Stories can inspire,

can change lives,

can address bigotry and unkindness,

can give direction,

can take the reader into the mind of another,

can ease suffering and spread happiness

Paul Jennings

21 May 2014

Dear Parents

Each year St Finbarr’s students join with other schools around the country for National

Simultaneous Storytime. Now in its 14th year this annual event is aimed to encourage

more young Australians to read and enjoy books. Thank you and congratulations to

Mrs Mel Green whose passion for books and love of reading is infectious. Thank you

also to our Year 5 students who assisted in the telling of this year’s storybook, Too

Many Elephants in This House.

Congratulations and thank you to the P&F Executive committee on the success of

Saturday’s trivia night. It was a most enjoyable evening where Super Heroes were in

abundance! A special thank you also to the teachers who attended the bar.

STAFF MEETINGS- Beginning this week, staff meetings are moving to a Wednesday

afternoon. One of the challenges we have as a staff is allocating time to have staff

present their recent learnings at recent seminars and/or attend to the BCE updates

and requirements. As such we have decided to trial having a four week cycle to staff

meetings. This will include two weeks being General Business, one week being

Professional Learning and one week being BCE and School Strategic Direction.

CROSS COUNTRY - The school’s Cross Country competition will be held next Monday

26 May at The Bronco’s. The children will be walking down in their class groups to the

fields following rolls being marked in the morning. Thank you to Mr Terry Brown for

organizing this carnival, especially in his first year at St Finbarr’s!

WALKING HOME FROM SCHOOL – In recent days we have received several phone

calls from extremely concerned community members regarding the unsafe manner in

which some students wearing St. Finbarr’s uniform have been seen walking to and

from school. Today all students have been reminded of the importance of road and

pedestrian rules to ensure their safety. I would ask parents to reinforce this same

message to their children.

PREP 2015 – The majority of Prep interviews for next year have been completed and

places will be offered at the end of May. There will be two Prep classes next year.

Ann Hall, Principal

FROM OUR APRE

SISTERS OF CHARITY 175 ANNIVERSARY

May our Lord bless and enlighten and strengthen you.

Mary Aikenhead

The Sisters of Charity 175 year Anniversary Mass will be celebrated at St Stephen’s Cathedral

Brisbane on 31 May at 11.30am. We have been invited to take part in the entrance

procession, with one student requested to carry in our school banner. I invite any Year 6/Year

7 leaders interested in this role to write a 150-200 word paragraph to explain who the Sisters

of Charity are, to detail their charism and how they serve others, and to describe what that

means for us today. These entries will be evaluated and a banner bearer will be chosen.

Mass practice will be held from 10am on the morning of the 31 May. Parents will need to

transport and accompany the student. Named entries can be sent to the office for my

attention by Friday 23 May.

FAMILY PARISH MASS - Please come along this Sunday to celebrate with our community at

8:30am. Email the office if your child is available to read or take up the offertory. All other

children will be involved in singing.

MIDDLE SCHOOL MASS - The Middle School class Mass is this Thursday at 9am in the Church.

Please join them.

God bless, Kathryn

KIDS IN ACTION

We thank Roby Curtis, Founder of Blindeye Ministries and lead singer of Emmanuel Worship,

for coming in to speak to the Year 4 to 7 students about the importance of giving thanks. This

term, for the Evangelisations and Faith Formation strand of Kids In Action, we have been

learning, in depth, the parts of the Mass. In particular, our spoken responses; what they mean

and why we say them. The students have learnt about our heavenly connection to the

angels and saints, the Holy Spirit’s gifts and power and why it is right and just to give thanks to

God. There is a whole lot more action planned for this term’s Kids In Action program, so

watch this space!

Luke Thomsen

CLASS NEWS

PREP - Prep Love have been very busy. We have learnt all about the letters e, h, r, m and d.

We have also been learning a lot about the weather. So far we have looked at hot sunny

weather and cold rainy weather. Most of the time it is hot and sunny in Summer and in

Winter it’s normally cold. We all think it’s a bit of a shame that we don’t get snow in Brisbane!

Our classroom is becoming so beautiful. We have so many things ready to hang including

rainbow fish, handprint suns, umbrellas and gumboots, mermaids and mermen. We are also

practicing our cross country running on the oval. We are all champion runners!

YEAR 1 LOVE - In Mathematics the students are continuing to work with tens and ones and

have worked with number tracks. They have enjoyed estimating and measuring different

lengths using various units. The students were amazed to look at the school buildings and

grounds on Google Earth. They identified specific parts of the school and then walked

around the grounds to photograph areas. In Science, the focus has been on observing and

recording weather conditions for the month of May. Lost In The Temple has been a focus

scripture text and the children watched a youtube of the Jerusalem temple. Parent helpers

also joined us last week to help with literacy rotations and writing activities. Thank you.

YEAR 1 FAITH – Another fabulous week in year 1! We have been looking at our local

environment in Geography identifying the natural and man-made features. Math is

challenging us all as we delve into the process of subtraction. Students are all showing a

good understanding of the process but are becoming confused in whether to add or take-

away. Show and share have been wonderful this term and I thank the families for supporting

children in the preparation of their talks. Voices have improved in clarity and scripts written

by the children have become more common.

YEAR 2 - Last week we welcomed Ashleigh Elmslie to our classroom. Ashleigh is a fourth year

student from ACU and she will be with us until week nine. Ashleigh will observe classroom

practices and teach various lessons during her time with us.

This week we presented The Creation Story at assembly. We are now in the process of

creating posters that we will display around the school encouraging the school community

to join us in being co-creators and stewards of God’s creation. We can do this at school by;

picking up and putting our rubbish in the bin, keeping the bag racks, hallways and displays

neat and tidy and treating others with respect.

In Geography, we continue to learn about the continents of our world. We now know where

they are and have explored them on the globe, a map and Google Maps.

Many of us continue to run each week at Running Club and we can see already how fit we

have gotten! We look forward to Cross Country.

YEAR 3 FAITH - Week Five is here, we have finished NAPLAN and we are ready to settle back

into normality! Our Three Faith students should be congratulated for their hard work,

perseverance and positive attitude leading up to, and during, NAPLAN. In Geography the

students have been applying their newly found knowledge of BOLTSS to the construction and

development of maps. We have honed in on the Torres Strait Islands and Brisbane. In Religion,

after investing church artefacts, we invite special guests Len and Marylyn (long term

parishioners) into our classroom this week, to help clarify and extend our knowledge of

significant peoples’ contributions to St Finbarr’s Church and the Jubilee Parish.

YEAR 4 F - The students in year 4F are working well and we can’t believe it is already the

middle of the term. In Maths, we have revised the relationship between multiplication, and

division, investigated weight and explored equivalent fractions. We have begun to learn how

to use PowerPoint. We are learning fast and even prepared a short PowerPoint on a Tropical

Rainforest. In English, we wrote a class report on our rubbish collection from last term. Last

week, in groups, we used this report to create and record a news report on IMovie on our

computers. Sophie Hancock prepared a tremendous PowerPoint to show all children how to

use IMovie. Well done Sophie! In Geography this term we are exploring South America and

Africa. At the end of the term, the children will prepare a PowerPoint on a country of their

choice, from either South America or Africa.

YEAR 4 CHARITY - Last week our Year 4 students led the Parish Mass and along with the

readers and choir showed that they can represent our community in a respectful and

positive manner. Gala soccer last Friday was exciting with 5 teams entered and multiple

games to play. Thank you to the parents who have been able to assist on these days.

This Thursday Year 4 Charity along with Faith and Year 3 will be attending Rural Discovery Day

hosted The Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland.

Our students will listen to very informative presentations by farmers and watch presentations

such as diary milking and the Farrier at work.

MIDDLE SCHOOL LOVE - NAPLAN has finished – yay! Not that anyone in Middle School Love in

Year 5 and 7 were worried in the slightest – we had practised and were comfortable with

what we had to do! Now we move on to further class work with Science, Geography, Maths

investigations, and Religion work on being a community of believers. We welcomed Miss

Nadene Lynch, an ACU 4th year Education student, into our class last week and are enjoying

her lessons very much. Cross Country is looming and a good number of the class has been

engaged in Running Club each week. On Thursday, we will join Middle School Charity to

celebrate this term’s Mass at 9.00am. We will focus on the upcoming feast of Australia’s own

patroness, Mary Help of Christians and would love it if as many parents as is possible would

join us in this special celebrate. Keep smiling from Middle School Love.

MIDDLE SCHOOL CHARITY have been enjoying studying the world and have been busy

researching North America and selected European countries. The mapping work has been

challenging and fun. It has also been interesting to look at different flags and cultures from

all over the world. Our class mass is on this week, so we have been practicing our songs and

have been learning about Mary Help of Christians. We now know how truly strong and

powerful the Rosary can be. Also, we thoroughly enjoyed Gala sports last week! There was

some stiff competition, but we handled ourselves well, as we had the ultimate advantage…

a positive attitude!

SCHOOL NEWS

TUCKSHOP ROSTER Friday 23 May Roster: Team 5 Melissa Apelt 0400 361538, Margaret Hoch,

Sharon Price, Flor & Wayne Hagarty, Jenny Fitzpatrick, Louise Healy. Home baking: Margaret

Hoch, Samantha Vidler, Melinda Toomey, Marina Rode, Kristine Murdoch, Sophie Dunne, Ros

Collier; Jelly: Krit Bala.

REMINDERS

• Year 3 & 4 Rural Discovery Day Permission Note

• Family Mass Sunday 25 May- Let Kathryn Willis know if you wish to be involved.

ATTACHMENTS

• Cross Country Information

• Run/Walkathon activity

CALENDAR Wednesday 21 May Hip to Skip program

Thursday 22 May School Mass – Middle School Charity & Love

Rural Discovery Day – Year 3 & Year 4’s

Friday 23 May Tuckshop

Gala Sport

Sunday 25 May P & F Simpson Falls walk – 11am

Monday 26 May Cross Country – Broncos Grounds – Flyer attached.

Prayer Assembly 2.15pm Year 4 Charity

Wednesday 28 May Hip to Skip program

Thursday 29 May School Mass – Year 1 Faith/Love/Prep

Friday 30 May Tuckshop

Gala Sport

Monday 2 June Award Assembly 2.15pm – Middle School Charity

Monday 2 June to Wednesday 4 June Maranatha Camp – Year 5 & 7

Wednesday 4 June Hip to Skip program

Thursday 5 June School Mass – Year 3 Faith

Friday 6 June Tuckshop

Gala Sport

SCHOOL BEHAVIOUR SUPPORT PLAN – GOTCHA AWARDS AND SCHOOL RULE OF THE WEEK

GOTCHA AWARDS

Congratulations to Miranda Hallam Year 1

Faith and Juanita Pimm Year 2 Charity

SCHOOL RULE OF THE WEEK

I AM A LEARNER