Welcome back to all our families and a special welcome to our new families. This is our first newsletter for 2017 and already a lot of significant events have taken place.
Our Bible verse for 2017 is from Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” This is a beautiful verse that I think every parent would want for their children and families. As a school that emphasises values, we thought this verse was perfect to guide our thinking this year.
Infrastructure improvements
A lot happened over the holidays and our Property Team were kept busy. There is now an undercover walkway right along the Kiss and Go express lane alongside N Block and the car park. This will protect our students from the sun and those notorious showers that always seem to hit at 3pm.
Prep Maroon has its own toilet block (temporary until a permanent one is built very soon), our Primary Music room has been converted from two small classrooms to one large performance area and there has been a lick of fresh paint to many parts of the College. There were many more upgrades that are largely hidden but I want to thank the Property Team for working so hard during unpleasantly hot weather while many of us were on holidays enjoying a relaxing swim.
Uniforms
After a two-year phase in period, the new uniform and logo is now mandatory for all students. Teachers and staff will be on the lookout for infringements with zero tolerance for infractions. The only items permitted with the old logo are the College backpacks and they will be phased out by the end of this year.
OP Results
Each year our students’ academic performance continually do us proud. Well done to all of our students who did their best and a special congratulations to those who received the OP scores they hoped for. Here is how our Year 12 OP students performed:
College Dedication Service
We value our history at GCC and give thanks to God for his faithfulness to us over the years. This is why we asked Mrs Cheryl Bryers to be our guest speaker at the 2017 College Dedication Service. Cheryl was able to speak first-hand about how God had grown the College from 16 students in 2000 to the 1065 we have in 2017.
It was a good time to look back with thankfulness and look forward with excitement.
Leadership Inductions
As we took time to dedicate the whole College to the Lord we also had two special services where we set apart our Middle and Senior School leaders for 2017.
The services were held on Monday 6 February and guest speaker was Nikki Nucifora from Psychology Café and Milkbar (previously known as Family Challenge in Mooloolaba). Nikki spoke on how all good leaders are servants and used her friend, Andy Gourley (founder of Red Frogs Australia) as an example.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of our Middle and Senior School Leaders.
If you missed the event and don’t have Facebook, you can see all the photos here: Middle School Leaders’ Induction; Senior School Leaders’ Induction.
Prep-2 Playground and sandpit
Children are not to play on this or any other playground at the College unsupervised. The College does provide supervision during normal school hours only, that is during the break times between 8.30 am to 3.00 pm but nothing outside of these hours.
We do allow children to play on the equipment on weekdays but this is only if a parent/caregiver is actively supervising their own child/ren. It is not good enough for someone to “watch” a friend’s child as well as their own. It must be one to one supervision.
New staff
We reached a new milestone in 2017 with three streams from Prep to Year 12 with the addition of 6W this year. As a school with approximately 1065 students and 165 staff, we experience more staff movements even though we have the same small percentage turnover. Take a few minutes to read about our new staff in this newsletter and say hello to them next time you see them on campus.
Mike Curtis, Principal