Principal's Post

Dear Community of St Columba’s School, 

Thank you everyone, for a fantastic start to Semester Two! As I visited classrooms this week, it’s been wonderful to see our students seamlessly returning to their classroom routines with enthusiasm and readiness to learn. Your support and cooperation have truly contributed to making this transition a smooth and happy one. 

Friendship Fires or Mean on Purpose? 

In my last article for the Donegal, I talked about how coaching children to handle “Friendship Fires” is a normal part of any relationship. These are moments when feelings get hurt or there’s a misunderstanding. It’s important to distinguish these from “Mean on Purpose” behaviours, which are intentionally cruel and meant to harm. 

At our school, we carefully assess each situation to determine whether it’s a Friendship Fire or Mean on Purpose. Mean on Purpose behaviour isn’t introduced until Year 3 because younger children often can’t yet tell the difference—they might label everything as “mean.” 

It’s crucial to understand that younger children can also unintentionally hurt others. They are honest and still learning how to be intentionally kind. So, our focus with younger students is on kindness and resolving Friendship Fires. 

We teach children to develop their own “Quick Comeback,” a child-friendly way to let someone know their behaviour has caused hurt. It’s important that this response isn’t mean in return, as that usually escalates the situation negatively. 

Sometimes, ignoring the behaviour and walking away can be effective, especially if there’s a risk of it becoming physical or if the child feels outnumbered. However, in other cases, we empower students to stand up for themselves. 

Children learn to use their body language, tone of voice, and choice of words to express that they are not okay with what was said. This gives the person who caused hurt a chance to reflect and possibly correct their behaviour if it was a misunderstanding or a joke gone wrong. 

If you haven’t already, please sign up for our free Parent Membership to learn more about the differences between Friendship Fires and Mean on Purpose incidents. There are many more articles and posters for you to access, such as the below. FREE Parent Membership  

Interschool Cross Country 

This week, a group of selected students represented St Col’s at the Interschool Cross Country event. Despite a rainy start, the weather cleared just before the first race, leaving the track suitably muddy for the occasion. Congratulations to all our participants whose efforts contributed to St Col’s achieving 4th place overall. This is especially noteworthy since the top three schools are all triple stream schools, making our achievement quite impressive. Special congratulations to Will, Alyssa, and Hunter, who each earned individual medals in their respective races.  

Year 6: Will A – Gold 

Year 6: Alyssa C – Silver 

Year 5: Hunter S – Silver 

Way to go, St Col’s! Thank you to Mr Banks and all the Columba Runner Parent Volunteers for creating ample opportunities for our students to enhance their long-distance running skills.

School Oval 

Over the school holidays, additional seeds were added to the lawn on the school oval. This is the beginning of a 3-year process to turn the oval over to a grass that is more suited to heavy traffic and long periods of shade. You may have seen in some areas where the seeds have taken off. 

We cannot keep students off the oval, but we are rotating areas of the oval to rest, to allow the seeds to germinate. Please speak with your children about not going into areas that Mr Joe or Uncle Joe have sectioned off because we are trying to get a better oval for them. 

Also, we are close to finalising a drainage solution for the water that you see pooling outside of the OSHC/Multipurpose Room. This area can be very slippery, so please do not try and walk through this area.  

There are other areas of flooding that solutions are also being sought. 

Upcoming Events 

• Thursday 25 July : Year 5 & 6 Excursion to the Regal Theatre 
• Thursday 25 July : Religious Education Assessment (REA) Practice
• Friday 26 July : Assembly – General
• Friday 26 July : Religious Education Assessment Practice (Catch Up Session Only)
• Wednesday 31 July : REA Testing for all Year 3 & Year 5 Students
• Thursday 1 August : REA Testing for all Year 3 & Year 5 Students
• Friday 2 August : Dewey from the Premiers Reading Challenge will visit our School Assembly. To show support for reading, students are invited to accessorise their sports uniform with the colour pink or magenta
• Friday 2 August : REA Catch Up Testing

In gratitude, 

Gina Burns
Principal 

P & F News

Containers for Change deposits

Love to contribute to our schools fundraising efforts? Consider the St Columba’s P&F at your next Containers for Change deposit. Simply scan the QR code, download the app and add the member number to your profile. The P&F fund would be so grateful for your contribution to further aid in the students resources and equipment.

VOLUNTEER HELP

CAKE STALL

We are looking for a subcommittee to organise the cake stall at the Faction Athletics Carnival. Volunteers are needed to promote the fundraiser, arrange delivery of donated goods from School to the carnival and run the stall on the day with other helpers. Anyone or EVERYONE could have a go at this – yourself or someone in your family, all welcome! Please contact the team if you can lend a hand.

LAST DAY OF TERM LUNCH

The P&F needs extra assistance with the rollout of the Subway Fundraiser Lunch! Do you work Fridays? Are you free? We’d love to have your help on the last day of Term 3.

 EVENTS FOR YOUR DIARY

• 2 August — Mid Year Raffle
• 30 August – Father’s Day Breakfast
• 10 Setpember – Faction Athletics Carnival Cake Stall
• 20 September — Whole School Subway Order Lunch Day
• 18 October — School Disco

NEXT P&F MEETING

The next P&F meeting will be held on Tuesday 6 August at 7pm in the School Library. We hope to see as many new faces as possible at the next meeting.

Library News

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT 

DEWEY will be visiting our Week 3 assembly on Friday 2 August.

Dewey will present certificates to the students who have registered and read 12+ books by 31 July 2024. 

Make sure you register: St Columba’s Primary BAYSWATER and READ, READ, READ! 

Just 12 books… 

Books, short stories, graphic novels, ebooks, talking books, audio books, poems, anything that sparks their interest and gets them reading! 

Students can wear their sports uniform and add something MAGENTA/PINK to your uniform on this day! 

Join your child for the Premier’s Reading Challenge 2024.

Unlock the magic of reading.  There are prizes to be won, fun to be had, and stories to uncover.

Details at:

https://www.premiersreadingchallenge.wa.edu.au/parents-and-families

Make sure you join: ST COLUMBA’S SCHOOL

USED BOOK SALE

Used Books (from the Library) Sale for students and families.  Money donated will be used to purchase new and up to date resources for the school library.

On sale outside the library – Before school, recess, lunchtime and after school.

Gold coin donation.

The library is open every morning before school:

All students are welcome from 8:15am

Pre-Kindy and Kindy students must be accompanied by Parent/Carer until 8.45am

The library is a calming and quiet place, making it the perfect spot for students to have a smooth and calming transition in the morning.

Students may also like to return and borrow books before school.

Looking forward to seeing you the library.

2024 CBCA Book Week – Reading is MAGIC

17 – 23 August, 2024

Dress Up Day (Kindy-Year 6) – Wednesday 21 August 2024

Please refer to flyer attached to this newsletter with further details

Rita Cuthbert – Library Officer – Library - the original search engine

Pastoral Care

Religious Education and Curriculum News

From our Year 1 classes :

In Year One, we have been learning that as people grow from babies many changes take place. People continue to grow and change throughout their lives. For example people grow:

• physically – their bodies grow and develop
• emotionally – they learn to deal with their feelings
• socially – they make friends and learn how to behave with them
• intellectually – they learn and understand more

There is a lot of growing and learning that happens in a person’s life. As people grow, they learn many different things. For example, what they are able to do by themselves, what they like and dislike, what they enjoy doing and playing.

This week, the Year 1’s created a ‘Guess Who’ flip poster that showed an image of them as a baby and a current image of them underneath. We had a blast trying to guess which baby photo belonged to who and identified many ways that we have physically changed so far!

From our Year 2 classes :

Year Two’s Exciting Journey into Informative Report Writing!

This term in Year Two, we are embarking on an exciting journey to learn how to write informative reports, focussing on animals. Our adventure begins with investigating habitats – understanding what they are, learning their names, discovering what can be found in them, and identifying the animals associated with them.

To begin with and to make our learning experience more engaging, we have created our own habitats in the classroom! Each student has worked hard to design a habitat, and we will be adding labels and captions to make our creations even more interesting. This hands-on activity not only helps us understand habitats better but also enhances our ability to use relevant vocabulary effectively.

Our goal is to compile our knowledge into a booklet centred around a chosen animal. Each student will select an animal, research it, and write an informative report about it. We are looking forward to showcasing our newfound skills as both authors and illustrators.

We can’t wait to share our informative booklets and demonstrate how much we have learned about the fascinating world of animals!