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Dear Parents, Students and Friends
It is my pleasure to write this week’s newsletter as Mrs Heffernan is accompanying Year 11 on their Senior Retreat.
We are four weeks into Term 4 and our students have been busy preparing for their exams. This week Year 10 students started their exams and Year 7 – 9 exams begin next week.
Year 12 students have nearly finished their HSC exams with the last exam to be held on Monday 11 November. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our students on the completion of their school education. Year 12, the end of these exams is the start to a new chapter of your lives where you will discover yourselves, define your place in the world and forge your own path. We wish you all the best for your future endeavours and look forward to celebrating your results with you at the end of year.
PAT Assessment Information
During Weeks 5 and 6, all students in Years 7 to 10 will be involved in completing the online Progressive Achievement Tests (PAT). These assessments provide objective, norm-referenced information to teachers about their students’ skills and understandings in a range of key areas. Each PAT has its own proficiency scale with descriptors outlining the content and skills students are consolidating at any given point on that scale. Each PAT assessment provides data on student performance, making PAT ideal for understanding students’ current strengths and weaknesses, informing teaching and learning, and monitoring progress over time. The tests are online, multiple choice and each test will take approximately 40 minutes. A copy of the exam schedule is available in Sentral daily notices for test dates and times. I encourage all students to do their best during these tests.
Students will be completing the following two tests:
- PAT-R (Reading)
- PAT-M (Mathematics)
As teachers, we continuously look at way to build our knowledge around teaching and learning. Over the past two weeks, the teaching staff have been involved in professional learning on ‘Interpreting the Data’. Staff have been using student data in NAPLAN and PAT to ask questions around the students learning and start conversations about the students’ progress. The PAT tests are an assessment for learning and the teachers will be using the results to design their teaching and learning for next year.
Religious Education Coordinator - 2020
As mentioned in the last newsletter, Mrs Erica Drewsen will take leave next year from her role as REC. I am pleased to announce Mrs Charlotte Nicoletti has been successful in gaining the position of Acting REC next year. Mrs Nicoletti will also continue in the role of Faith Formation Coordinator for Term 1. Mrs Belle Barling returns from Maternity Leave to this role in Term 2.
Senior Retreat
This week, our Year 11 students are participating in their Senior Retreat, ‘Hope for the Future’.
The retreat is an essential part of senior schooling as it allows students time away from their classes, assessments and their day-to-day routine to spend time with their peers and reflect on their future and the role God plays in their lives. I hope all Year 11 students have an enjoyable time away.
Congratulations
Congratulations to our Year 12 Visual Arts students who had their major HSC Body of Works marked this week. They have showcased their technical sophistication and conceptual strength through various mediums. The Body of Works are on display in the Art Gallery until Friday.
Throughout the last semester our Indigenous students have been mentoring students from St Mary’s Primary School, St Bernard’s Primary School, Sunshine Bay Public School, Batemans Bay Public School and Bodalla Primary. The students worked through a transition program focusing on the three core values of the ‘Gurumbangma Program’ in Relationships, Resilience and Respect in preparation for high school. We look forward to seeing these students again at our Year 7 Orientation day and I congratulate our Indigenous students in leading this program.
Lollapalooza – 22 November 2019
Have you purchased armbands for the rides at Lollapalooza? These can be purchased now via Qkr! or at the School Offices at St Bernard’s, St Mary’s or Carroll College. If you purchase armbands before 15 November, they are only $20 each for unlimited rides.
If you would like to be part of this Lollapalooza event, please contact: Karen Motyka M: 0415 592 019 or Brigid McNeill M: 0408 888 756.
Wishing you a relaxing and enjoyable weekend.
Sandra Harris
Administration Coordinator
Assistant Principal's Pastoral Report
Senior Retreat
The Wednesday all our Year 11 students will commence their Senior Retreat. The three day, two night event is being held at Youthworks, Waterslea in Nowra. It is a beautiful location on the river and allows everyone to relax and spend time away from the busyness of everyday life in conversation and contemplation. We trust that our Senior students will find the Retreat a very valuable experience and one that they will remember fondly as they reflect upon their years at the College.
Thank you to the following staff who will be attending the Retreat, Mrs Jacqui Heffernan, Mr Nathan Mansfield, Mrs Charlotte Nicoletti , Mrs Anna Smart, Ms Louisa Bonner and Mr Greg McAteer. Whilst we have a wonderful time with the students, I do appreciate the sacrifice of family time that they undertake.
We are very happy to have two past students attend the Retreat, Matthew Klarica and Riley O’Shannessy. Youth Minister, Jarryd Atkinson from Lumen Christi, Pambula will also attend the Retreat. Fr Steve Astill, Parish Priest of Sacred Heart, Moruya, will arrive on Thursday afternoon to celebrate Mass with us before the evening meal. It is a great bonus to have these men of faith support our students through the Retreat.
Thank you to Mrs Charlotte Nicoletti for all her work in preparation for the Retreat.
Please keep the students and the staff attending in your prayers.
St Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeal
The Saint Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeal was presented to the College during our most recent assembly. Students were informed of the great need for donations in our local area and how our contributions would be distributed and appreciated.
Homerooms have each received a list of items and students have been assigned a donation gift to contribute to their Homeroom’s basket.
We thank you all for your generous donation in the coming weeks. Donations will be received until Wednesday 11 December, Week 9.
Erica Drewsen
Religious Education Coordinator
Hairy Times Ahead!
Students and staff around the College are currently engaged in growing moustaches and/or moving 60km in aid of the men’s health charity Movember Foundation. “CCB Mass Mo” is our Carroll College Movember team. It was instigated by Shane Mass, Ethan Mass & Sebastian Roser in Year 12. Year 12 boys who have registered as team members have been given permission to flout the usual clean shaven College rule and to grow moustaches. Others who want to take part are moving 60km during the month of November by walking, cycling or running. The significance of 60km is that 60 men worldwide commit suicide every hour, that’s a shocking 1 per minute. We are helping to raise awareness of this and other men’s mental health issues along with prostate cancer and testicular cancer. THANK YOU to our generous donors - in 6 days we have already raised $602. If you would like to support the team in their efforts then please go online to donate. Be sure to search for CCB Mass Mo and donate to the team.
au.movember.com
Team members:
Mo Grower's |
Move 60 |
Ethan Mass |
Teagan Moses |
Shane Mass |
Jade Borg |
Sebastian Roser |
Tane Simmons |
Jordan Bandur |
Simone Bingley - H |
Tom Gaffey |
Emma Moses |
Jade Briggs |
Sonia Pope |
Cadyn Argent |
Cassie Johnston |
Riley Dell |
Hailee Nugent (Gray) |
Hugh Tuckwell |
|
Ethan Hanson |
|
Cameron Stocks |
|
Austin Reid |
|
Andrew McGee |
|
Hayden Kemp-Jones |
|
Sean Eastman |
|
Jacob Stanley |
|
Hamish Sugar |
|
Tim Hodges |
|
Sean Mulally |
|
Steven Knight |
|
Wayne Foster |
|
Nathan Mansfield |
Miriam Shilling
Classroom Teacher
“I have no Idea what I just read!”: The value of reading aloud to children
Reading is an art. The title for this article has its genesis in a remark made by one of my Year 8 students a few years ago. It brings to mind the indispensable value of reading aloud to children (even adolescents) to foster independent reading skills. Many of us remember the experience as children. It fostered in me a lifelong love of literature. Let’s examine some of the benefits.
Reading to a child whether in the home or in the classroom gives children intimate access to the transformative power of stories. There is hardly a child on earth who does not like being read to or who is immune to the spell of a great book. This is real reading- it is to discover, understand, think and discuss the lives of others and ourselves. It makes it possible for a child to get inside a building. In addition, for many students, reading by themselves is like being locked out of that building inside which is a party going on. Words swim on the page, codes have to be cracked, there is a tangle of tricky vocabulary and syntax takes up a great deal of brainpower. Then there is the issue of following the story. It is like adults having to translate a story into another language. Being read to allows children to imagine the narrative and to use imagination. It allows access to the amazing party and keeps them inside the building.
When children are ready for their own private journey, they will know what is expected of a reader, that words should come alive and that real readers pause, wonder, ask questions and let the stories affect, even change them.
Then there is the matter of emotional intelligence. Well-written literature is one of the best ways of developing compassion and empathy in children. When I read about a person living in a remote Inuit reservation, I am taken there. I can walk in their shoes or see a reflection of myself. A book is safe travel, the cheapest passport, in fact.
Reading in the company of someone else gives us a chance to look up from a screen. In the act of shared reading, we engage fully with the world. It breeds conversation, discussion and argument that can only benefit the adolescent. I read to my two sons well into their teenage years. On long road trips, I played a cassette of H.G. Wells’ classic “The War of the Worlds” that they loved and learned by heart. They often used to talk about these experiences. A book to lean on helps parents bond with their children, talking in meaningful ways to consider different points of view.
In her book Reclaiming Conversation, Megan Cox makes these observations:
- “sips of on-line conversations can never make up for gulps of face-to-face dialogue”
- The “dart and flick of a phone screen can never be a substitute for sustained, deep attention
- Reading together allows the reader to travel on the reader’s voice. You, me, the author, characters, colours and memories contrasted to virtual connections online
- “Flour plus water plus yeast makes bread, pen plus paper plus imagination makes a book, two or more people with a book takes us “out of time”
- Reading aloud kindles deep focus- better attention spans for our children
- Reading aloud is anti-toxin, antiseptic, antibiotic ameliorating the side-effects of technological addiction
The novelist Ursula Le Guin wrote: “love just doesn’t sit there like a stone. It has to be continually re-made, like bread”. Perhaps it is time to re-make our time together with our children. In the case of a teacher- a clock, photocopies, a classroom after lunch, for a parent- the preparation of meals, chores and transporting children to events. What is invisible to the eye is the human voice and ear and the pathos, humour and culture of invisible things. Moments of glad grace, if you will.
Paul Cullen
paul.cullen@cg.catholic,edu.au
Many congratulations to Tess Klower of Year 8 who entered the STANSW Young Scientist Awards and achieved a Silver Award in the Regional Young Scientist division. Tess is a very capable and enthusiastic Science student and she continues her interest and success in Science by attaining this award. Congratulations Tess and well done!
Tess also entered the Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Competition as part of her English studies and received recognition for her efforts in this prestigious competition. Tess entered three poems and all were recognised as worthy entries. Tess’s favourite poem of the three was described as a particularly promising effort. Again, well done Tess!
Tess is an inspiring all-rounder student who enjoys involvement in everything the College has to offer. Tess would be the first person to encourage students to get involved and receive recognition for effort. Please feel free to discuss involvement with various competitions and other opportunities with your child’s teachers and look out for opportunities advertised in Sentral Daily Notices.
Mr Foster
Science Coordinator
Mr Knight
English Coordinator
Year 7/8 Touch Football
Year 7/8 Girls and Boys Touch Football Teams competed in the NSW All Schools Touch Football carnival in Goulburn on Thursday 24th October. Four teams attended on the day, 2 girls teams and 2 boys teams. Excellent sportsmanship, teamwork, and skill was shown by all teams on the day. Congratulations to the Yr 7/8 Girls A Team who made the Grand final and finished 2nd overall. Well Done! This competition was a great lead up for the Cootamundra Touch Football tournament in Week 5 of this term.
Year 9/10 CCC Basketball
Having won their division at the Archdiocese basketball championships earlier in the year, our 9/10 boys team travelled to Penrith to take part in the Combined Catholic Colleges Championships. We travelled by College bus and stayed at the University of Western Sydney. The boys had a tough time in their group games losing to Marist College North Shore, St Paul’s College Adamstown and St John Paul College Coff’s Harbour. As always the standard at this level is very high with State and regional players peppering teams around the venue.
Not to be daunted, our boys stepped up to the mark and played hard in the plate competition on the second day, reaching the semi-finals. Some highlights of the trip were an evening meal and games at Penrith Panther’s Leagues club, playing streetball against some students at the Uni under floodlights late on the Monday evening and of course the spirit and fair play the boys displayed on the basketball court. Thanks to Jessica Franchi for her support on the trip and for acting as the team’s table official for all games.
The Variety Concert video has now been finalised and a link to download the file to those who have already purchased a copy will be emailed out. Wayne LeCompte is still accepting orders, so if you would like to order any song from the Variety Concert, please use the attached order form
Term 4 Fee Statements were emailed on 25th October with a due date of Friday 8th November. Thank you to those families who have already paid their fees.
If you are having any difficulties with fees, please contact the Business Manager Rhonda Forner or email: Rhonda.Forner@cg.catholic.edu.au
Family Statement Queries
Please provide your Family Key when making contact with the College (phone calls or emails) with any queries about your Family Fee Statement. This assists with identifying your account and quickly accessing your information.
Your Family Key is located on the Fee Statement, directly under the heading ‘Fee Statement’ – in most cases it will contain an abbreviated version of you or your child’s surname – however it can be different. An example fictitious surname may be Bloggs – the Family Key would be BLOGG01. This would be the Family Key that needs to be referred to when making contact with the College. The College thanks you for your assistance.
Rhonda Forner
Business Manager
Plastic Water Bottles are being phased out of the Canteen
CCB Rosella’s are an environmental social justice group established by our current Year 12 students. The Rosella’s, have worked hard within the school and the Eurobodalla Shire to join the global community in reducing the impact of waste on our planet.
As part of our reduction of waste initative the Rosellas along with Carroll College has introduced a Water Bottle that can be purchased via the following options.
- Qkr
- Canteen
The introduction of the water bottle is to reduce ongoing waste within the College.
The College has had two more water refill stations installed, with three now available within the grounds for students to refill their own bottle or a College one.
To reduce the plastic waste, the Canteen will phase out plastic water bottles over the next two weeks, water bottles are available for purchase from the Canteen or on Qkr!.
This is a solid metal bottle with a dedicated area under the crest for the students name, for easy identification.
Please ensure their full name is on the bottle so these can be returned if misplaced.
Cost is $13