Newsletter Week 4 Term 4 2024

Hi Everyone, 

Faith in Focus

Remembrance Day 

As Remembrance Day approaches next Monday November 11th, we reflect on its significance for our community. It’s a time to honour those who served and sacrificed for our freedom. We emphasise the values of peace and compassion central to our Catholic faith.  

The Gospel teaches us about love and sacrifice, reminding us of the ultimate sacrifices made for others. We encourage students to consider what it means to serve, how to be people of peace, and ways to honour those who make sacrifices to serve others. In our liturgy on Monday we will explore the questions: 

• What does it mean to serve others? 

• How can we promote peace in our communities? 

• In what ways can we honour those who have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice for our freedom? 

Our Remembrance Day Liturgy will take place on Monday 11 November at 10:50am in the school playground.

Positive Behaviour for Learning

At Corpus Christi , we are committed to fostering a positive school environment through our Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) framework. This Friday we will This framework, which is used across schools in our Diocese and Australia, at Corpus Christi our framework is built around four key expectations: 

Be Honest (Our school motto ‘Veritas’) 

Be Safe 

Be a Learner 

Be Respectful 

The core value of Veritas (Truth) is central to our Dominican charism. We have been working to ensure that out PBL framework is accessible for students and framework by consolidating our expectations to 21 expected behaviours ‘Veritas Values’,  You will notice new signage around the school reinforcing these values, which are taught and discussed in class and during assemblies. 

We are always looking for ways to reward and reinforce positive behaviour through our Gotcha rewards, which alings Veritas Values. These points are tracked, and students can earn rewards and recognition with special rewards in the classroom and recognition at regular school assemblies. Special awards include: 

PBL Class of the Week 

Merit Awards 

Veritas Values Awards 

Gotcha Milestones (50 and 100 points) 

Principal’s Award 

Our approach to behaviour management is tiered, with most students thriving under our core PBL framework (Tier 1). For students requiring additional support, targeted interventions are in place (Tiers 2 and 3), with the aim of bringing them back to Tier 1 as quickly as possible. 

We are committed to explicitly teaching students expected behaviours at all ages of their primary schooling and we are proud of how our school community continues to live out the values of honesty, safety, respect, and learning.  

Facilities Update

Our long-awaited Hall refurbishment has commenced! There are several stages of the project both interior and exterior the first being investigating and repairing structural items. We aim to be able to use the hall for our assembly this week - week 4. For our final two assemblies and Christmas concert we will need to use the undercroft and playground area. The work will continue through the Christmas break and we envisage the work continuing into term 1 and 2 next year. We are looking forward to updated audio visual facilites, improved accessibility and provisions as well provisions for accessibility access.

We are close to commencing another improvement project in the school holidays, the replacement of all of our windows in the K-5 classrooms. When we return in 2025 there each classroom will have brand new windows.

The improvements this year to our classrooms and the hall have been made possible throught Diocesan School Property grants, which are funded from the Diocesan Family School Building Levy (DFSBL) as part of school fees.

This has been a significant year for improvement projects for our school. We are grateful to the Diocesan Property Team and our colleagues at the Catholic Schools Office for supporting our applications and the needs of the Corpus Christi community.

We have been working away at staffing appointments for 2025. 

In week 9 we will share details about staffing arrangements for Years 1-6. We still have a another temporary classroom teacher position to fill, so the details will not be ready until later in the term. 

Our ‘Meet the Teacher’ day is scheduled for Monday, December 16. We have new students joining us for 2025, and we look forward to having them with us on this day. 

Leadership Structure for 2025 

Next year, we will continue our shared leadership model for the principal role with some minor adjustments: 

• Katie Kingsford: 4 days per week 

• Michael Deed: 1 day per week 

I will return to my role for four days each week, and I appreciate the opportunity to spend time with my family while my daughter is young. This arrangement is made possible with the support of the CSO Leadership team and of course to Michael Deed.

This year has been a time of collaboration and great learning for both Michael and me. We make a strong team, and I am thankful for his leadership. Michael has created a collaborative and positive environment that benefits both our teachers and students, demonstrating a strong commitment to keeping our school on the right track. 

Executive Release - Religious Education Coordinator Release 

Nellie Connolly has been appointed permanently as the 0.3 (three days a fortnight) Executive Release Teacher for our Religious Education Coordinator, Mrs Katie Castles. Nellie is current working in this role in a tempoary capcity, and has had experience in Stage 1 during 2024.  Nellie has been leading the Science KLA in Stage 1 and integrating technology into the curriculum using the SeeSaw platform. We are looking forward to having Miss Connolly with us on a permanent basis.

Creative and Performing Arts Teacher 

Mrs Elise Tantos has been appointed as our permanent Creative and Performing Arts Teacher commencing this 0.2 (one day per week role_ in 2025. Elise is a talented musician and has ongoing experience teaching music, dance, drama to primary school students and is currently teaching at St Paul’s Primary School Gateshead, working as specialist music, dance and drama teacher. 

Classroom Teacher - Temporary Full Time  

Mrs Emily Ayres has been appointed as temporary 1.0 classroom teacher commencing in 2025. Emily has extensive experience in Catholic and Independent school systems in Queensland and the ACT. Emily is currently teaching Kindergarten at St Joseph’s Primary School Merewether. This position replaces Mrs Shafren as she takes leave for the 2025 school year. We shared with our Kindergarten 2025 families earlier in the day that Mrs Ayres has been appointed as our Kindergarten teacher and will be with us for our three orientation sessions during November. 

                                      Thinking About Our Thinking
 All day, every day human beings have thousands of thoughts whizzing around their brain. Thoughts that support learning, thoughts about social interactions, thoughts about what’s happened. It’s a ‘Thinking Super-Highway’ in most people’s heads most of the day, and it needs some careful ‘thoughts traffic management.’

Thinking can be positive and helpful, which your child will now call ‘Supa Thinking’;
negative and unhelpful, now referred to as ‘Stinking Thinking’, or neutral - neither
positive nor negative, which is called ‘Straight Thinking.’

Thinking is part of a very important process that governs feelings and behaviour. When
something happens – an Event - you say something to yourself: Self-talk or Thinking; you then experience an Emotion or a Feeling (which might grow into a mood if it hangs
around) which usually leads to an action or a certain way of Behaving.

Here’s an example: You’re on the way to work and you realise that you didn’t turn the iron off. You were already running late when you left the house.

We teach children to think about - and also to change - their self-talk, which helps to shift the intensity of the feelings that they might have - and then also their behaviour, as in the example.

A HIGHWAY HERO is able to change their self-talk from Stinking Thinking into
either Straight Thinking or even Supa Thinking.
The automatic tendency for most children (and adults) when they face a difficulty, is to use Stinking Thinking - negative and unhelpful - and this can become habitual. A child who has difficulty breaking a pattern of negative self-talk will sustain that negative emotion -which will grow into a mood.

Changing a child’s mood is often dependent on being able to change their self-talk from the Stinking Thinking of, ‘It’s not fair,’ or ‘It always happens to me!’ into, ‘It’s not that bad, or ‘I’ll be alright.’

The ability for a child to monitor and manage their self-talk grows and develops as they mature – and usually much faster if they are taught about how to change their self-talk from Stinking Thinking into Straight Thinking or Supa Thinking.
It is important to talk with your child about ways that they can change their self-talk into accepting and straight-forward – rather than exaggerated or dramatic internal dialogue.
Your child has learned some tips, tricks and TOOLS this week about this, and you can help them extend their learning at home. Here are a few ways to help your child move from Stinking Thinking to Straight Thinking or Supa Thinking:

1. Model it yourself. Say out aloud to your child an occasion when you’ve had some
Stinking Thinking.

2. Make some Straight Thinking and Supa Thinking posters and put them up at home
– in your child’s room, the bathroom, behind the toilet door.

3. Encourage your child to journal – and this needn’t be writing their deep thoughts
into a book, post-it-notes is perfect. On one side your child writes
or draws their Stinking Thinking, and on the other, they write or draw their
Straight Thinking or Supa Thinking.