Maleny Show achievements
It’s been a very exciting time hearing about our achievements in the recent Maleny Show. Mandy Ward entered our produce on behalf of our fabulous Kitchen Garden students and won a slew of prizes including: first prize for traditional hummus; first prize for flavoured hummus (roasted beetroot); first prize for ricotta cheese; and two third places for tomatoes and parsley. The students received certificates of achievements and won a cookbook and cheese board for their cheese. Congratulations to Mandy and all the students. I’m sure that they are very proud of their achievements.
At the other end of the school, Jade King entered produce on behalf of our Agricultural students and did
exceptionally well. The school won: first place for cabbage; first place for passionfruit; second place for English Potatoes; second place for tomatoes; third place for mixed root vegetables; and third place for tropical fruit. The cash prizes are fairly small but the reward of a job well done is huge!
Language Perfect French Competition
Recently our French students participated in the online Language Perfect competition and did themselves proud. At one point the College was coming 4th in Queensland for French and it was a nail biting few days as the competition continued. This was an online competition where more than 1000 schools registered their students. Overall GCCC came 9th for French in Queensland, which is a great achievement. Well done students and their teachers, Nadine Hammill and Lee-anne Gordon. More details including the gold, silver and bronze winners are included in Lee-anne’s article later on in the newsletter.
Dancers at Sunshine Coast Plaza
Continuing the success stories, our Primary and Middle School Dance troupes participated in the ‘Breakthru School Musical and Dance Competition’ at the Sunshine Plaza on Saturday 31 May and made it through to the finals! There were two different kinds of voting, one before the judges and one from online support of friends, families and school members. It was the combined impact of the judges’ votes and all of our family support that sent GCCC to the finals so thank you to everyone who took the time to vote online and especially to our Facebook followers.
‘Fame Junior – The Musical’
I hope most of you had the pleasure of enjoying our younger students in ‘Fame Junior – The Musical’ over the weekend. It was my very great pleasure to be in the audience on the Saturday matinee session and I thought it was fantastic! It was full of great acting and great music. I may be a biased critic but I was thoroughly entertained by our students’ performances. I was particularly delighted by the fact that there were some unexpected performers (perhaps seen even as shy in their usual contexts) who were amazing.
Full credit goes to Stacey as the director but there is a wonderful team of volunteers who have supported her through this journey. Naturally, all of our Art staff put in many extra hours long after the practices were finished. Along with Stacey Whyte, I’d like to thank James Follett, Sam Law, Ebony Hilton, Patrice Cutlack, Susan Marquet, Penny White and Jackie Cornel. Kris Freeman has been working backstage on hair and makeup, Kathy Hopson has been helping with voice coaching and Rachel Bull has been coordinating all the ticket sales.
My heartfelt congratulations for putting on such a brilliant show! Those hours and hours of rehearsal were worth it in the finished product. The students and staff did a remarkable job and I’m sure others enjoyed the performance as much as I did.
Good students are the result of great teachers
During the last month I have been able to walk around the College, visiting all the classrooms several times and each time I am impressed by what I see. Our teaching staff are truly great at what they do and it is the students who benefit from their skill, dedication and faithfulness.
We see some of the results in big achievements like I’ve previously mentioned but there are also the quiet achievers who are creative in their lesson plans, care deeply for their students and continually go above and beyond what is required to give the children the best education possible.
School Crossing Supervisor Anniversary
It’s been 30 years since the School Crossing Supervisor Scheme (SCSS) was first launched in Queensland in 1984. At that time, 255 schools adopted the scheme and 353 school crossings were opened across the state.
Fast forward to 2014 and 652 schools have adopted the scheme, with more than 1200 school crossings across the state.
A school crossing supervisor’s role is to assist children in safely crossing roads on their way to and from school and GCCC’s two supervisors, Tony Vobr and Darren Firth, excel in this job. Next time you are crossing the road, take a few seconds to thank them.
Parenting in the playground
I know it is difficult not to intervene when you see someone else’s child misbehaving at school but please remember that it is not your place to discipline another person’s child at school. It is the job of the staff member in charge to supervise students’ behaviour at school. If it is after hours and a staff member is not present, please report the behaviour to Admin and we will be happy to send a staff member to deal with the situation.
If there has been an incident with your child and another during school time and the school is dealing with it, then it is never appropriate to discuss it with the other child. It will only jeopardise the good work that has already been done and it is overstepping your boundaries as a parent of the College.
Parenting is tricky at the best of times and no mother or father likes their parenting skills called into question. It is a very sensitive area. We all have differing parenting styles so please let us be respectful of one another.
Mike Curtis, Principal