. Boys will be training on the College Main Oval and Girls Team will train at the PCYC Indoor Courts.

Athletics

Congratulations to Michael MacDonald who attend the State Athletics Championships in Cairns last week. Michael made the Semi Finals of the 100m Sprint and was part of the Darling Downs Team that came 3^rd in the 4 x 100m Relay.

 Tim Lincoln

Middle Leader Sport

The Music Department has welcomed Ms Maxine Hetherington to the College this term. Ms Hetherington is looking after the Year 4 - 7 Music classes and has been busily preparing the classes for our Carols night in November. The event is shaping up to be an absolutely terrific night and we are looking forward to welcoming our College community for some Christmas Carols.

On Friday night the College Contemporary Vocal group performed at the 'Reclaim the Night' event in Thomas Jack Park which is designed to raise awareness of domestic violence. Our students performed a great selection of modern songs and the audience was very responsive to them. Congratulations and a huge thank you to these students and their parents who carted equipment and helped with setting up. Every great group needs a brilliant group of 'roadies'. On Friday night, 8 November, they will perform again at the annual Anglican Parish dinner. 

The Early Years classes will be participating in the annual 'Music: Count Us In' event which is Australia's largest school initiative working with partners around the country to support Music in schools. Our students will join with students from Dalby Central School to sing 'We Are' which will be sung at the same time on the same day as all registered schools across Australia.  A great big 'thank you' to Mrs Garside for all her hard work in preparing these students for the event.

The Year 7/8 Drama students are busily preparing their performances for assessment. This term they have had Ms Maree Canavan guiding them through their learning process and the Cultural and Arts Department welcome her to our team for this term. Ms Canavan reports that they are going to have some exciting performances and that the students have enjoyed choosing and creating fantastic costumes.

Libby Baxter

Middle Leader Culture and The Arts

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye sooo hard."​

Hey guys, ​

Year 12 is going really well, but with only three weeks left, the pressure is really on as assignments and exams are either due or coming up soon. I will admit I'll miss this place in some ways but I can't wait to move on and take a new step forward in life. To reflect on my experience of Year 12, in three words it would be: roller-coaster, exhausting and exciting. For me, Year 12 went slowly to start with. Although students from previous years always say that it goes so fast, I didn't believe this to start with, but now I can say I really do. After completing Term 3 (which was the hardest term yet), it really hit me that I had nearly completed 13 years of education.  My words of advice would be to just keep going, keep coming to school, keep working toward taking that step forward in life.

Thanks,​

Mikayla Leahy

Year 12 has been a crazy ride of changes and emotions, from getting the new laptops to classmates moving on to bigger things. This year has also been a successful year for me as I completed my Certificate Three in Hospitality, performed as Lord High Underling in this year’s musical, The Wiz and I improved my grades. There were some bumps in the road, like a couple of teachers leaving at one point in the year and changes regarding assignment submissions. However, other than those few changes, everything else has been great and I feel that I, like my classmates, have improved and matured throughout the year. It has been a fun time being at OLSCC and now it’s time to move on. I wish the best of luck to next year’s students with the new ATAR system rolling in and hope they do their best.

John Shorter

There is a common saying that your schooling years are the most important years of your life, and there is no doubt about that. Although those thirteen years may seem to go quickly at times, there are also times where it feels as if they will drag on forrrr-everrr, especially in the last five years of secondary school. However, these years set you up for your future and help you grow into the person you are in the process of becoming. Throughout these years, you’ll experience many different things; losing friendships, making new ones, having fights with family members, creating a close bond with parents and siblings, experiencing success in certain subjects and not getting the results you want in other subjects. We all have our highs and lows, and every graduate has a different story to tell about how they got to where they are now. It won’t always be sunshine and rainbows and nor should it be all the time. I experienced many of those different things between Year 10 and Year 11, and I thought it was the end of the world for me. Yet, there is always a rainbow after a storm. I found that perseverance and positive thoughts are what got me through my hard times in those years, along with my support networks. I came out the other side of these challenges a much stronger and resilient person, armed with strategies and confidence to help me get through a lot of other things such as the stress and pressure when in exam block. All in all, the greatest advice I’d give to all students is to persevere and keep looking on the bright side of things.

Gabby Parker

This year as part of our Praxis Program the Prep classes have run a Buddy Program. Prep Red was buddied with Class 5/6C while Prep Blue was buddied with 6O. On most Thursday afternoons, for the last 40 minutes, the classes would come together to work on various activities. The big buddies taught the little buddies how to log on to the College Network and then how to access and login to The Reading Eggs program. They helped with craft activities related to the subjects the Prep classes were focusing on that week. They undertook outdoor games and play activities.

While the focus was on play and social interaction the underlying value could be seen in the relationships that were developed between the younger and older students. The Prep students had a familiar ‘older person’ that they saw around our College who they knew, and who they could go to for help and support. The idea of ‘community’ was developed.

"My Buddy helps to teach me things. My Buddy is tricky because she can do a handstand. Maybe she will teach me how to do one." Samantha Spies

"We get to do fun things with our Buddies. My Buddy is funny." Terrence Liang

"My Buddy helped me to skip. I like seeing my Buddy when we are walking around the school." Addie Pocock

"My Buddy helped me to make a pyramid when we were learning about 3D shapes." Sage Southee.

For the older students, it gave them the opportunity to be leaders and to guide by example. They were also given the opportunity to implement their own activities throughout the year.

"I like how we get to lead the Preps in activities and it teaches us how to cooperate with small children." Matilda Paffey

"I like how we get to interact with the Preps and show them how to be responsible."  Jack Simpkins

"I think it is good for the little kids to have some familiar faces around the school." Loretta Carpenter

"I like watching the Buddies succeed and helping them to do so." Penelope Doherty

With renovations for the new Chapel space taking place in what were the Senior Learning Support classrooms, much unwanted and unused old furniture has been uncovered along with other outdated items from around the College such as books and IT equipment. As a College, the decision was made to find a worthwhile recipient of all the unwanted furniture and equipment and we are very pleased to have identified areas of Papua New Guinea that are desperately in need of things for their schools. Matthew Elara, a representative from PNG, was here recently to collect books and old readers from the Library to help fill a shipping container that will head to PNG very soon.

The areas in Kagua/Erave district of the Southern Highlands West Province in PNG were recently affected by earthquakes and the principals of four high schools have been identified to receive these items. Mr Elara reports that those principals are very grateful to be able to help rebuild the schools for the students.

"Please let your staff and students know that these items donated are going to most remote areas where students walk 5-10klms to get Education and sit on bare floor or ground with grass hut roofing. It's a blessing to them with all these things you are donating.

Some of the classrooms and library buildings are being built by funding from donor agencies around the world and your college and others in the Darling Downs Region are donating items which go a long way in helping these underprivileged students and under resourced teachers."

The students and teachers in PNG from the four High Schools are still very much in need of stationery items so if anyone has anything they would like to donate, please drop items off to the College as soon as possible.

College Staff

• Melissa Irwin
• Peter Cuskelly
• Luke Holmes

TCS Staff

• Peter Simpson
• Barbara Woods