From the Principal

Message from the Principal

Term one is the foundation that we build our school year on, we desire all our students to feel successful and have a positive and happy year of great learning. Success looks different for each child, as we know they develop in splutters and spurts. There will be mountains to climb, plateaus for rest and consolidation and descents, that are all a normal part of life. When our students experience success, many other positive learning dispositions also follow: collaboration, resilience, motivation, curiosity, reflection and creativity.

Last Wednesday our welcoming Prep picnic was a wonderful celebration of our school community. There was an exciting, positive vibe throughout the night with parents catching up and meeting new people with our students playing happily with each other. It has been something we have really missed as a school community over these COVID years.

Positive School Communication

We know at Queen of Peace that a child’s most important teachers are their parents, families, and carers. When families and schools work together the child’s learning is enhanced.

Partnerships for learning and wellbeing are about parents and carers, schools and communities working together to ensure that every parent can play a positive role in their child's learning, school community, sport, and social life. Good parent-teacher relationships ensure children:

•  do better academically, emotionally and  socially.           
•  are happier at school
•  attend school more regularly 
• are better behaved

It is common for children to have some problems at school. Some problems are minor – for example, missing out on school opportunities (leadership roles, etc) or forgetting to wear the right uniform. You and your child can usually sort these ones out yourselves by talking and problem solving.

Some problems might be more complicated or long-lasting. For example, your child might be having ongoing difficulties in the playground with another child and the strategies you’ve suggested to your child haven’t worked. With these problems, it is important to talk with your child’s teacher to find solutions. When you need to talk with teachers about problems, a calm and positive approach is likely to result in a positive outcome for your child as well as modeling acceptable behaviour.  Some strategies to consider include the following:

Pause to calm down 

If something has just happened to upset your child, this can upset you too. Try to take some time to calm down before you respond. This will help you avoid doing something you might regret later, like sending an angry email. You could say, "I see you’re very upset about this, and I’m upset too. We need to calm down so we can think about what to do". Saying this will help your child to learn this strategy too. 

Be a positive role model

Even with a serious problem, you can model positive problem-solving for your child by being positive, thinking about solutions and talking about working with the teacher. This is better than complaining or being aggressive. You could say something like, "Let’s ask Mr Smith if he has any ideas about how we can sort out this problem". This kind of approach shows your child that you value the teacher’s opinion.

Speak respectfully

No matter what you think, it’s important to speak positively and respectfully about your child’s teacher, the school and other children in front of your child. If you complain or criticise the teacher or other children and their families, your child will mirror this behaviour.

Go through the right channels 

This usually means talking directly to your child’s teacher to start with, rather than the principal. Going straight to the principal can make the problem bigger than it is. It’s best to make an appointment with the teacher. This way you can discuss the issue privately and the teacher can give you their full attention. Depending on the issue and your child’s age, it might be appropriate for your child to come to this meeting.

It is important that we as a school community, work together positively and respectfully to problem solve together, resulting in better outcomes for all involved.

Holy Week

As we prepare for the end of what has thankfully been a productive  term, we will conclude on Friday 8 April with a Holy Week presentation. We will focus on the key events from the Stations of the Cross. It gives our students the opportunity to participate in prayer and reflection as we approach Easter, where we remember the death of Jesus and we celebrate the new life of his presence within us. We are pleased to once again celebrate Holy Week with our traditional walk to the 100 Steps of Federation, on Friday 8 April.

We will begin at school in the Sails Area at 9:15am where we will focus on the importance of Lent.  From there we will journey up to the 100 Steps where we will re-enact the events of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Resurrection. Parents, grandparents or members of the parish are welcome to join us on our walk.

We would like everyone to participate in our celebration of Holy Week by dressing up in a costume from the time of Jesus.  All children can wear their sports uniform and come to school with their costume over their sports uniform.  Students are required to bring a towel to sit on (inside a plastic bag is handy), water bottle, hat and it is recommended that everyone apply sunscreen and possibly insect repellent before school. We will mark areas where the events will take place with cones and we ask that parents take care to avoid sitting in these areas and make sure that the view of the children is not blocked. When we return to school the children will have their hot cross bun if they have ordered one. If the weather turns nasty or wet we will move our celebration to the hall.   

I hope you all take the time to reflect on the Easter message and to take a break and spend some quality time with your children and family. 

Staffing News

Susie Gerraty our Junior Art Teacher will be leaving at the end of the term. Susie has accepted a position working in environmental sustainability. Susie has been teaching at Queen of Peace for 7 Years after making a positive contribution to Catholic Education for over 12 years. During that time, Susie has worked in Number Intervention and also supported the school in environmental sustainability. Susie's strength and passion as a teacher will be sadly missed by our students, families and staff at Queen of Peace. We wish her great happiness. 

Warm regards

Darren Gibbons

Principal