Principal's Post

Dear Community of St Columba’s School, 

Welcome back. I hope this newsletter finds you well, refreshed and ready for an exciting term ahead.  

A special welcome to new staff members this term:  

• Mason Newton Maxwell in Year 4G on Thursday and Year 5W and Friday. Mason replaces Jennifer Scott whilst she is on long service leave in Term 3. 

• Karen Gonsalves as our Upper Primary Music Teacher. 

• Natalie Smith as Education Support in Pre Kindy. 

• Kylie Harbrow continues as Administration Assistant in the Front Office, replacing Lisa Slocum on long service leave.  

Friendships  

In this week’s newsletter, I am sharing with you a major focus of our School Improvement Plan in the focus area of COMMUNITY and EDUCATION and how you can support your children. Relationships are at the heart of wellbeing and learning and Friendships are the most important relationships to kids. We know when kids are happy, they learn.  

At St Col’s School, we are implementing the URSTRONG approach through the whole school to give students the skills, language and self-confidence to be better friends and develop healthier relationships. Using a kid friendly approach, our staff have been trained in a simple framework to support and coach students towards positive relationships. Explicitly teaching children how to develop healthy friendships and manage conflict in a respectful way is the key to bullying prevention and creating safe, caring and inclusive learning environments. 

Friendship Fact Number 1 – No friendship or relationship is perfect. Think back to when you were a kid. What advice were you given when you had a friendship challenge? What did the grown-ups tell you to do? Back then there were no mobile phones or various social media platforms to navigate but traditionally girls may have been told “Just ignore it” or “she’s just jealous,” whereas boys were more likely to be told to “suck it up” or “be a man.” Go play with someone else was another response. 

So many of us have been raised to avoid conflict. As parents and educators, our default to support the children in our care can be to automatically go back to what we were told to do.  

Through the URSTRONG Program, we are using a whole school strategy to all speak the same language to give the students the skills to solve their problems, not solve them for them. It is normal for conflict to occur in friendships. We call these “Friendship Fires.” When we talk our conflict out, Friendship Fires make a friendship stronger. The longer a friendship fire is left to burn, the bigger the fire, leading to a greater risk of bullying, unsafe, unkind and exclusive learning environments. 

I am pleased to say that most concerns of arguments, miscommunication, tiffs, bullying are friendship fires and students can be supported using the URSTRONG Framework. Instances of bullying, or as we call them “Mean on Purpose” behaviour, are rare and the URSTRONG Framework also provides practical advice for students and parents to follow, and I will write more on this next week.  

We are proud to be a URSTRONG School and are committed to empowering your children with friendship skills. 

URSTRONG Free Parent Membership 

All parents are invited to take advantage of a FREE Parent Membership to access hundreds of resources – including an 8 session video series. This will allow you to learn the same language & strategies being taught in the classroom through the Friendology 101 curriculum. We hope that, as a URSTRONG Family, you will reinforce the important messages of empowerment, self-compassion, & kindness at home. 

We would also recommend: 

•  Click here to view an overview of URSTRONG. 
• Activate your FREE Parent Membership and explore all the resources available to your family. 
• Explore the hundreds of resources available to you. 

We believe that empowering our students with these skills will create a culture of kindness at our school and we hope that, together, we can support your children to have healthy, feel-good friendships. 

Canteen 

Thanks to everyone who has given feedback for our new Canteen provider at the school. We appreciate being told both what is great and what could improve. Locavora has an extensive menu and we have recently released the entire menu for families to select from. Unfortunately, chicken nuggets, pizza and potato gems are not offered by Locavora, but hoping families may find something new to try from the extended selection. 

I wish to extend thanks to our OSHC Staff who sort the orders ready for the students to collect and our Year 6 students who assist with handing these out at the canteen. We’re getting faster and faster at handing these out. It may take a little longer than the previous method of bags being delivered to classrooms, but this way ensures no student lunch orders are misplaced or wrongfully taken. 

After School Pick Up 

Younger siblings waiting for their older siblings in Years 4 – 6 to finish school at 3.00 pm must either wait with their parents or with a Duty Teacher. There are two duty areas that commence at 2.50 pm. Younger siblings, without parents on site, must either wait with the Duty Teacher at Milne Street Gate or the Duty Teacher at Roberts Street Kiss N Drive. Siblings should not wait by themselves outside of their siblings’ classrooms or other areas of the school. 

Thank you for keeping your children off the playgrounds after school. 

Upcoming Events 

• Tuesday 23 July : Cross Country Interschool Carnival 

• Thursday 25 July : Year 5 & 6 Excursion to the Regal Theatre 

• Friday 26 July : Assembly 

Have a fantastic week everyone. 

In gratitude, 

Gina Burns
Principal 

P & F News

 EVENTS FOR YOUR DIARY

• 2 August — Mid Year Raffle
• 30 August – Father’s Day Breakfast
• 20 September — Whole School Subway Order Lunch Day
• 18 October — School Disco

CALL FOR AGENDA ITEMS & NEXT MEETING

The next P&F meeting will be held on Tuesday 6 August at 7pm in the School Library. If you have any agenda items, please send these through to your Class Rep by Tuesday 23 July. We hope to see as many new faces as possible at the next meeting.

Library News

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