Term 2 Week 6 2023

Hello Friends

Last week I was fortunate to spend 2.5 days at the Bend Motorsport Park at Tailem Bend, (not for car racing) but to attend the annual South Australian Catholic Primary Principals’ Association (SACPPA) Conference. It was a rewarding time with guest speakers including:

Kurt Furnely 
http://kurtfearnley.com/
Kurt was born without the lower portion of the spine, which never held him back from backyard games of football, to crewing a winning Sydney to Hobart yacht, crawling the Kokoda Track and winning dozens of marathons around the world for Australia. Kurt spoke about resilience and making the world a better place for people with disability.

Lea Waters PhD 
https://www.leawaters.com/
Lea’s online family program, the ‘Strength Switch’ is based upon her acclaimed, parenting book the 'Strength Switch', which was in the top 10 release on Amazon, in the parenting category and has been published in 10 languages around the world.

Dr Simon Breakspear
https://simonbreakspear.com/
Dr Simon Breakspear is a researcher, policy advisor and speaker on education, policy, practice and change. He develops frameworks tools and programs and makes evidence-based ideas easy to understand and apply. Simon’s main key themes were centred around positivity and gratitude in schools.

Lee Crockett 
https://leecrockett.net/
Lee Crockett is an optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together through compassion and humour. He works with governments, education systems, international agencies, and corporations, to help people and organisations connect to their highest purpose and realise their wishes for the future.

Louka Parry was the Conference MC and Rapporteur
https://www.loukaparry.com/
Luca Parry is the CEO and founder of the Learning Future and works globally as a speaker, learning strategist, and education futurist. He speaks on innovation, leadership and change, having worked with thousands of litres in educators from diverse context all across the world.

I encourage our families to have a look at these wonderful speakers’ websites, and connect with their podcasts and literature. It was an extremely positive and life-giving time.

Parent Teacher Conversations
These conversations are taking place in Week 6 and Week 7 and I encourage families to use this time to ask questions about your child’s academic progress and as importantly, your child’s, social dispositions, and learning dispositions inside the classroom. Please remember that these meetings are scheduled for 15 minutes in duration, and it is important that we stick to these schedules to make it fair for the families at the next interview and their starting time. These meetings should be a great opportunity to ‘springboard’ into the written reports that will be sent out during the final week of this semester.

School Tours
I will be conducting a School Tour for new families and prospective families on Saturday June 17 at 9:30 am. If you know of families that are contemplating a new school or wish to commence school, then please tell them about our school tour on this day. We will also be conducting tours on Tuesday July 4 at 9:30 am and 6:00pm.

Please book a tour

Alternatively, contact can be made with the school on 8198 3100

Humour is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.
Edward de Bono

Thanks and Blessings
Matt Perry

Recently we celebrated the Feast of Pentecost. Many scholars name it as the birthday of the Christian Church. As a staff we were invited by the parish on the Feast of Pentecost to attend a weekend mass to be commissioned. We were commissioned and blessed by the parish as an important element of the parish, to take care of the children’s faith, learning and wellbeing in our role as educators. The staff also made a commitment to honour the faith the parish have in us to educator of the whole child.

During the week of Pentecost our Yr. 5 Confirmation candidates were confirmed at St Joseph’s Parish Church. This ceremony confirmed the initiation rites begun at their Baptism. The students and their parents have spent the weeks before preparing, completing a series of exercise and research tasks. One of the areas of research was that of a Saint's life. They each chose a saint that either inspired  them to live a faith life or the patron saint of a strong interest e.g. sport, music, social justice

Fr Michael reminded the students that they have been offered the gifts of the Holy Spirit and it is now their role to accept them and unwrap them as a they are ready to embrace them.

We wish them great blessings and prayer for their ongoing faith journey.

Teresa Pascoe
Assistant Principal
(APRIM Assistant Principal Religious Identity and Mission)

BOOK WEEK 2023
This year Book Week will take place on the week of 19-25th August. That is WEEK 5 of TERM 3.

The theme for 2023 is ‘Read, Grow, Inspire’. Following tradition we will begin the week with our Annual Book Week Character Parade- 21st August 9am. At Christ the King we encourage all students and staff to dress up as a character from a book they have read, or a character inspired by the theme. Each student who dresses up will enter a raffle for a Dymocks book voucher. We do not hold a ‘best’ costume competition at CTK, rather having students enjoy being involved instead of competing.

Families are encouraged to borrow or make costumes, families should not feel the need to purchase or hire elaborate costumes for the day. Further information and suggestions will follow by the term’s end to help with costumes. In the meantime I encourage you to talk to family and friends, share costumes, borrow items, and visit OP-Shops for items that can be cut up, repurposed or tacked together to make effective and fun outfits.

BOOK FAIR THANK YOU
Thank you to the many families who supported out biennial Book Fair. Through your support we made a profit of over $300. The money will be used to purchase books for the library and replace the sitting stools students use at lunchtime when accessing the library.

INFLUENCERS
Currently the Year 5 and Year 6 students are looking at how the media manipulates our wants and emotions. They are looking at the angle of shots that give power to the audience or takes it away, How sound can manipulate your emotions or the photoshopping that takes place in advertising. One of the clips we use to inform and educate was created by ‘Dove’ the Toiletries company. I invite you to watch it and see the manipulation that takes place across most of the media that us and those younger than us are cleverly influenced by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN2yunRynks

Children as young as 6 are now in the sights of influencers and media manipulators. Whilst they do not have ‘TikTok or Instagram Accounts they are being influenced in many and varied ways. Children in the 10-13 age group are now well entrenched in the Influencer market. Please click here for further information on What, Who, How of Influencers. I encourage you to take some time to acquaint yourself with this information and have a conversation with your children.

CTK changes to report format 2023

This year Catholic Education SA has requested that all Catholic Primary schools begin to use

SEQTA to generate their Semester 1 and 2 reports.

SEQTA is an advanced teaching and learning management system incorporating all aspects of the learning and citizenship of a student’s participation in school. The SEQTA platform is constructed of three integrated, web-based portals: SEQTA Teach, for teaching staff; SEQTA Learn, for students; and, SEQTA Engage, for parents and caregivers. SEQTA Engage is the parent and caregiver online portal allowing you to be an active participant in your child’s learning.

At Christ the King School we are only using SEQTA Teach, as like many other schools, we are at the beginning of our learning journey to completely integrate this tool into school life. In SEQTA teach we record absentees, unit plans, assessment, students with a disability data and student assessments which generate our school reports.

We have also decided to hold Parent Teacher interviews in Week 6 and 7 this term so that teachers can give parents a more in-depth understanding of their child’s report grades.

Included in the report are 5 Learning dispositions. The dispositions are our learner expectations across all year levels and are a focus in our fortnightly assembly awards. In the report students are assessed against these learner dispositions along a scale – Needs Improvement, Satisfactory, Good and Excellent.

Respectful Learner – Respectful of others in play and in learning

Independent Learner – Demonstrates a readiness and willingness to learn

Creative Learner – Open hearts and minds to possibilities

Curious Learner – Asks questions to expand knowledge of the world

Resilient Learner – Have a growth mindset

We have chosen the report proforma below to communicate to parents their child’s achievement. We have also included the parent letter that will go home with the report. All reports will be emailed to parents in Week 10 this term.

Click here to open Report Sample 

Click here to open example of Parent Letter 

If you have any further questions, please see your child’s class teacher.

Emma Heinrich
Leader of Learning and Inclusion

Geography
In Year 3, we have been learning about Australia’s states and territories. Students have used their inquisitive skills to research information about each of the states and territories. We have created a community class map of Australia in our class showing all the cities and towns the Year 3 students have been to.

These are some facts we have learnt about our states and territories:

South Australia: The population of South Australia is 1.77 million.

Queensland: The capital city of Queensland is Brisbane.

Victoria: The state was named after Queen Victoria and contains the biggest sporting stadium, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).

Tasmania: The capital city of Tasmania is Hobart.

New South Wales: The state contains the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House. New South Wales is also home to the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).

Western Australia: Western Australia is home to the AFL team, West Coast Eagles and Fremantle.

Northern Territory: The capital of Northern Territory is Darwin.

Australian Capital Territory: Canberra is the capital city of Australia and is located in this territory.

Science
In Science, we are learning about day and night. During our science lessons, we have been learning about how the Earth moves around the sun and what causes Earth to experience day and night. The Year 3’s have created a model demonstrating their knowledge and understanding.

Did you know Skoolbag has a new name "Audiri"

At CTK we use this app to communicate administration matters including school events, newsletters and last minute notices. 

Please click here for instructions on how to download the app.  If you still have the Skoolbag app please update it via the Apple app Store or the Google Play Store. 

P&F Wine Drive (today is the last day to order)

Preferred method of payment is via Qkr! Orders will be available for collection after school on Friday 30th June. 
 

Scholastics Book Club 

Look out for Issue 4.  Copies of the catalogue have been sent home with your child. 

Parent Teacher interviews

Parent Teacher interviews will be held in Week 6 and 7 this term.  To book your conversation time, please go to http://www.schoolinterviews.com.au and click here for further instructions.

Interview times are 15 minutes and dates and times will vary according to teacher availability.

Thank you

Meri and Sarah