Newsletter Week 2, Term 2 2025

Principal's Messages

We hope all families had a restful break and are ready for an exciting term ahead. Despite a few setbacks with last week’s rain, we are off to a positive start.

Administration Area

Due to some water damage, our school office is currently out of action. Mrs Bamford will be working from the Meeting Room until our administration space is back up and running—thank you for your understanding and patience during this time.

Staff Development Days

Our first two Staff Development Days were rich with learning experiences and important professional reflection. Our Staff Spirituality Day provided a valuable opportunity for our team to reflect on their own faith and our shared mission as a Catholic community. We also began exploring how our vision statement can best capture the heart of our work in faith and education, which Katie Castles our REC will discuss further down.

The second day focused on curriculum improvement, with staff working on reading fluency, data review, and our key assessment focus areas. These days are vital for setting a clear direction for the term and ensuring we are working towards the goals and strategies outlined in our School Improvement Plan.

Staffing

We’ welcome Mrs Julie Saperas as EAL/D teacher every Thursday for the remainder of the year. Julie will be working with Mrs Pois and students across the school. We welcome Julie to Corpus Christi.

Facilities

We’re pleased to share that the Play Equipment repair project is progressing, and we hope to see work begin in the coming weeks.

Mother's Day

A huge thank you to Emma Storey, Tracey Roberts and Rebecca Jeffrey for coordinating our Mother’s Day Stall—it was a great success and brought lots of smiles to the children’s faces. We are now looking forward to our Mother’s Day Liturgy and community celebration this Friday. It is always special when we can welcome families into the school and have our students express their love and gratitude for the important women in their lives.

Wishing all the special women in our community a Happy Mother's Day!

Have a great two weeks,

Katie

Faith in Focus

The Conclave started yesterday — a special and important time as the cardinals gather to choose a new pope. We look forward to the election of a new pope in the coming days.

The Diocese has published a new video to help everyone understand the Conclave — how it began, how it works, and what it means.

We invite you to watch the video here

Religious Education and Spirituality

CCW Staff Take Time to Renew our Vision

Over the last two weeks, staff have engaged in a program called 'VERITAS A DOMINICAN SPIRITUALITY'. It has offered staff the opportunity to contemplate the spirituality of the Dominican Charism and the impact the Dominican spirituality has on every facet of our work here CCW.

What makes our school unique is largely due to the gift of our Charism. Our school Motto 'VERITAS-TRUTH' moves us and guides us to be true to ourselves, to be honest about our relationships, our intentions and decisions. To seek purpose and meaning in life, to seek deep understanding, and above all, to place God at the centre of all these things. Our Dominican Charism is rooted in the values of PRAYER, LEARNING, SERVICE and COMMUNITY. These four attributes are what we call our 'Pillars'.

Our schools Vision Statement, is a short sentence (10 or so words) that capture the driving spirituality and heart of what our community is all about. It is an inspirational statement from which our school mission, our school rules, expectations and practices can grow. Staff have been collaborating on renewing this statement to reflect our school name, our Charism and our purpose as a community.

Students gave us important feedback during this renewal process. Students identified that CCW is a truthful community, where every one is known individually, yet we work together as one. 

We thank all parents who took the time to respond to our survey on our school Vision Statement. Your feedback was a valuable resource to use as part of our staff development day. 

Some of you may have your own personal experiences crafting Vision Statements in your own work, and you may be able to appreciate the challenge of naming the spiritual and inspirational essence of our school in a very brief statement. Staff will finalise our Vision Statement in the weeks ahead. 

May is the Month for Mary and Mothers

As Mother’s Day approaches, we prepare to give thanks for all Mothers and those who love us like a Mother. We also turn our attention to the greatest of all disciples, Mary.

Mary was Jesus’ mother and loved him dearly, Christians worldwide honour her and respect her and try to be like her. Throughout the month of May, we take a special look at how Mary is a model of following Jesus.

In times of struggle, she had hope and faith in God. She showed wisdom, trust and patience as Jesus grew. Mary tried to protect Jesus and keep Him safe. There were times when Jesus caused Mary great stress and worry, but Mary always listened to her son, Jesus, and tried to understand Him. She was His biggest advocate and supporter.

In a very different age, we can still relate to Mary in our own lives, in our relationships with our children and in our relationship with Jesus.

You may like to take some time at home to ask your children the following questions:

Who in your life loves and cares for you the way Mary loves Jesus?

Can you think of a time in your life when you needed the help and support of a loved one?

We are looking forward to celebrating Mothers Day with our CCW community on Friday this week.

Upcoming Community Celebrations

Corpus Christi Turns 90

This year marks 90 years since the opening of the downstairs section of our iconic red brick building — the foundation of what we now proudly know as Corpus Christi. As we journey through this milestone term, we’re excited to learn more about our rich history and celebrate with our students and wider community.

We are fortunate to have many connections to our past, with many current families including parents who once walked these halls as students themselves (including Miss Connolly and Mrs Kingsford). To help us bring our history to life, we are on the lookout for photos and memorabilia that might be tucked away in family homes — items that tell the story of Corpus Christi over the decades.

While we’ve gathered many photos from our archives, we know the heart of our story lives in the memories and keepsakes of our community. If you have any photographs or memorabilia to share, we would love to see them! You can upload items directly via the dedicated section on our school website, email to admin@waratah.catholic.edu.au or feel free to bring them in — we’re happy to scan and return them to you.

Year 6 Visit Mater Hospital

Yesterday, Year 6 went to the Mater Hospital to participate in Patient Experience Week. Year 6 had been working hard at sewing hearts and writing heartfelt messages  to hand out at the hospital to patients and staff.

We divided into three groups and were taken around the hospital by our lovely and amazing tour guides, who taught us about how patients come from far places to get different types of cancer treatment in the Daytime Centre.

Since were unable to go into some areas because of how crowded the area is, or because of how sick some people are, we handed some of our hearts to Marissa, one of the incredible workers at the Mater. She handed out our hearts for us and we received heartwarming feedback.

A man in the Daytime Centre was given a heart that made him cry happy tears, and it was amazing to see how much we all made an impact.

Going to the hospital was such an amazing experience, being able to connect and talk to so many brave people was so inspiring for all of us. I know we will cherish those moments forever in our hearts, knowing that even the smallest gestures can make someone's day better.

By Lucy T Year 6

Positive Behaviour for Learning - PB4L

Our PB4L focus for the first two weeks of the term is:

Be a Learner – Participate actively in all lessons.
We can show this by:

• Listening attentively

• Engaging in class discussions

• Giving our best effort in every task

Our Dominican Detectives will be on the lookout for students and classes demonstrating this focus.
They will reveal themselves at our assembly on Thursday!

Wellbeing - Highway Heroes

BUILDING STRATEGIES FOR TEASING AND BULLYING

This term, the focus has been on TAMING TEASING and BEATING BULLYING.

Our Highway Heroes lessons aim to help your child become more confident and skilled in handling teasing or bullying situations they may come across. 

The section below; Spotlight on Bullying, also provides extra important parent information on bullying.

Over the next few weeks, students will be unpacking The Differences Between Teasing & Bullying & The Triple A’s 4 Teasing Strategy.

Bullying is a HIGHWAY HAZARD - serious in nature and deserving of immediate attention. It's effects are harmful and can be ongoing.  

It is important though, to be aware that not every form of criticism, rudeness, faultfinding and even, in some forms, teasing, is determined to be bullying. There are differences between bullying and these forementioned behaviours and also differences in how to address them.

The differences between teasing and bullying need to be clearly emphasised to ensure that children can accurately differentiate between them, and then respond effectively to both. 

Teasing is a HIGHWAY BUMP - it has the potential to develop into bullying if the warning signs aren’t attended to. However, the child who has a good range of HIGHWAY HERO TOOLS will usually be able to prevent the teasing from escalating to bullying.
Teasing is not always meant to be mean. There is Cruel Teasing which is meant to be hurtful or humiliating intentionally. Then there is Cool Teasing which could be unintentional, a clumsy attempt at humour or to break the ice. There is no intent on harm in Cool Teasing. This doesn’t mean, however, that Cool Teasing can’t - and doesn’t - often go too far, and a child also needs to know how to address that.

The Triple A’s 4 Teasing
The HIGHWAY TOOL of The Triple A’s 4 Teasing gives a child a choice from a range of skills that they can use immediately.

AGREE: Defuses what the teaser has said, e.g., “Yep, that’s about right!”

ASK A QUESTION: A disarming strategy, designed to tackle the teasing content directly and appears the person being teased is actually interested e.g., “Have you only just noticed my freckles?”

ASK TO STOP: Tells the teaser directly, clearly and calmly, that enough is enough!

Taking time to review what assertive, straight talk looks like and sounds like is also beneficial for helping children to tame teasing (see below). 

Sports Update

We are proud of the many sporting achievements by our students this term!

• Congratulations to Our Athletics Age Champions
  • Senior Girls - Indianna  Senior Boys - Jake
  • 11 Years Girls - Emily   11 Years Boys - Hudson
  • Junior Girls - Harriet     Junior Boys - Harvey   
    

• We will announce our Athletics Regional Team next week

• Our Cross Country representatives will represent Corpus Christi next Wednesday at the Diocesan Cross Country event - 21 students from Corpus Christi will take part in the event.
  

• Well done to Elijah, Alfie, and Harvey in Year 4, who represented the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese at the Polding Hockey Trials in Bathurst. They were the only Year 4 students competing against Year 5 and 6 players—a fantastic effort!
  

• Congratulations to Ruby in Year 5, who has qualified for Polding Softball in June.

• Congratulations to Gus in Year 6, who has progressed to the Diocesan Touch Football Trials.
  

International Competitions and Assessments for Schools - ICAS

What is ICAS?  

ICAS is an OPTIONAL online academic competition that gives students the opportunity to challenge their higher order thinking and problem-solving skills in English, Mathematics, Writing. It is NOT curriculum based. It is for those students who enjoy the challenge of academic competition.

To learn more about this year’s exciting ICAS competition, visit: (icasassessments.com/products-icas/)

How to participate in ICAS  

If you wish for your child to participate in ICAS this year, please go to the Parent Portal to sign up to your chosen subject areas using the link and code below.  

Registration for all subject areas closes on Monday 28 July at 11:59pm.

This year, our students can elect to sit the following assessments:

Uniform Shop

Friday 9 May - Online Orders Only

From 16 May onwards - open Fridays  8:30am to 9:00am (Walk-in shopping)

Online orders via Qkr! close at 8:00am each Friday and will be sent home with your child.

To keep costs low and provide this service to Corpus Christi families, all items are sold close to cost price. If you are available to volunteer on a casual or regular basis, please reach out to admin@waratah.catholic.edu.au.

Dates and Reminders