2024 Term 2 - End of Term Newsletter

Principal’s Report

Dear St Dominic’s Families,

Another term rolls by before our eyes. As teachers, we often count terms in the opposite way to our families. We might count down until the holidays, where our families may count down the days until their children return to school. Time is a peculiar thing and for me, brings many emotions along with it. Maybe it is as I get older, and my own children become young adults? Maybe I am becoming more sentimental in my ‘matured’ years. Time tends to pass so quickly during joyful times, but can seem to drag on during the more difficult of times. We know the saying ‘time flies when you’re having fun!” I recently reminded myself the scripture “He has made everything beautiful in its time….” Ecclesiastes 3:11 which encourages us to trust in God’s timing. Those days where I need a gentle reminder of God’s plan encouraging me to be patient, not desire things with immediacy. I believe this allows us to be present in the moment, stop and breathe. I hope this is what you can do with this weeks newsletter. Take the time to enjoy a coffee/tea (or your beverage of choice), sit quietly and reward yourself with stillness.

As we discuss time, we know how quickly Christmas celebrations begin, I ask you to consider saving a date in your calendars. The Diocesan Diverse Learning Needs Mass will take place at the Sacred Heart Cathedral on 3^rd December at 6:00pm. The 3^rd December also coincides with celebrating ‘International Day of People with a Disability” and a truly special day to ponder our exceptional students. St Dominic’s staff and students will collaborate with our inner-city schools and co-host the celebration. We are hoping our school community will be highly represented on the day to declare the wonderful work at our school and support our families share with us. I hope to see you there.

I wanted to delight in the beautiful performance by our secondary students in the most recent DioSounds production. I was fortunate enough to see Friday evenings show with other school leaders. There was great joy when our students appeared on stage and yes, you know me, I shed a tear or 20!!- a sentiment that was also shared by staff who viewed the Friday matinee.

Our students were also fortunate enough to share stage mass with the students from St Columban’s this term. Classes in our primary school joined St Columban’s students on their site to celebrate the word of God. I was so proud of our students and the inclusive nature of the students and staff of San Clemente and St Columban’s communities.  Thank you to those who were able to make this happen.

Happy and safe holidays to you all,

Rachel

Assistant Principal Report

This term we were both lucky enough to attend professional learning at the CSO (Catholic School’s Office) presented by Shiralee Poed regarding Positive Behaviour for Learning. Here at St Dominic’s we are already implementing lots of strategies to support this whole school approach, including our PBL’s (Positive Behaviour for Learning Awards – both for students AND staff), as well as collaboratively meeting as a school to develop a continuum of behaviour support (which guides our staff to effectively use Tier 1 and Tier 2 strategies to deescalate a situation and seeking additional supports where necessary before then calling the executive for support).

We are excited to continue this journey next term when we will be meet with our knowledgeable others, Craig Moore and Kathy Gillepsie, to develop specific school procedures to build upon our skills and practices at St Dominic’s Catholic College to support our whole school community.

Semester 1 Reports will be available to all families during Week 10 via Compass. You will receive a notification when they have been released. If you have any questions about your child's report, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s class teacher in the first instance.

The reports are a wonderful reflection of the hard work that is happening both in and outside of the classroom. Students have demonstrated a high level of commitment to not only achieving their academic goals but also their personal goals. All reports were a pleasure to read.

We recognise the dedication and effort our students have put into their studies and personal development. The positive outcomes reflected in the reports are a testament to their perseverance and enthusiasm. We encourage families to review the reports together and celebrate these achievements. If further discussion or clarification is needed, our teachers are always here to assist.

We hope you have a wonderful school holiday and find something to do that makes you smile. We are celebrating NAIDOC in Week 10 at school, however the official time is during the holidays, so you may like to follow this link and find some activities to participate in during the break.

Coordinators Report

Port Waratah Coal Community Partnerships grant.

We would like to thank Port Waratah Coal Services for their continued support and granting funding to St Dominic’s via a Community Investment Grant. We are excited to have new sporting equipment for our playground and Movement Room in the upcoming term.

Dio Sounds- Thank you to San Clemente music staff and Students

A huge thank you to the wonderful and talented San Clemente staff Kate James and Peter Bottaro and all the incredible San Clemente music students, who delivered a brilliant performance last Friday for the Matinee and evening shows. They all worked so fantastically alongside our St Dominic’s secondary students to bring the house down with a rendition of the ‘Friends’ theme tune ‘I’ll be there for you” – by the Rembrants. If you didn’t get the chance to attend this year, please make sure you get in early next year.

Reconciliation and Naidoc celebrations

Students have participated in Reconciliation activities and acknowledged the beginning of the Naidoc week celebrations. Through song and stories students have been made aware of the significance and richness of the indigenous culture and the impact it has on our daily lives. Our indigenous students will be attending an Aboriginal dance session at San Clemente this week which they are looking forward to.

Henny Penny Hatchery

There’s a lot of cheeping at the school this week. Students are enjoying experiencing first-hand, the miracle of life through watching the chickens hatching in the Blue Room. It's such a pleasure watching the students come together to watch, talk about and hold the chickens. Listening in on the conversations and interactions is a wholesome experience and a wonderful way to end the term.

Happy holidays to everyone. A well-deserved rest after a big term. We look forward to seeing everyone back and refreshed for Term 3.

Andrew Drinkwater and Cate Chapman

Religious Education

What a beautiful and faith-filled Term 2 at St Dominic’s Catholic College.

This term we have focussed on generosity and kindness in our school mission journey. Both students and the wider St Dominic’s community have demonstrated this through a variety of ways.  We have been busy collecting donations from our families and friends for the St Vincent De Paul Winter Appeal. The Appeal aims to collect clothing, blankets and various winter items to distribute to those in need. At our Vinnies Swap BBQ this week visitors will get the chance to see how much we have collected and enjoy in a warm winter meal together before we send the donation off on behalf of our community. A small donation can go a long way.

Thank you so much to all who have donated, we are really doing the work of Jesus Christ.

St Dominic’s students have also been given the opportunity recently to combine with our neighbouring school St Columban’s to join in their stage liturgies. Blue and Red Class represented our school in Week 7 and were commended for their engagement and enthusiasm during the service. In Week 9 Green, Yellow and Pink Class will join the stage 2 and 3 liturgy.

I wish you all a restful Term 2 break and look forward to sharing with you some of the images from our next Mission Day.

God bless.

Pink

What a wonderful Term 2 we have had building on the successes of Term 1! We’ve had a fantastic time in all our learning areas and the students have shown amazing growth and enthusiasm throughout the term.

In the Pink Class, we have focused on further developing our literacy skills, using a variety of hands-on materials that help students solidify their learning. In English, our unit titled “On the Farm” has been a hit. We’ve explored topics about farm life, animals, and the various products farms and animals provide, such as vegetables, milk, and eggs.

Our focus has been on living things in Science, which connects nicely with our learning in English. We’ve studied the differences between living and non-living things, the life cycles of plants and animals, and animal classifications.  The Pink boys have thoroughly enjoyed this topic.

In Mathematics, we've enhanced our skills through engaging activities and hands-on materials. Students learnt to read clocks and understand time. We covered multiplication strategies and played reinforcing games. The boys also learnt about word problems to boost problem-solving skills and explored data analysis by collecting, organising, and interpreting data through charts and graphs.

It has been an outstanding term and I am saddened that I will not be teaching Pink Class for the remainder of the year. It has been an utmost pleasure teaching them and I look forwards to hearing about their continuing achievements.

Red

Well done Red Class.  What an amazing term we have had! I am so proud of all of your hard work and the progress made this term.

Maths has seen us using different strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems. We have also learnt about time of day and practised telling the time on an analogue clock. Red students collected DATA on the colours of teacher’s cars and made a giant graph in the classroom.

Red Class is working hard with their PLD sounds and activities. We are reading and writing everyday! This term we have been reading all the Pig the Pug books, which the class really enjoyed. We talked about the characters and linked to our PDHPE talking about how the characters in the story are feeling. We have written sentences and completed a Pig the Pug artwork.

For science this term we have been learning all about living and non-living things. Red Class are experts in checking the chart to classify whether a thing is living or not. We conducted a science experiment investigating how a plant gets water, by dying the water and watching white flowers change colours. We collected the DATA and recorded our results.

To link in with our science and living and non-living things unit, all of our artworks this term have been of animals. We have made African animals and desert artworks, caterpillars, butterflies, elephants and koalas. Students have enjoyed portraying these animals in different art styles.

Red Class loved attending the athletics carnival! You all were all amazing athletes, running, throwing and long jumping.

Our Religion lessons have been enhanced by the opportunity to visit St Columban’s for a combined liturgy. Our students displayed excellent behaviour and listened to the service. Well done Red!

St Dominic’s celebrated Reconciliation week and NAIDOC week this term. Red Class enjoyed all the activities and learning about the significance of these events.

Congratulations Red superstars! Enjoy the school holidays. Can’t wait to see you next term for more fantastic learning.

Green

Lil Maher and Teagan Ross
Class Teachers

Another term has flown by in Green Class!

Green has had a fun filled and very busy term. They have been working hard and embarking on new adventures in the community.

On Friday the 14^th June, Green represented St Dominic’s in the audience for the DioSounds matinee performance. They were all so respectful and encouraging of our high school students and demonstrated maturity when interacting with members of the community and other schools.

In Week 9 Green will head to their first movie experience together. Students have been looking forward to this all term and are excited to learn a little more about emotions and growing up. This is what we have been learning about in PD this term. Students have enjoyed identifying strategies that best support us as we grow, learn and change.

In Religion we have been learning about values. As a class we have been able to identify key values as a member of a Catholic school and demonstrate how we live those values in our day to day lives.

In English, Green has been exploring a unit based on Kakadu National Park. Students have created beautiful artworks based on the 5 senses that they might experience there. They have enjoyed learning and writing about the animals and landscape of the Park.

Green, for all your hard work you have earned yourselves a break. Enjoy your Term 2 holidays and we will see you bright and ready to learn in Term 3.

Mrs Lil Maher and Miss Teagan Ross

Secondary

Class Teachers          

As the first half of the year comes to an end, Secondary had again another fantastic term.

Students have been working extremely hard in English where they have created their comic strip, including a character from their novel study, The Fall. These comic strips are looking fantastic. Secondary Classes have spent many lessons designing on the computers and have gone on to print, laminate and bind their work together. These books have been catalogued and are available to borrow from the library. Our Teal, Silver, and Gold Classes can't wait to show their amazing work! Well done.

We would like to congratulate our students who were part of the DioSounds production this year. Secondary had 5 amazing performers, who shone at The Civic Theatre in Week 7, along to the hit ‘I’ll be there for you’ by The Rembrandts. A huge well done to these students and to those who went along and supported from the crowd. 

Gold Class have been blessed this term with the experiences they have had taking Cafe Club to Catholic Care and the Office of Safeguarding. Of note are the skills learnt in being adaptable and accommodating of needs beyond one's own. The feedback received has been fantastic and our senior students should be exceptionally proud of their efforts.

Four of our senior students have secured continued supported work placement at Avenue Warabrook. This is an excellent way to begin the transition into post-school work options.

Amazing work Secondary team, we look forward to another eventful term ahead! 

Pastoral Care

I am excited to announce that I have been successful in becoming the permanent Pastoral Care Worker at St Dominic’s Catholic College.

We have 2 fundraisers coming up…

Thompsons Pie’s fundraiser will be running from 1^st July to 21^st July. A note has been sent home and notifications via Compass and Facebook with instructions on how to order using our unique school code. All orders are delivered to your front door for added convenience.

Macca’s Fun Night is on Wednesday 14^th August from 5:30 to 6:30pm at Broadmeadow McDonald’s. You can either dine-in or use drive-thru. We will place reminders on Compass and Facebook as the time comes closer.

I look forward to spending time supporting the students, families, staff, school and parish within my new role.

Administration / Finance

Finance

Thank you to those families who have made full payment or have set up regular payments towards extinguishing their school fee account. If you have indicated you are settling 2024 fees via a lump sum annual payment this is due and payable by 30^th June 2024. If your circumstances have changed and you cannot meet this due date, please contact the school to make alternate payment plan arrangements.

Compass - How To: View your child's Report

Compass is a web-based system that is accessible on any modern web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari etc).
Every family receives a separate log in to our school’s Compass site. This log in information is provided to you by the school.
If you need assistance locating the Compass site link for our school, go to: schools.compass.education
You will then be able to search for our school and access the link.

To log in, you will require your unique family username and password. These details will be provided to you by the school however if you are yet to receive them, please contact the school office. You will initially be provided with a temporary password that you will be prompted to update to one of your choosing when you log in for the first time.

To log in, go to your school’s Compass site. Type in your username and password and click ‘Sign in’. Your username will be your parent code at the school. This will be different from your child’s student code, and it will not be your email address.
If it is the first time you are logging in, you will be required to confirm your email address and mobile number. These details may be used by the school for SMS/email communications and password recovery.
Once you have confirmed your details, you will be required to change your temporary password to one of your choosing. When you have entered your new password, click ‘Save’. If you attempt to log in using the incorrect details ten times in a row, you will be locked out of your account for thirty minutes. If you have forgotten, or aren’t sure of your details, please contact the school office.

Important Dates and Reminders

Week 10
Monday, 1 July – Thompson’s Pies Fundraiser – Online orders open
Friday, 5 July – Henny Penny Chickens ready to go home
                          Last Day of Term 2
 

TERM 3

Week 1
Monday, 22 July - First day of Term 3 for all students
Friday, 26 July -  Grandparent's Day Litugy

Week 2
Wednesday, 31 July - FACE Online Meeting

Week 3
Thursday, 8 August – St Dominic’s Day

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6
Wednesday, 28 August - Pupil Free Day - school closed