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St Paul’s Lutheran Primary School in Caboolture has been announced as a finalist in the Primary School of the Year category in the 2018 and 2019 Australian Education Awards.

This national recognition is an affirmation of the incredible people who make up our community – students, parents and the staff, said Principal, Anton Prinsloo. St Paul’s is not about any one person, any one program or a culture of empire building – it’s all about the children and what is best for all the students in our care. He went on to say that this recognition is an affirmation of the outstanding learning programs, the contemporary learning philosophy, and numerous opportunities on offer at St Paul’s.

We are a smallish primary school involved in programs and providing offerings normally associated with large primary schools. Every week, without fail, our school newsletter is filled with acknowledgements, celebrations, and stories of our school community. Key to this are strong, honest, trusting and very transparent working relationships which the school has with its parent community, he said.

St Paul’s has, over the past 6 years, been at the forefront of transforming its teaching and learning philosophy to research-based innovative primary school teaching and learning programs to ensure improved student engagement and ultimately improved student outcomes. The school has during this time introduced a 1-1 iPad program from Year 1 to 6, flexible learning spaces consistent flexible learning frameworks for literacy and numeracy from Prep to Year 6 as well as Inquiry Learning Framework across all year levels. The school also differentiates across its learning programs for all the students, meaning that they don’t prescribe to a one size fits all mindset when it comes to delivering the Australian curriculum.

Mr Prinsloo said that high quality whole staff professional development, the exceptional staff which model an attitude of selflessness, every day, growing a culture of it’s okay to make mistakes, conducting parent workshops and keeping the parents informed about their child’s journey at St Paul’s underpins the culture which is our community.

Year 4, 5 and 6 in Senior Japanese have had a very exciting focus this term as we have linked the Japanese language with literacy. I have been so pleased with how much interest and enjoyment that the students have shown with these Japanese texts. In Year 4, we are learning to read a Japanese text called, “Ekiben Shinkansen.” ‘Eki’ means train and ‘ben’ refers to a bento box, therefore it refers to a bento box meal that we eat on a train.
We have learnt the word for ‘bullet train’ which is a ‘shinkansen’ and we are learning to write this word in hiragana (しんかんせん). All students loved seeing Miller Sensei’s videos of the five shinkansen’s that she travelled on in the recent school holidays within Japan!

In Years 5 and 6, we are learning to read an old Japanese folk tale called, “Omusubi Kororin.” ‘Omosubi’ is an old fashioned Japanese word for onigiri. ‘Kororin’ means rolling so it is translated as, “The Rolling Rice Ball.” Our learning intention is to retell the story with Japanese words, phrases and Japanese sign language. Students have been encouraged to read and write the title of our story in hiragana. They are also learning how to read and write three kanji characters representing three keywords from our story. They include tree (ki), river (kawa) and mountain (yama). Please see examples of the Japanese writing forms below –
“Omusubi Kororin” (おむすび ころりん) tree 木 river 川 mountain 山
Please notice the link above with the Year 3 Junior students learning the kanji for Thursday (木) and the Senior students learning ‘ki’ for tree (木). This is purposeful as the Senior Japanese program compliments and builds upon prior learning in the Junior Japanese program at St. Paul’s. Walker Sensei and I are meeting on Monday, Week 3 to ensure that seamless planning and programming occurs for all students in 2020.

“Onigiri Action” is a social justice action program that attempts to ‘change the world with onigiri.’ It is a wonderful initiative that the students and are supporting from the 7th October – 20th November 2019. Senior students are encouraged to bring in an ‘omusubi’ rice ball every Thursday to Senior Japanese Club. Miller Sensei will then take a photo of the omusubi (food photos only) and upload it to the website. For every photo posted with the hashtag #OnigiriAction, their partner organisations will provide 5 school meals to children in need (Africa and South East Asia). Let’s make ‘onigiri with love’ for children in need all around the world! A $1.00 colouring competition has also begun to raise much needed funds for this great cause. Prizes will be awarded to each year level from Prep – Year 6. Please donate $1.00 and receive your colouring entry outside the Japanese classroom for the first 10 minutes of every lunchtime for the next three weeks.
Ganbatte kudasai, (Good luck)
Miller Sensei J

This Term in Japanese, the Year 3 students are learning how to say and write the ‘days of the week’ and use these words in a basic sentence. Every day ends with the word 曜日 (youbi), which means “day of the week”. The only difference lies in the first character.
• 月 (getsu) means moon, so Monday is the day of moon.
• 火 (ka) means fire, so Tuesday is the day of fire.
• 水 (sui) means water, so Wednesday is the day of water.
• 木 (moku) means tree/wood, so Thursday is the day of wood.
• 金 (kin) means gold, so Friday is the day of gold.
• 土 (do) means soil/earth, so Saturday is the day of earth.
• 日 (nichi) means sun, so Sunday is the day of sun.
The students really enjoyed creating small ‘days of the week’ works of art using the kanji symbols and water colours. The artworks are on display in the Japanese classroom and we invite you to come in and view them.
Arigatou gozaimasu,
Walker Sensei J

The Year 6 Students went on their Outback – Roma West Safari Camp in Week 9 of Term 3. It was a learning experience that had many fun moments as well as moments that challenged all students and took them out of their comfort zones.

Here are some of the things our Year 6’s experienced: We stayed at various places in Outback Queensland such as the Columboola Environmental Education Centre, Ups and Downs Farm Stay in Roma, and the Jondaryan Woolshed. At Columboola, we participated in activities like orienteering and yabbying and at night we stayed in tents. After we left Columboola we visited the Miles Historical Museum which was one of the highlights of our trip.

For two nights we stayed at the Ups and Downs Farm Stay in Roma where we had to set up our own tents and blow up our air mattresses. It was very cold sleeping in our tents. While we were in Roma we visited the Roma Cattle Saleyards, which are the biggest sale yards in Australia. Then we had a Roma Town Tour and lunch at the Big Rig. After that, we visited the Great Artesian Spa, where we had a swim in the hot mineral spring waters. This was definitely another highlight of our trip.

On our last night, we stayed at the Jondaryan Woolshed where we all slept in a massive hall and watched a movie. It was like the biggest sleepover we have ever had. The next morning, we packed our stuff up and participated in the activities Jondaryan had to offer, including damper making, a visit to the animal nursery and a horse and cart ride.

Overall, this camp was one of the best we have had throughout our primary school. We all enjoyed it and learnt lots of new and interesting things. This year’s camp was a great success.

Book Week is celebrated annually at St Paul’s and we started the week off with the opening of our Book Fair.  A very big thank you to everyone who came and supported this event.  It was a huge success enabling us to purchase new resources to benefit the students.  Congratulations to Addy who won the $50 book raffle which was generously donated by the Book Warehouse. 

Next we had our Book Blanket with the Year 6 students reading to students from Kindy to Year 5.  This was a wonderful event as it really showcased the idea behind Book Week –  where children and books are brought together.  Well done to all our readers!

It was great to see the students and staff getting into the spirit by dressing up as as a book character for our Dress-up Parade.

As part of the celebrations for Book Week, the students were invited to create a poster based on the Book Week theme ‘Reading is my secret power’.  All students who entered did a fantastic job, congratulations our winners.

The Year 3 students had an amazing first camp experience at YMCA Petrie in Week 5. We all participated in pottery, low ropes, an environmental walk, catapult building, and Indigenous art and boomerang throwing. There were smiles all round at mealtimes with everyone enjoying the great food. We arrived home exhausted but happy with wonderful memories and experiences we will remember for a long time.

Year Two has been busily preparing their Geography Models for the Learning Expo. 

They have thoroughly enjoyed finding out about how they are connected to different parts of the world and have enthusiastically researched and built models of special places they have discovered in the countries with which they have connections. Parents have happily donated time to assist with the building process for which we have greatly appreciated.

Prep has been investigating the needs of living things and one of them has been the needs of our pets. We have been reading the book series, Juliet, Nearly a Vet by Rebecca Johnson who also does school visits telling the children about what vets do. We each had a vet kit and our toy pets where we practiced being a vet. What a great afternoon.

This week in Junior Japanese the Year 1 students have been learning weather vocabulary.  Our focus for the week was on the word ‘hare’ which means sunny.  We also learnt how to ask the question, “Tenki wa dou desu ka”, which means, “How is the weather?” Students enjoyed making a ‘hare’ craft to help remind them of their new vocabulary.

In Senior Japanese this term we have been focusing on learning ‘jiko shoukai’ which means how to introduce ourselves in Japanese. We practise having a conversation in Japanese with a partner every week. Here is an example of what we are practising to say currently:

*Hajimemashite (Hi. How do you do?) + Rei (Bow)

*Konnichiwa (Hello / Good afternoon)

*Watashi wa (name) desu – girls OR Boku wa (name) desu – boys

*(Grade) nensei desu (I am in grade _______ )

*(Item) ga suki desu (I like _______ )

*(Suburb) ni sunde imasu (I live in _______ )

*Douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu (Nice to meet you)

*Arigatou gozaimashita (Thank you very much) + Rei (bow)

We have also made tanuki (Japanese raccoon dogs) in Year 4 and koinobori (carp kite streamers) for the Children’s Day Festival in Years 5 and 6.

They look fabulous in the Japanese classroom!

Thank you to everyone who has entered the Japanese Festival’s Art competition too. Final entries are due this Thursday, 1^st August 2019. Ganbarou – Good luck!

Arigatou gozaimasu,

Walker Sensei and Miller Sensei

Sport at St Paul’s in Term 2 has focused heavily on Athletics: Track and Field Events.

For senior students, weekly PE lessons and Friday afternoon sessions were timetabled to give students the opportunity to experience and practices different Track and Field Events: 800m, 200m, 100m, Shot Put, High Jump, Long Jump & Team games. All working towards beating and being their personal best, as well as trying to qualify for the District and/or Inter Lutheran Athletics Team. 

Junior students also experienced the fun of particular Athletic and Team Game Events: Long Jump, High Jump, Target/Rainbow Throw, Tug of War, Ball Games, Egg and Spoon races, & Sprint races. The Juniors were very excited and enthused to practice these events, as they knew they had to perform them at the recent Junior School Sports Day Carnival.

Next term, Junior School classes get to explore the art and skill of Gymnastics – fundamental movements. Information of a performance showcase at the end of term will be highly likely. Senior students will be involved in a few units: Tradition Indigenous Games, Ultimate Frisbee & Touch Football. They can also look forward to representing St Paul’s at the annual Inter Lutheran Athletics Carnival, and being involved, once again, in the Sports Gala Days: Girls Netball or Touch Football & Boys Cricket, as well as nominating at Year 4-6 team for the Netball Primary School Cup mid-September.