The Week Ahead - Term 1, Week 1

Monday 27 January to Friday 31 January 2020

From the Head of College

Welcome to a New Year at Concordia

I begin this first newsletter of the year by welcoming back all members of the Concordia Lutheran College community. In particular, it was wonderful to greet new and returning staff members, and I look forward to greeting students from Kindergarten through to Year 12 next week. Across the College, our enrolment numbers have increased from 2019. It is my prayer that every student becomes engaged with his or her learning, and that students enjoy all they do as a member of their learning community.

From the College Pastor

Community News

Project Based Learning at Concordia

Junior College

Outside School Hours Care

Hume Street Campus

Warwick Street Campus

Stephen Street Campus

Boarding

Welcome from the Leadership Team

Marketing and Enrolments

Welcome to 2020! The Marketing and Enrolments team is looking forward to working with the Concordia community this year. We hope you enjoy the 2020 College Calendar – if you haven’t received yours in the post, please let us know.

Important Communication Enhancements

In 2019, the College commenced a major project to enhance our use of Parent Lounge to provide families with greater access to information and online applications to improve our communication and service.

You may have noticed on the inside back cover of the 2020 calendar a summary of some of the things you can do in Parent Lounge. In particular, the School Links tab has been developed to provide parents with a directory of useful information and important links.

We are in the process of transitioning everything you have previously found in MYCLC on the website over to the School Links area of Parent Lounge during Term 1. As of the beginning of Term 2, MYCLC will no longer be used.

We encourage parents and guardians to logon and explore Parent Lounge to become familiar with it. We will continue investigate and implement new enhancements to help improve your experience.

Business Office

I trust all our families had a blessed Christmas and very happy start to 2020.

Fees
Parent accounts are emailed and are due to be paid in advance each term. For Term 1 these fees are due Wednesday 29 January. We are currently working with families to create payment plans, set up direct debits and year in advance calculations, so if any of these options appeal to you in 2020, please call Marg on 4688 2707 to make arrangements. 

All accounts can be paid at the Reception counter of the Junior College campuses or at the Business Office at Stephen Street Campus with cash, cheque and EFTPOS (including Mastercard and VISA). Other payment options are Bpay or phoning the Business Office to pay over the phone with credit card.

Learning and Innovation

2020 will be an exciting year of learning. Year 12 students have already commenced their final year of studies. In the next few weeks, Year 12 students will have completed their first task in the new syllabus. These students will undertake the first year of external exams in Term 4. Teachers have been working extremely hard in preparing and teaching the demands of the new Senior syllabus.

Creating and developing exciting, relevant and engaging curriculum continues to be a priority for all subject areas. Concordia continues to stridently move forward in developing a positive culture of learning and strengthening our assessment literacy for and of a love of learning. Learning is at the centre of all that we undertake at Concordia. May 2020 be an exciting year for you and your family. 

Ms Wendy Bowen
Director of Learning and Innovation

Hume Street Campus

Welcome to 2020. We hope that you and your family have had a wonderful Christmas break and are ready to get back into a new year of learning.

This is a good time of the year to ask… “What is Learning?” Our teachers spent a day this week delving into this concept and this is the definition.

“Learning is the process of developing sufficient surface knowledge to then move to deeper understanding such that one can appropriately transfer this learning to new tasks and situations.”

It is our mission to provide deep learning for all students. We are very excited about some initiatives this year that will help our Learners discover the thrill of diving deep into Learning:

  • InitialLit being introduced into Year 1 to deepen the reading knowledge learned in Prep
  • BUILD (Building Up Independent Learning Dispositions) program Prep -Year 2
  • Integrated approach to inquiry learning in all year levels.

Read The Week Ahead over the coming weeks, for more information and photos of these initiatives.

Warwick Street Campus

Welcome back to the 2020 school year! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed some family time over the holidays. As always, I can’t believe how quickly the summer holidays pass, but I must admit I am eager to begin another year at WSC. This year we welcome many new families to our WSC community and I look forward to getting to know each of you and your children over the coming weeks.

I must pass on my thanks to the staff of our campus, as they have already been busy preparing for the arrival of the students next week. We are all excited to share with you the many changes that have occurred around the campus. Every one of our classrooms looks amazing and they are a credit to our teachers and support staff. I have added some “sneak peek” pictures below. Can you work out which classroom they are from?

Stephen Street Campus

Welcome and welcome back to everyone joining our expanding Stephen Street Campus community this year. 

We welcome three new teaching staff to our team - Mr Gabe Robbie, HOD HASS; Ms Elisabeth Smit, Psychology and Junior Science; and Mr Darren Pope, Learning Enrichment Coordinator. We have a sensational team of teachers and support staff who have been charged with the challenge of empowering our students in and through their learning. Along with the suite of 30 new Year 11 subjects that were implemented last year, this year we have added Year 11 English Literature, Year 11 Agricultural Practices and Year 12 English Extension. I do thank the senior teachers, Heads of Department and Director of Learning and Innovation, Ms Wendy Bowen and the endorsement team for the focused work that is being done in this season of curriculum implementation. 

Week 4, Term 4 will see the commencement of the first external exams for Queensland Year 12 students. While this is a new experience for Queensland students it is very normal for our New South Wales and Victorian friends. Fortunately, we have a number of teachers who have experience in the Victorian and New South Wales systems and we are well-positioned to ensure that our students are prepared for these exams.