The Week Ahead - Term 1, Week 3
Monday 10 February to Friday 14 February 2020
From the Head of College
Finally, we can rejoice with the falling of steady rain. While the drought may not have broken, we thank God for the relief that a change in weather can bring.
The rain – just in time for the first of this year’s swimming carnivals. At the time of writing, everything was being prepared for the Junior College carnival, and then the initial twilight Middle and Senior College carnival. I look forward to being at both carnivals during the day and watching the first intraschool activity for 2020.
There are some exciting activities being planned for the year ahead. Aside from Open Days and the various performance and sport activities, some new events have appeared on the 2020 calendar. We have been invited to register for the 2020 ‘QLD da Vinci Decathlon’. It is a competition across ten learning areas; some parts general knowledge, other problem-solving, other practical. We are entering a Middle College team and a Senior College team. The competition takes place in the first week in June and I pass on my thanks to Mrs Karin McKenzie and Ms Wendy Bowen for their work and initiative. Fantastic news!
Kindest regards and blessings
Mr Adrian Wiles
Head of College
From the College Pastor
Community News
Project Based Learning at Concordia
Junior College
A Note from the Junior College Library Assistant
Welcome to all our new families and welcome back to our continuing families. The first issue of Book Club is coming home over the next few days. The Junior College campuses will be continuing with LOOP (Linked Ordering and Online Payment). To order, here’s what you need to know:
LOOP enables parents to order and pay for their child’s book club order online.
LOOP does NOT apply to those parents wishing to pay for their order with cash or cheque – those orders will continue as before with the form being submitted to either Mrs Lynch or Mrs Paynter.
Outside School Hours Care
Hume Street Campus
A Message from the Director
Year 4 Cycle Safety
Our Year 4 students will be attending a Cycle Safety program run by the PCYC on Thursday 20 and 27 February. An email was sent out to Parents on Tuesday 4 February, with information about the Cycle Safety program. Please log in to submit your permission through the Tours/Excursions section of your Parent Lounge.
Gardening Club
Get your green thumbs ready. The gardening club with Mrs Priest will be starting up next Thursday 13 February from 3.10pm to 4pm. If your child would like to join Mrs Priest in caring for our gardens, please submit your permission.
HSC Week 3 Events
Please click here to view HSC's Events for Week 3.
Hume Street Kindergarten Vacancies
Hume Street Kindergarten currently has limited vacancies for the 2020 year. It is not too late to enrol!
Kindy Commencing PreLit
The kindergarten children have commenced the PreLit literacy program this week. PreLit is a systematic skills-based early literacy preparation program for preschool children (typically four to five year olds) who will be making the transition to formal schooling the following year.
Warwick Street Campus
Message from the Director
The last three weeks at WSC have been very busy indeed and I thank everyone for your continual engagement and support of the students and staff at Warwick Street Campus.
The students have come back this year buzzing with excitement about the many new initiatives that will be occurring and you will read about some of these below. I look forward to being a part of these activities with the students and sharing some photos with you in the coming weeks.
Mrs Jackie Minnikin
Director of Campus
Word on the Street
Rubik’s Cube Club
We are excited to announce that the Rubik's Cube craze has come to WSC. Please see the details on the flyer below about our Rubik's Cube Club.
WSC Week 7 Events
Click Here to view WSC events for Week 7
Warwick Street Kindergarten Weekly Chatter
How beautiful is this rain!
Programming update:
This week we have been focusing on
- Drawing self-portraits on paper with the aid of a photo of ourselves on the iPad
- Collecting sticks to make ‘stickmen’
- Soapy painting
- Jumping in puddles!
- Setting up routines within each room
GENERAL REMINDERS:
Our new Concordia hats are here and will be handed out over the following week. Altus hats will be replaced with our navy hats.
Community Engagement
The lovely Mr Rowan visited our kindy this week, and spent time painting with the children. We look forward to his fortnightly visits to our kindy.
Upcoming Kindergarten Events
- OPEN DAY: Saturday 21 March 2020 9.30am-12.30pm
Our service will be going through assessment and rating early next month. This helps to determine what level of rating the service meets under the national quality standard. They will be rating us through observations of our practices, documentation and questioning educators.
For more information on the National Quality Standard click here.
I’d also like to say a big thank you to all our wonderful families for your patience and consideration while Hannah is away. We are blessed to have such a wonderful community and look forward to Hannah’s return later in the month.
Miss Steph
Stephen Street Campus
Weekly Update
What a difference rain makes! Our local region is looking like a postcard with a new flush of growth appearing across the landscape. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with our families further out who are still waiting for rain or at the beginning the process of recovering from the drought.
Week 2 is the week of beginnings. Assembly on Monday and our daily notices have been full of opportunities that students can sign up for. We strongly encourage students to sign up for at least one cocurricular activity each semester with many of our students taking advantage of a number of sporting, cultural and academic programs. We place a very high value on engagement and accomplishment in these group situations.
P&F Meeting Reminder
A reminder that the first Stephen Street Campus P&F Meeting for 2020 will be held this coming Monday 10 February. We invite the campus community to join us at 6.30pm in the Norfolk Room.
Mrs Hazel Buckley
P&F Chair
Senior College Information
The following 2020 handbooks are now available in Parent Lounge > Learning & Innovation:
Speech and Drama Tuition Now Offered at Stephen Street Campus
Concordia is excited to welcome a new Speech and Drama tutor to our Arts Department. Miss Andreas Elms is well known in Toowoomba for her work as a speech and drama tutor and co-convenor of the Toowoomba Drama Eisteddfod. She has tutored many drama students in the region and many have been very successful in Speech and Drama Eisteddfod and AMEB exams. Thankfully she has been able to clear a day on Wednesdays to come to Stephen Street Campus and provide private lessons for any students interested in one-on-one drama tuition, in the same way vocal and instrumental lesson operate here already.
Some of you may recognise Miss Elms for her work backstage on our Concordia musicals over the years and she also directs and designs all of Glennie’s musicals. We are very excited to now be able to offer speech and drama tuition here for those students who would like to build their performance skills. If you would like to sign up for private drama lessons (or pairs in Years 7 to 9 if you would prefer) with Miss Elms, please email your expression of interest to Mrs Jess Merretz by 12 February or visit Mrs Merretz in M block staffroom for more information.
For Current Year 10 Parents and Students...
Year 7 Students Survive First Week in Middle College!
On Friday 30 January, our Year 7 students had the chance to enjoy an alternate program as a way to culminate their first week as Year 7 students in Middle College at Stephen Street Campus.
The activities of the day included a scavenger hunt around the campus, a library orientation session, water sliding, kicking a ball at a giant inflatable dart board and meeting their Year 11 Peer Support Leaders.
Da Vinci Decathlon
What began as a local competition for the Australian public and private schools has grown to be a national and global phenomenon, involving thousands of students from Years 7 to 11. The growth has been enormous, and interest so high, that chapter schools have been formed in Western Australia, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania. These schools now run individual local and state competitions, in order to choose representatives for the National da Vinci Decathlon Final held each year at Knox Grammar School in Sydney over several days of competition and cultural events.
This year we have the opportunity to compete in the State competition at 2020 Da Vinci Decathlon at St Joseph’s College, Nudgee. The da Vinci Decathlon is an academic competition designed to challenge and stimulate the minds of school students. Students compete in teams of eight across ten disciplines: engineering, mathematics and chess, code breaking, art and poetry, science, English, ideation, creative producers, cartography and legacy. Read more about the competition here.
Students are encouraged to register their interest with Mrs McKenzie or Ms Bowen by 14 February. Parents are also welcome to register their child with the aforementioned teachers by the set date. Click here for the information poster.
Tennis Coaching
Boarding
Meet Our New Houseparent...
Find us at Country Shows!
Concordia will have staff members representing the College at several country shows this year. If you are attending any of these shows, please come and say hello. If you have friends in these areas who may be interested in learning more about Concordia, please let them know they can find us at following shows:
- Pittsworth Show: Friday 6 March & Saturday 7 March
- Moree Show: Friday 24 April & Saturday 25 April
- Toowoomba Show: Thursday 26 March to Saturday 28 March
- Goondiwindi Show: Friday 1 May & Saturday 2 May
- Kingaroy Show: Saturday 2 May & Sunday 3 May
- St George Show: Sunday 3 May
- Roma ICPA State Conference: Tuesday 9 June & Wednesday 10 June