© Brisbane Catholic Education, Christ the King School (2024)
On Thursday, 7 March, Christ the King School held an Open Day promoting our school to new interested families.
Our visitors were able to enjoy a school tour of our grounds and classrooms and hear our Senior Choir give a beautiful performance under the guidance of our music teacher, Mrs Margaret Lawless. Visiting families have commented on how welcome they were made to feel by our teachers and staff during their time at CTK School, and on the wonderful engagement of students in the classrooms.
Thank you to all who played an important part in our Open Day, including our parent class representatives, Cassie Bell, Sandra Bastian, Natalie Mutinelli and Anna Thomas who assisted in registration and provided their unique perspectives and experiences for the families attending.
Prep Enrolments for 2025
Prep enrolment interviews for 2025 have commenced. If you know of a family who is interested in enrolling their child at Christ the King School for Prep in 2025, please encourage them to submit their enrolment application before Easter.
Current CTK School families who have a child due to commence in Prep in 2025 should also submit their application for enrolment. Our School Office will then contact you to arrange an interview time for early Term 2.
Prep to Year 6 Cross Country
CTK School students have been preparing well in their physical education lessons, class runs and Cross Country Run Club for our upcoming Cross Country Carnival on Monday, 25 March. We congratulate our students on their tremendous efforts.
Our House teams will gather in the coming weeks to practise cheers. Our Sports Captains will lead these cheers.
A copy of the schedule will be available in the Health & PE Blog on the BCE Connect App.
I wish our students good luck for what should be a wonderful day.
NAPLAN Testing Commences
CTK School students in Years 5 and 5 begin their NAPLAN testing on Wednesday, 13 March. While NAPLAN results are one measure of each learner's growth, our teaching staff utilise a variety of evaluation tools throughout the year and across the various facets of our holistic education programs to provide a comprehensive summary of your child's learning progress.
I wish our students all the best for this NAPLAN testing period and congratulate them on their efforts.
Important Reminder About Pick-up Line
To keep all our families safe at pick-up, there are two important procedures I ask you to consider when collecting your children:
- Be patient. Pick-up time works most smoothly and safely when all four cars who have loading children move off at the same time. Cars pulling out from behind a stationary vehicle are more likely to be involved in an accident with another car or, worse, not see pedestrians crossing the road.
- Do a lap if you child is not waiting. Once the Pick-up Line starts moving a few minutes after the school bell, I ask that if your child is not waiting for immediate collection, please do a lap of the block and return to the backof the queue. This stops other drivers from becoming impatient and pulling out from the middle of the Pick-up Line. It also ensures the flow of the line is maintained so other children can be collected swiftly.
Each afternoon, CTK School has teachers assigning students with pick-up in this area. Please respect and follow the instructions of our staff. They are always wanting to ensure the safety of all our families.
If you have furstrations with our Pick-up Line, do not take them out on a member of our staff. Instead, please contact me so that we can discuss the matter.
School Fees
By now, you should have received your school fees for Term 1. These were emailed to families in February. If you are having trouble with fees, please contact me as soon as possible to discuss this.
Parent-School Communication
Please feel free to drop into the school and say 'hello' at any time. Our parents' support is valued and appreciated. Join in where you can. Communication is the key.
If you have any concerns about the school, it is important to deal with them as soon as possible so that your concern does not become a big problem. Please feel welcome at any time to make an appointment to discuss any issue of concern with either myself or a member of the Leadership Team.
We encourage you to always approach the classroom teacher first if it is a problem relating to your child's class. Teachers can often correct, relatively quickly, what might appear to be a big problem.
The interaction and commitment of our parent body helps to make Christ the King School such a great place to be. There are numerous groups of parents who assist the school in many ways, from the classroom to formal advisory bodies. In the coming months, there will be a number of different ways for parents to be involved in our school.
From the Assistant Principal Religious Education
Project Compassion
Thank you for your generous and ongoing support of our Project Compassion fundraising initiatives. We are now into our fourth week of our Project Compassion Initiative. On Monday, 11 March we heard the story of Leaia from Samoa.
Samoa may be a country surrounded by water, but access to clean drinking water is scarce in some areas, with many families facing extreme hardship as a result. Leaia lives with her five children, husband, brother and sister-in-law on the island of Upolu in Samoa. Not having access to a reliable source of clean water caused Leaia a lot of worry.
Their home is not connected to a piped water system, so they had to rely solely on rainwater collected in old fridges. When their water ran out, Leaia had to walk with her young children to collect water in buckets and containers from a neighbour down the street.
With the support of Caritas Australia's local partner, Caritas Samoa, a water tank was installed at Leaia's home. She and her family now have a steady supply of clean drinking water at home. Next year, they will also have a toilet built, with the support of Caritas Samoa, which will further improve their health and living conditions.
“We are very thankful and grateful for the water tank. It has helped us so much and made our daily life easier,” Leaia said.
To support people like Leaia and to raise money for our Lenten Appeal, our Year 6 students will be running a 'Guess the Number of Eggs' stall and will be selling raffle tickets for an Easter Raffle. Tickets have been on sale each day before school from 8:15am–8:30am and again at Lunch from 1:10pm–1:30pm during Week 8. Students can purchase raffle tickets for a gold coin or buy 10 tickets for $5. To make a guess in the 'Guess the Number of Eggs', students are asked to provide a gold coin donation.
A huge thank you to our Year 6 leaders and Mrs Twomey for helping to highlight our wider community about our Lenten appeal. Remember that you can donate this link set up specifically for our school.
Wellbeing Week
Recently, we celebrated Wellbeing Week for both our students and Staff. Various activities were held across the week that provided different opportunities for students to develop and build their spiritual, emotional and physical wellbeing.
At Christ the King School, we believe that a culture that fosters positive relationships between students, staff and community is the foundation for students to experience engagement, growth and agency in their learning and enables positive outcomes for all students. Current educational research highlights the alignment between deep learning with improved student wellbeing.
The holistic growth of the child is supported by practices of wellbeing to achieve improved learning outcomes. Effective student wellbeing practices at school can have positive impacts for life. Research suggests that there are strong links between a positive sense of wellbeing and higher levels of achievement, engagement with learning, attendance, resilience, and positive student behaviour. Many thanks to so many students who willingly engaged in the activities offered.
Join Us for Holy Week
To commemorate Holy Week at Christ the King School, students will attend and participate in three Holy Week prayer reflections. The dates for each reflection are:
- Friday, 22 March | 2:30pm – Palm Sunday, led by Prep and Year 3
- Monday, 25 March | 2:30pm – Holy Thursday and the Washing of Feet, led by Year 1; and The Last Supper, led by Year 2 and Year 4
- Wednesday, 27 March | 2:15pm – Good Friday, led by Year 5 and Year 6
We encourage and welcome families to join us for these prayer sessions.
Prayer
Spanning across the six weeks of Lent, Project Compassion brings thousands of schools, parishes and supporters together to raise funds for the most marginalised communities around the world.
Let us pray for those who live in poverty and experience hardship.
May God, through the generosity of people like you and me, fed the hungry and clothe the naked.
We can make this prayer through Christ our Lord.
Amen
SOURCE: Ways to Pray Year B Week 8 2024 | © Brisbane Catholic Education (2024)
Damien Sullivan
Principal