ANZAC Pride

In Australia we are seeing the youth make greater connections with their past and ancestry through significant historical events and our community’s commemoration of ANZAC Day has certainly been a demonstration of this throughout the week.  Firstly, we had the College ANZAC Day Service with Father Jim Cronin and Sergeant Major of the School of Aviation, Oakey, Warrant Officer Class 2 Tim Thompson in attendance.  It was a great experience for our students to hear from a highly ranked army officer who has had much experience both in active service in Afghanistan and New Guinea as well as peacetime operations all over the world.  We learnt of the value of peace, as well as the critical times where we must stand up for our countrymen and nation. In addition to this, yesterday, we saw the Dalby RSL in conjunction with the Western Downs Regional Council and a variety of  community bands and groups come together for two amazing ANZAC Day services, both of which the College were active in attendance and marching.  It was a privilege to march and attend both services with our students yesterday, and I was extremely proud to see so many of our young men and women valuing the past and developing an understanding of this past in their history.  In recent years we have seen greater engagement in ANZAC Day commemorations, and we pray that this trend continues into the future.  Thank you to all of our students, families, cadets and community members who marched and attended the services, or were there to encourage and support out students who did so.  Thank mostly though, to those dedicated and selfless service personnel who have, and continue to, be stationed and deployed all over the world in dedicated service to the betterment of life for others.   

Welcome Mr Wager

This week we have welcomed Mr Wager who has taken on the teaching of Classroom and Instrumental Music at OLSCC for the remainder of the year.  Although only here a few days as yet, we have already seen Mr Wager’s commitment to the students and his curiosity to enhance our instrumental music program in the near future.

NAPLAN

Only a few weeks to go until the NAPLAN testing on 14 - 16 May for all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.  As a distinct focus of our College developing assessment capable learners, there are a few mindsets that we are building with our students that will not only help with assessment, though will also make them better learners and employees in years to come.  They are as follows:

• NAPLAN is important, so we want all students to try their best to achieve as highly as they can.
• NAPLAN is hard.  There are many items you simply won’t be able to do, though there are many that you can do very well.
• All students can achieve well in NAPLAN given that they prepare well and focus their time and energy during assessment.  There are no trick questions!
• The best thing a student can do is practice to ensure their timing is right.  This means they have the best chance of showing their true capability
• There is no need to stress.  It’s only assessment. Just a process of doing your work in a time constraint.  There are no consequences for errors. 

Accordingly the teachers will be giving opportunities for students to practice for NAPLAN over coming weeks to ensure they are best prepared.

Pete Cuskelly

Principal