23 August 2024

When students feel valued and supported by their peers and teachers, they are more likely to take risks in their learning, participate actively in school activities, and develop resilience in the face of challenges. Positive relationships also contribute to a safer school environment, as students are more likely to respect and care for one another, reducing instances of bullying and conflict.

For teachers and staff, fostering these relationships requires a commitment to open communication, inclusivity, and understanding. By prioritising the wellbeing of every student and creating an environment where everyone feels they belong, schools can ensure that their communities are not only places of learning but also safe, nurturing spaces where every individual can flourish.

Today is Bullying No Way! Day. Our Senior School students reflected the nationally recognised definition of bullying and how to prevent bullying and what to do if you observe it taking place. Rather than being a bystander, students are always encouraged to live by our College values and have courage to be an upstander.

The extended definition and explanation of bullying is:

Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm. It can involve an individual or a group misusing their power, or perceived power, over one or more persons who feel unable to stop it from happening. 

Bullying can happen in person or online, via various digital platforms and devices and it can be obvious (overt) or hidden (covert). Bullying behaviour is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time (for example, through sharing of digital records). 

Bullying of any form or for any reason can have immediate, medium and long-term effects on those involved, including bystanders. Single incidents and conflict or fights between equals, whether in person or online, are not defined as bullying.

At RJ, we deeply value and respect each individual for their unique characteristics, qualities, and personality. We believe that each person is created in the image of God, deserving of dignity and respect, regardless of how different they may seem from others.

Our RJ community, including staff, students, and families, stands united against bullying in any form. When someone attempts to bully a member of our community, they are targeting one of our own, and this will not be tolerated. We are committed to fostering an environment where everyone feels safe, valued, and supported.

In Philippians 2:4-5, it reads, “Abandon every display of selfishness. Possess a greater concern for what matters to others instead of your own interests. And consider the example that Jesus, the Anointed One, has set before us. Let his mindset become your motivation”.

We are encouraged to care deeply for the wellbeing of others and to be proactive in looking out for one another. By doing this as a community, we make it clear that bullying has no place among us. Those who attempt to harm others through bullying will find that their behaviour is not tolerated here.

Let’s uphold our values by respecting and caring for each other, while demonstrating the courage to give our most excellent best in all that we do. Together, we create a community where everyone can belong, serve and succeed.

God Bless
Mr Alan Dawson | Principal 

Quality Stand Alone Auction Items > $50 (All families) 

We invite families to donate quality items for our silent auction. Whether it’s a gift voucher, a business product or service, your gift will be appreciated e.g. Nutrimetics pack, sports memorabilia, cleaning service. Please leave items at Reception or email vouchers to Mrs Stephanie Ghali, [email protected]. Please note a minimum value of $50 is required. Business donations will be noted on our website.

General Auction Hamper Items (JS Year Groups)

Each Junior School Year Group can donate new themed items for our silent auction hampers. Collection baskets will be in each classroom and at Junior School Reception.

• Kindergarten: Baby items (e.g. toys, nappies, jumpsuits, light blankets)
• Year 1: Pamper items (e.g. candles, luxury soap, bath bombs)
• Year 2: Games & puzzle items (e.g. monopoly, brainteasers)
• Year 3: Children's craft items (e.g. pom-poms, craft sticks, glue)
• Year 4: Kitchen & baking items (e.g. cake trays, aprons, platters, tea towels)
• Year 5: Gourmet pantry items (e.g. crackers, oils, chocolates, jams)
• Year 6: Books & magazine items (e.g. children’s books, crossword puzzles, appropriate adult books)

Auction Hamper Preparation - Preparation of hampers and donations (Friday, 20 Sept from 9:00am)

Auction Item Security - General supervision of hampers and items/vouchers so they don’t go missing (9:00am to 1:00pm – one hour slots)

Auction Closure – Assist with payment processing, distribution of items/hampers (1:00pm close, 1:15pm announcement of winners)

Children’s Field Activities – Supervision of Giant Jenga, Giant Connect 4 and Table Tennis activities to ensure safe play and that items do not go missing (9:00am to 2:00pm – one hour slots)

Children’s Craft Activities – Setup and supervision – Activities likely to be sandart, origami, colouring in (TBC) (8:00am to 2:00pm – one hour slots)

Cake Stall – Setup and sales (Friday from 3:00pm, Saturday 8:00am to 2:00pm – one hour slots)

Setting Up (8:00am to 9:00am), Pack Down/Clean Up (2:00pm to 3:00pm)

As per policy, volunteers will be required to have a current Volunteer WWCC.

Register availability and interest area -  https://bit.ly/4fw3KnT

Special Roles – Could this be you?

We need a capable person to facilitate the bump-in of our stallholders from 7:00am. Sites have been allocated and stallholders advised of where to go beforehand. However, oversight is required. 

We also need a volunteer to coordinate the children’s craft activities for the day e.g. origami, colouring in, sand art. Activities can be changed to suit the co-ordinator. 

Please let Mrs Stephanie Ghali know if you can assist in the above two roles as soon as possible. For more information or if you would like to contribute in another way please email [email protected].

We have all experienced at different times in our lives, people that lead without any formal responsibility to do so. These people appear to be natural magnets that draw other people in, set an agenda (often without explicitly doing so) and have other people naturally following them. Any teacher (and any parent too) would have seen young people who use this to wonderful effect, demonstrating kindness and including others, standing up for what they believe and generally making others feel like they belong. Still others seem to gather people to themselves and make poor choices that typically produce the opposite of the above. A great litmus test for understanding young people (and slightly older ones too) is to see what happens in and around them and their friendship group. Of course there are situations our students go through that are challenging and completely beyond their control, but the evidence lies more in the trends or patterns of behaviour. Everyone takes leadership at some point in their lives, even if it is only in taking control of their own future and as parents and educators we ought to partner with our students in “putting on” habits and values in their lives that breed success and lead others, or themselves, to a better future.

Book Week Celebration

To continue with the theme of “putting on”, it has been marvellous to see both the excitement and creativity of our students (read mums and dads here) in dressing up for Book Week. Our Junior School staff put on a marvellous show for our students this morning as part of our Book Week celebrations. It is moments like these where we ought to stop and “smell the roses”. No doubt many of our mums and dads dread Book Week with the challenge of finding the right outfit every year for a child that never seems to want to wear any of the dress ups available to them at home. Some may have even experienced the last minute change of mind that renders the work leading up to Book Week useless. Whilst all of this can prove challenging each year, we ought to stop and see the joy that comes with our students experience of getting to live out their favourite characters or favourite books. The excitement this morning was simply marvellous. The presentation put on by Mr Marvellous (Mr Dawson), Ms Muddle (Mrs Shannon-Duhigg) and the Junior School teachers this morning was incredibly creative and had the students absolutely enthralled. Cheering, screaming and a great sense of adventure from our students set up a wonderful day ahead including our Book Week Parade. Thank you for your efforts in preparing your students for Book Week and I encourage you to celebrate the adventure into reading with them by taking time out to read them your favourite children’s book this weekend. Encouraging a love of reading in our students starts with them seeing that same love of reading in their parents.

Year 12 Trial HSC Exams

Our Year 12 students are in the middle of their Trial HSC Examinations as this goes to print. Please continue to pray for them as they may have already experienced setbacks and challenges. Let’s continue to encourage them to utilise Resilience and Resourcefulness to produce their best outcomes and support them if they don’t feel like they’ve been able to produce their best.

Mr Scott Roby
Deputy Principal

Many parents joined us for the parades and we were treated to an amazing variety of costumes plus a special performance from Mr Marvellous the Magician and his apprentice, Miss Muddle plus the teachers who brought the magic books to life! Mrs Peterson, our treasured Librarian, ran activities throughout the week to celebrate all things reading and promote a love of literature here at RJ.

KINDNESS is ‘KOOL’

Being kind is one of the values that underpins our College, so the Junior School had a lovely time celebrating Kindness Day last Friday. Selected House meeting activities were devoted to showing kindness in the form of writing appreciation notes to teachers, making a Kindness wall banner and creating a long paper loop chain of Kindness messages.

SCIENCE WEEK

We celebrated Science Week last week with some visits to the Senior School labs for Stage 3 classes looking at whale ‘snot’ plus an engaging Science show performance for Stage 2 last Friday afternoon. Special thanks to Ms Roediger and Mrs Fitzgibbons from the Science faculty for hosting JS students.

HEADPHONES & FIDGET TOYS

A small number of our students have various diagnoses from specialist medical practitioners requiring the need for headphones in highly stimulated surroundings or fidget toys to assist with focus during learning times. As a College, we ask that unless your child has been diagnosed with these needs or our Learning Support Leader has made the request, you do not send in noise-cancelling headphones or fidget toys to school.

CELEBRATING DADS!

Next Thursday 29 August, we will be holding our fundraising Father’s Day stall for students to buy an item for the special father figure in their life. Students are asked to bring $5 or $10 to purchase one gift (notes only, not coins). If you would like to volunteer to assist with the stall from 8:15am to 12:45pm, please email Mrs Stephanie Ghali, [email protected]

On Friday 30 August we will hold our popular Fathers’ Day Sausage Sizzle breakfast from 8am. Fathers are welcome to join us at Pioneers Way near the picnic tables. Accompanying students can also have a sausage sizzle breakfast. 

Please RSVP here https://forms.office.com/r/GkUEGd4Q5v

TICKET TIME!

The highly-anticipated performances of our Junior School Musical, Finding Nemo Jr are coming up in Week 7.
Get your tickets now – you won’t want to miss this!

Mrs Karen Shannon-Duhigg
Head of Junior School

Join us for an unforgettable performance as our Junior School presents Finding Nemo JR. the musical. Dive into the fun and experience the vibrant RJ community spirit up close! 

Tickets on Sale Now!

TryBooking – https://www.trybooking.com/CUAEK

Performance Dates

Wednesday 11 September 7pm

Thursday 12 September 7pm

Friday 13 September 7pm

Respect and Care

I would again like to acknowledge the majority of students and their families who support the college through ensuring that the correct uniform is worn each day. Wearing the uniform well not only demonstrates respect of the College, it makes a positive contribution to the sense of belonging within the student body. Parents/carers are reminded to contact their child's home group teacher if there are any issues/concerns regarding the College uniform.

It has been pleasing to see an overall improvement in the wearing of the uniform across the Senior School. Students will continue to be reminded to take care in the way they wear their uniform. Staff will speak with students who are not wearing the uniform correctly, confiscating items that are not part of the uniform and contacting parents/carers when needed.

Courage and Excellence

It is pleasing to see the number of students in Year 11 who have applied for leadership positions as they move to become the Class of 2025. Our hope and prayer is that they will demonstrate courage through the interview process, and always strive for excellence, that is striving to improve on their best in all they do, in any form of leadership and their learning.

Thank you to the Science staff for making Science Week a great success. It was pleasing to see students involved in the  Year 7 STEM Taster Day and also students from the Junior School engaging in activities in the Senior School Science labs. 

Students and Social Media

Recent commentary in the media relation to young people and social media, along with a proposal from a number of politicians to raise the minimum age to access social media platforms from 13 to 16 years has prompted me to share the following.

When speaking with parents/carers I often discuss the benefit of parents/carers following their children on social media and regularly speaking with them about their use of social media. If parents/carers purchased the phone and pay for the mobile service for their child it is fitting that they would monitor how it is being used, including social media and the photo gallery. If students and parents/carers are concerned about how a phone or social media is being used they can contact the Esafety commissioner - https://www.esafety.gov.au/ - to report concerns and also access resources relevant to them. 

For parents  - https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents

For Senior School students - https://www.esafety.gov.au/young-people

If you have not visited this site I highly recommend that you do as it provides information to help raise awareness. It also provides strategies outlining how to respond to a range of situations. It tackles some confronting topics, such as sexting and the issue of nude images, and outlines 'what do to' for both students and parents/carers to help them talk about an issue that might be of concern.

If there are any concerns relating to social media use and other forms of online communication, a starting point could be contacting a member of Wellbeing at the College. Raising a concern is the starting point of looking out for and helping our students and their families.

Final thoughts

As our students in Year 12 complete their Trial HSC Exams they are quickly moving towards the end of thirteen years of schooling. All the staff at the College are praying for them and want them to succeed both at the College and beyond. I look forward to celebrating with Year 12 and their families at the Graduation Assembly on Friday 29 September. Information regarding Year 12 activities for the rest of Term 3 will be communicated directly to the students and their parents/carers.

Please ensure to use the RJ APP to keep up with communication and any required permission throughout Term 3. If parents/carers have any questions please make contact with your child's Home Group teacher.

Mr Brad Maxwell
Head of Senior School

Throughout the week, students participated in various activities with a focus on sustainability. Stage 3 students visited the new Senior School science labs and conducted research on non-invasive testing, including an analysis of whale snot. Year 7 students took part in a STEM Day involving activities aimed at enhancing their critical thinking and collaboration skills. The week concluded with an engaging science show for stage 2 students. A big thank you to all the teachers and students involved during the week; we hope to have inspired the next generation of scientists!

Wednesday 28 August

6:00 - 8:00pm

Friends and Family join us! Experience the creativity, craftsmanship, and ingenuity of our talented Senior School (Years 7-12). Exhibition features the Year 12 HSC major projects. Enjoy light refreshments from 6:30pm while you explore their exceptional work.

WSCS

Our students had their first round of competition in WSCS on Wednesday. They had a great time competing against other Christian Schools, displaying great teamwork. They look forward to next week’s matches. Please note that all Stage 3 boys Oz Tag matches are at Popondetta Park, no matches are at Heber Park – one match each week on the draw has an error reflecting this. Stage 2 boys Oztag matches are at Heber Park. 

Mr Gavin Mitchell
Junior School Sports Leader