St Finbarr’s Student Protection Contacts Genny McNair & Prue Bodkin St Finbarr’s Parish School Jabiru Street, P.O. Box 34 Quilpie, QLD, 4480 Phone: (07) 46561412—Fax: (07) 4656 1306 Email: [email protected] Newsleer Checklist Tuckshop Envelope Charleville RAFS Playgroup flyer Important dates 2nd November All Saints & All Souls Liturgy, St Fin- barr’s Church 10.30am 11th November Remembrance Day 22nd November Quilpie District Swimming Carni- val 26th November Mass 28th November Awards Evening 30th November Last day of school 1st December Travel Day for teachers. Volume: 7 Issue: 18 Date: 1st Nov 2017 Dear Parents and Friends Last week I aended the final Principals Forum for 2018. It is inspiring to work with leaders who are so experi- enced and passionate about their work – that is high quality teaching and learning in our schools. The Toowoom- ba Catholic Schools Office has a clear vision for the schools of our diocese and have completed a mountain of work this year in the areas of Teaching and Learning, Strategic Resourcing and Faith and Mission and they have given us, as Principals, the tools to do this and the leadership capacity to lead the learning in our schools. One topic of parcular interest was Visible Learning. At the end of Jim Midgeley’s visit earlier this year, I did ask him what his advice was to make our school great. His response was to make the children take ownership of their learning; to know their purpose to come to school is to learn; and to understand the purpose of their learning. Visible Learning has been derived from the work of John Hae. ‘Teachers see learning through the eyes of their students. Students see themselves as teachers of their own learning’. The teacher’s role is to facilitate learning, to help students become their own teachers. This can be realized as teachers and students set learning goals which include learning intenons for each lesson eg. We are learning to listen for a parcular purpose and this learning will be measured by the success criteria wrien in child’s language eg. I will be successful if I can listen to my classmate’s ideas carefully and contribute some of my own. Students will develop metacognive strategies to assist their learning – this is where they have inner conversaons such as – I have heard that word before or I read about this in another book and it also said… They are conscious of connecng new informaon with past learning. When reflecng on their work students are encouraged to think about ‘What went well?’ What was tricky? What could I do about it? If students can become drivers of their own learning they are learning with purpose – not just ‘doing’ learning becomes excing and students are movated to learn. A number of our students are doing this well already but our goal is to enable every student to become acve in their own learning. Parents can have a big impact on their children’s learning too, through their engagement in the educaonal de- velopment of their children. It was very pleasing to see all of our parents meeng with the teachers during the recent parent teacher interviews. Many of these I was able to sit in on and was impressed with the types of ques- ons parents were asking of the teachers and the discussions these prompted. Our parents are really interested in understanding and promong their children’s educaon. The Reading Strategy has been a focus of our teacher professional development last term and is now being em- bedded in our school literacy blocks. Jim has produced a series of short clips to provide more informaon on these for schools and parents. These clips can be found at hp://twbtandl.weebly.com/reading-strategy.html. Congratulaons to all students who parcipated in the University of NSW ICAS Maths and English compeon. Charles was awarded with a Merit for Maths, Charles and Lace for Credits in English and Ardie and Hayden for Merits in English. These tests are designed as a compeon, with a high level of difficulty and therefore are not completed by all students in Australia. Any student who completes the test or receives an award is to be congrat- ulated. A final P&F/Board meeng will be held Monday night at 6.30pm to finalise plans for the upgrade of our tennis court. Other discussions will include school fees, and plans for 2018. Warm regards Genny “The art of teaching is the art of assisng discovery.’’ (Mark Van Doren) IMPORTANT NOTICE! - Change of Dates Swimming – Wed 22nd November Speech & Awards Night—Tues 28th November Important Music Noce Music lessons are being held on Wednesdays this term. Please remember your instru- ments and music books. Date Claimer! Quilpie ICPA Holiday Camp Tues 5 – Fri 8 Dec Circus skills, swimming, music, leather- work, craft, boxing FOR ANY STUDENT PREP – YEAR 10 IN 2017 MORE INFO? [email protected] ICPA Members & Non-members welcome (Members of other branches please contact Branch Secre- tary for discount) The feasts of ALL SAINTS and ALL SOULS will be celebrated with a Liturgy at 10.30am on Thursday 2 nd November in St Finbarr’s Church. All Welcome. Reminder No holiday for Melbourne Cup day 7th No- vember. School will be as normal. Final P&F Meeng P&F Meeng will be held on Monday night at 6.30pm 6th November. Everyone is welcome to aend. Library Stocktake & Overdue Returns Lists of borrowed Library books have been sent home with students. These Library books have not yet been returned. We would appreciate if all library books could be returned by the end of this week as Mrs Haylock and Miss Belinda will be be- ginning stocktake next week. If you would like another copy of outstanding books, please contact the school. Kerri and Joce got super creave for this weeks Tuckshop and pre- sented a wonderfully weird wacky watermelon face with sharp teeth and open mouth with watermelon and grapes inside. Of course of all the fruit on the tray, the first type of fruit to be eaten was the watermelon! SCHOOL OUTING THIS FRIDAY This Friday 3 November, our school will walk down to the Combined Schools Art Exhibion to see all the different entries. Students will be accompanied by Mrs Moran, Mrs Haylock and Miss Janell. If you have any quesons about this oung, please contact the school.