Pastoral Bulletin
Welcome to Week 8 of Term 2 2023
News and Reminders from your Pastoral Leaders.
General School News
- Congratulations to all involved in the Worry Warts production. It was so wonderful to see the vast array of talents showcased within our college. A huge thank you to the Arts Department for their tireless efforts in ensuring a seamless and entertaining performance.
- This week our Year 7 and 10 students were exposed to Unleashing Personal Potential (UPP) workshops. This was an opportunity for students to engage in wellbeing and leadership activities to empower them to thrive as they learn, live and lead. We look forward to follow up activities in our social emotions learning lessons and community pastoral meetings.
- Heading into Week 8 all students across the College should be conducting significant revision and study to meet assessment deadlines approaching. Students in:
- Years 7 - 9 should be completing between 1 - 1.5 hours of study per night.
- Years 10 - 12 should be completing between 2 - 3 hours of study per night.
- Important news: Please see below an important announcement regarding the Queensalnd Government implementing new laws around the use of personal mobility devices
Regards,
Leah McBryde
Assistant Principal, Junior Years (7 - 9) | lmcbryde@cns.catholic.edu.au
Justin Brennan
Acting Assistant Principal, Senior Years (10 -12) | jbrennan2@cns.catholic.edu.au
Personal Mobility Devices
After 10 fatalities since 2018, and over 950 serious injuries in 3 Brisbane hospitals alone over 2.5 years, new laws were put into effect last year to protect riders of personal mobility devices (PMD), such as e-scooters, e-skateboards, e-unicycles, and e-boards.
Under the new laws, PMD riders must be aged 12 to 15 to ride with adult supervision, and over 16 to ride unsupervised. Children under the age of 12 are not permitted to ride PMDs in any circumstance. Small foot powered scooters with 200 watt max and 10 km/h max motors are allowed for use by children of any age, and are classified as a wheeled recreational device, not PMD. Other laws around speed limits, helmets, doubling and where to ride still apply for all PMD users, regardless of the scooter power. A simple breakdown of the rules is available here.
If your child rides a PMD, we ask that you read through the new laws, and ensure your child is familiar with these rules as well. If we notice that a student is riding a PMD that may be in breach of the new laws, we will raise this with parents directly. We certainly don’t want any of our students to be one of the statistics mentioned above.
Year 7
- Students are to wear House Uniform on Tuesday this week for the final pre-athletics carnival events. Students wear Sport Uniform for days containing a HPE lesson.
- Tuesday is a House Assembly during period 2. This assembly involves Senior House Leaders preparing students for the upcoming Athletics Carnival with important information and activities that build house spirit.
- As the assessment period approaches, it is not uncommon to experience heightened levels of stress. A key to managing this stress is being organised. The student diary is an excellent resource for recording due dates and managing time across both school and external priorities effectively.
Regards
Nathan Haydon
Head of Year 7
Year 8
- All students are to wear house uniforms on Tuesday for pre-carnival events and house assembly. Normal sports uniform is to be worn for days when practical HPE lessons are timetabled.
- A reminder for students that jewellery should be plain gold or silver. For information on expectations, rules and procedures, please click on the link.
- As we move towards the revision and assessment portion of the semester it is imperative that students engage with their diary to ensure they are organised. Organisation helps reduce stress levels and is the first step on the path to success.
Regards
Andy Winter
Head of Year 8
Year 9
- Pastoral mentors are the first person on staff to have contact with students in the morning. Students are encouraged to speak to mentors regarding pastoral support and guidance. Parents are also encouraged to contact mentors if there are concerns, or if they would like support from the school regarding a particular issue.
- Students are to wear House Shirts this Tuesday for Pre-Athletics activities. Additionally on this day, students will be participating in a House Assembly where our senior leaders will help prepare their house for the event.
- As the assessment period approaches, it is not uncommon to experience heightened levels of stress. In order to navigate this period successfully, it is imperative that students remain vigilant in managing their workload and are well-informed about the deadlines associated with their assessments. We strongly encourage students to regularly consult your assessment calendars to ensure you are aware of all upcoming deadlines.
Regards
Saripha Curro
Head of Year 9
Year 10
- Monday’s Unleashing Possible Potential presentation was a great experience for the students. Below is a nice summary from one of the students.
Thank you for organising the UPP day today! I really enjoyed the activities and overall I think the whole grade had a lot of fun. Quentin and Becky were really engaging and there were some valuable take-aways from today about managing workload, finding routines and overcoming mental challenges. It was nice to be with the whole grade on a more community-oriented day. I think being given strategies to implement healthy habits into daily life really helps in actually enforcing them.
- SEL this week encouraged students to apply creativity, with their previously identified character strengths, to new or challenging situations. Using our individual character strengths is a great starting point to achieving success with any problem solving task
- Best of luck to the Year 10s in the CISSA finals next week.
Regards
John Cahill
Head of Year 10
Year 11
- We have a House assembly on Tuesday and Athletics Carnival activities on Wednesday: students are to be in House uniform for both days. It was great to see an increase in House uniforms last Wednesday, keep it up! Shirts are available in the Uniform shop, should your student have outgrown theirs!
- In SEL we spoke about Legacy in our final session on Servant Leadership: what could be our yr11s’ legacy? As Senior students, we are all leaders and should be showing leadership skills at every opportunity. The House assembly is one of them, students should be fully engaged and supportive to the yr12 students in charge. Similar commitments should be shown on the day of the Carnival.
- Several final pieces of assessment are due this week; please keep up with the deadlines. Any concerns should be addressed and shared with the classroom teachers.
- Yr 12 Leadership positions are open for application; these are to be handed in to me by Friday 3pm.
Regards
Sophie McQueen
Head of Year 11
Year 12
- Congratulations to those who participated in the various athletics events held over the last two weeks. Coming up in Week 9 is your last athletics carnival! I would encourage all students to get involved, support your house captains and make this an event to remember.
- There has been a significant improvement with uniforms - thank you for adhering to the school rules around this. Let’s keep it up!
- Many subjects have begun, or will soon be issuing, the third and final internal assessment instrument. From the words of Ms Manders last week in our Year assembly, students are encouraged to “finish strong”.
- Tuesday 20th June (Week 10) - there is an open day at JCU Cairns. Students were emailed the information last week by Mrs Ambrose. If you are interested in attending, please email the expression of interest form (see email) to Mrs Ambrose. Obviously if you have an assessment due that day, this would be a priority.
- Car Park Access - Students driving to school are currently able to access the Trade Training Centre car park. Please note that students who are driving dangerously or irresponsibly in that space will be prohibited from using the facility. This may include, but is not limited to, exceeding the 10km/h speed limit, using a mobile device while driving, swerving across the road.
Regards
Lucy Fitzpatrick
Head of Year 12
lfitzpatri@cns.catholic.edu.au