FAITH CHRISTIAN SCHOOL

Newsletter End of Year Term 4 2017

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:4-9

From the Principal Congratulations to all our students, parents and support staff on completing a very successful year of learning and growth. It is hard to believe Christmas is here again, I’m sure the world has been spinning faster. Yet when I look back on the achievements of the staff and school community I can see there has been the growth and development of services worth two and a half years.

This year’s achievements:

• Increased help in Primary and Secondary Maths.

• More localised weekly Library days.

• Growth and development of Senior Secondary lesson standards.

• Clear systems for Senior parents and students to understand daily work targets.

• Online Student work folders in place.

• Increased frequency of conferencing for students’ written work.

• Greater staff training and incredible staff unity.

• Exciting workshops, trips and sports days in each area (over 50 through the year).

• South Bank Extravaganza.

• Purchase of 15 Geonic Street Woodridge and completion of our application for a Special Assistance School that would allow Commonwealth funding for our DE.

• Building works and plans including the successful rezoning of 15 Geonic Street to include Educational purposes.

• Trial of our Master Chef Gold Coast program that we hope to have operating in main areas in the future.

• Very successful Science Fairs in all areas -great to see the learning and presentations!

• Increase in Special Needs services with additional Staff appointed.

• Very successful results in our Senior Secondary moderation and results.

• Trial of three local area dance groups and resulting performances.

ITEMS WITHIN THIS NEWSLETTER:

• From the Principal

• Important Dates and news

• North Brisbane Awards

• Gold Coast News

• Wallaby Rescue

• Toowoomba News

• South Brisbane Awards

• North Brisbane End of Year Excursion

• South Brisbane End of Year Excursion

• Kingaroy Awards

• MacKay and Wide Bay Awards note

• Appointment of 7 new staff (3 being additional).

• The completion of a draft budget for an additional 3 in February and 2 more in May 2018.

• Completion of another exciting overseas Missions Trip.

• Starting of a small Vanuatu village school, fundraised by students to provide all materials…

• Completion of 8 Successful and encouraging local area awards evenings.

• Several students making commitments to Christ.

• Many students overcoming learning challenges and making outstanding progress.

• Improvement in family to teacher connection and support.

This is just part of the things that God has been doing through your school, Faith Christian School DE. Thanks to all of you, Parents, Teachers and Students -for your great efforts and commitment. Next year is going to be very exciting and I thank God for all that He is providing. Dream big people, we serve a mighty God! Regards Jason Caldwell

To see the year in pictures: https://youtu.be/VBO8EJH6L4U . PS. Try to have your children doing a bit of reading and some oral Maths games through the holidays, keep those areas of the brain alive…

Faith Christian School Term Dates 2017

Important Term 4 dates to remember:

6th Dec South Brisbane Prize Giving 7th Dec North Brisbane & Sunshine Coast Prize Giving 8th Dec End of School Year 20th Dec Office closed 8th Jan Office re-opens 23 Jan School Returns 26th Jan Australia Day 29th Jan First Day Term 1 29th Jan Kingaroy Family Day 31st Jan Gold Coast & South Brisbane Family Day 1st Feb North Brisbane Family Day 2nd Feb Mackay Family Day 5th Feb Sunshine Coast Family Day 6th Feb Toowoomba Family Day 9th Feb Ipswich Family Day 9th Feb Rockhampton Workshop 15 -17th Feb Mon Repo’s Turtle Family Camp 27th Feb Widebay Workshop 5th Mar Toowoomba Workshop 7th Mar South Brisbane Workshop 9th Mar North Brisbane Workshop 12th Mar Kingaroy Workshop 13th Mar Ipswich Workshop 15th Mar Mackay Workshop 16th Mar Sunshine Coast Workshop 26 – 28 Mar Senior Camp – Yr 9 to 12 28th Mar End of Term 1 30th Mar Good Friday Reports Reporting visits have been completed and reports are being sent out. We have had one or two teachers with challenges (a car accident in Mackay and Mr Caldwell with several urgent principal duties) but will endeavour to have the reports out as soon as possible. Enrolments For 2018 We have around 150 pre-enrolments for 2018 with 740 current enrol-ments. Please be aware all families will need to advise us of enrolment intention for next year via the “reply to the email” forward out to all families recently. Thank you to all the families who have responded. Building Progress The builder Brad is getting a real vision as he sees God opening the doors. I told him to get used to it working on Faith projects. We have been demolish-

Term Start Date Finish Date Weeks

Term 1 29th January 28th March 9

Term 2 17th April 28th June 11

Term 3 16th July 21st September 10

Term 4 8th October 7th December 9.5

Michael on the hammer-drill

Principal training on the jackhammer

ing callings and prepping ready for knocking down a storage bunker and toilet block of concrete blocks. The knock down would take 2 days and the clean-up 2 days heavy work for several. I suggested getting in machines but the cost is prohib-itive, never mind good exercise… Then the day before we started knocking down the walls I was doing program visits and helping with learn-ing needs. The new family and the children were get-ting inspired. The father Tony asked about the build, then said he owns a garden centre and has trucks and excavators, asking, “what do you need”. So two men on machines turned up the next day and tore down the block work and trucked away -12 tons of demolition Wow, God id Good -Thanks Kelly and Tony. Everyone is still sore but not cost or heavy machinery contract needed. Next my children and I were onto the jackhammers and hammer drills.

Jade above, broken nails after Demolition work. Geoff and Jasmine -God Bless you.

North Brisbane & Sunshine Coast Awards Night On the evening of 7th December, families and staff from North Brisbane and Sunshine Coast regions gathered at Lawnton to celebrate the achievements of students and their parents. A number of proud grandparents also attended.

Students from Prep to Year 12 were honoured for their scholastic achievements as well as their growth in character over the course of 2017. Special prizes were presented to Sarah and Daniel Hummerston for their winning entries in the Newsletter Quiz competition.

Several excellent items were presented by students, including: a duo dance by Josey and Georgi Holyoak, to the exciting beat of “Shadows”; a very inspiring slideshow and report on this year’s Mission Trip to Vanuatu, from Rianna Baade; and a beautiful Scripture-based song composed and performed on guitar by

Hannah Holyoak. Towards the end of the evening, we paused to honour six of our eight graduating Year 12’s, thanking God for their diligence and the wonderful example they have set for younger students. The six students present (Salem

Evans, Hannah Dowd, Rianna Baade, Jacob Perrin, Hannah Holyoak and Jade Thuell) collaborated in the ceremonial cutting of a large congratulatory cake. Our thoughts and prayers were also with Michaela Monroe and Jackson Lucas, who were unable to attend.

Mr Caldwell gave some current news and inspired families to attend the Mon Repo Turtle Camp in Term 1 next year. He also thanked the staff in attendance, Mrs Tabacaru, Mrs Bryant, Mr Furnivall, Mr Ensinger and Mr Pryce-Davies. A light supper followed during which the large slab of cake was thoroughly demolished. All in all, it was a great night of celebration and fellowship. What a fantastic night! There was a good turnout of Sunshine Coast families attending – more than doubling last year. One family travelled two hours to attend. It was an eventful night, with a soon to be mother having contractions. My husband stood by as a potential driver to the hospital – thankfully he wasn’t needed. A big congratulations to each student for their well-deserved award, and also to the Year 12 students who were acknowledged and enjoyed sharing the tasty cake with everybody. An enjoyable night, had by all! – Sharon Bryant Gold Coast It has been a very busy term on the Gold Coast. The teachers have enjoyed visiting families and we were blown away by the quality of work we have seen. It is wonderful to see so many budding entrepreneurs at work in our school. All this wonderful work was on show at our Christmas workshop where we had students selling hand crafted candles, essential oil bath products, chai syrup, Christmas decorations, baked goods and jewellery. One student who deserves a special mention is Dominique Marando who shows real artistic flair in creating her own jewellery. Her website is very professional. I invite you to click on the link and see for yourself - Dominique’s Wares. Our awards night was a wonderful celebration of our student’s efforts and achievements. Damien Correia entertained us with a drum solo while Cristien displayed his talent at acrobatics. Well done to you all.

The dance group enchanted the audience. Elianna, Naomi, Maia, Havilah and Naavah all your hard work paid dividend. You were terrific.

We wish all of our hard-working students and parents a wonderful and restful holiday. We look forward to working with you again next year. May you all have a joy-filled, Christmas time and every best wish for a very happy new year. We were sad to say goodbye to our graduating students and wish them God’s very best for the future. We are confident that you have given them a solid foundation and that they will be successful in whatever they do. We have enjoyed working with your delightful children at our study sessions. It was a pleasure working with such diligent students. These study sessions are to continue next year. Watch this space for dates and times. Wanda and Emma KINGAROY AWARDS NIGHT 2017 It was fabulous to welcome many of our families to the awards night. We had fine acts performed by the Smith family who sang, Archer read his poem about the importance of being prepared, Aiden played his piano piece, the Holmes family presented their video documentary and the presentation of Jadon’s graphics assignment was awesome.

Beth presented the senior student exam supervisor, Robyn, with a thankyou bunch of flowers and a heartfelt speech of appreciation. It was very special to have Robyn visit our awards night and so lovely of her to speak highly of the three students she had the honour of supervising during exams. It was indeed lovely to hear her high praise to parents for the excellent job they are doing with home education. This is solid praise from a retired school teacher. Flowers were also presented to Mrs Lee with more kind words expressed by Beth.

The Future is looking great!

The smiles tell the story.

I would like to thank all of our hardworking mothers and fathers for the time and effort you share with your children with the goal of giving them the best education possible. You are dedicated parents who

go to the job every day, with no relief teacher to come in when you feel a bit unwell. I am proud of all the effort and determination you bring to this vital role. Congratulations to all of you! Thank you to all students who brought work to display on the night. Cailan and Archer worked feverishly to complete George Dineington the 3rd, a life sized puppet of one of the dinosaur characters in Cailan’s comic novels. Keep exploring all the gifts God has given you. Thank you to Mrs Murray and Amy who made our beautiful graduation cake. We could all taste the extra love and care you put into it, and Mrs Amanda Peterson made gluten free cakes for those who could not eat our special cake.

At the completion of the award presentations there was plenty of catching up to do. I wish you all a safe and restful Christmas holiday break. Relax and enjoy your family time. Blessings, Ann Maree

Please Share Archer’s poem with your family. This will bring a smile!

Wallaby Rescue Our native animals are the main causalities of bushfires and our busy roads. We have many families who open their hearts and homes to injured and orphaned wildlife. One such family is the Watson family from Tully. They are a registered wildlife rescue home and are currently looking after two baby wallabies, hand raising them until they are older, and once they are strong and independent they will be returned to the bush. What most people don’t realise is that when a kangaroo or wallaby is hit by a car, the baby often survives the accident, sheltered safely in the pouch. Meet Benjamin, he only weighed 700grams when he was rescued, but at 14-months old he is thriving. He enjoys his life hopping around inside the house and exploring the surrounding bushland. He is very cheeky and enjoyed nibbling on the bows of my shoes during a visit. Kimba is still only very young and spends her days tucked in her ‘pouch’. She was a tiny ball of fur when rescued, weighing only 630grams. She is now 7-months old and will not leave the pouch until between 11 -12 months of age. She is much quieter, only popping her head out intermittently to have a quick look around. The wallabies have become a part of the family, going to church and on family excursions because they need regular feeding day and night. They are fed a kangaroo milk supplement to replicate the nutrients of their mum’s milk. Baby wallabies stay with their mum for at least two years, even when there is another baby in the pouch. It was a wonderful experience to visit with this amazing family and their beautiful ‘babies’ and I look forward to getting updates of their adventures. Benjamin getting his bottle

Simba in ‘the pouch’

Simeon, Evelyn & Adriel Watson with Kimba & Benjamin

Toowoomba News We had around 200 family members celebrate a very productive and exciting year of schooling with Faith Christian School of Distance Education. A feature of the night was the large number of students who took part in a performance to show the amazing talents our students have.

To start the evening the national anthem was led by Elijah Bolitho, Emily Bolitho, Kathleen Isaacs, Talia Johnson, Benjamin Todd, Clare Todd and Eleanor Todd playing the ukulele and Nikara Doecke, Cody Gray and Licia Spooner leading the vocals. This team also led us in the song, 10,000 Reasons and later the song Hakuna Matata where the vocals were led by Nikara Doecke, Cody Gray (as Timon), Benjamin Todd (as Pumba).

This year a number of our older students travelled to Vanuatu for the Missions Trip. They teamed up with Geoff Caldwell to present a drama titled ‘The cushy Cushor’, a thief who could steal everything except the Word of God which is in our heart. It was very powerful. Later in the evening members of the Toowoomba Choral

Society Youth Choir sang the ‘Solfege Symphony’ and the lovely song ‘Mary, Did You Know’. Emily Bolitho, Talia Johnson, Licia Sooner and Clare Todd sang soprano, Eleanor Todd sang alto, Cody Gray tenor and Benjamin Todd Bass. They were outstanding. https://youtu.be/TCiwj7Mq0pU

Licia Sooner sang a lovely solo, Ethan Jacobson showed great skill with his piano recital and the last item was an excellent Suthers musical item where Caleb, Ben, Mikaela and Elisha played the flute, saxophone, piano and clarinet to entertain us.

https://youtu.be/oOnsoVX2X1M

We are extremely grateful for the way everyone worked hard to ensure the night ran smoothly. Thankyou especially to Mrs Todd and Mrs Bolitho who brought students together on Fridays to practice the ukulele items. We have a wonderful community and thank God for the amazing year we have had.

Have a great Christmas!

South Brisbane Awards Night What a fantastic night of joy, song, dance and celebration. It was a showcase of the wonderful talent we have at Faith Christian School of Distance Education.

The Hall was packed, with a huge audience. The evening was a great way to acknowledge the scholastic accomplishments and commendable character qualities of our students. The evening started with a dance from some of our South Brisbane girls. The dance was choreographed by Mrs Christine Scott solely for the awards night. The girls came together and practiced every week throughout term 4, learning the choreography and perfecting the moves. This required a great deal of dedication from the students and their parents. Their efforts paid off; they performed the dance with excellent execution, good synchronisation, great energy and wonderful smiles. We sang together as a joyful choir under the direction of Mrs Lorin Doughty and Mr Brent Campfens, our voices ringing out in lovely harmony. We were also entertained by the Vanuatu Mission students who acted out an entertaining skit with a good moral learning. The students also performed a song from their mission trip. One of our wonderful families presented their video; a documentary video about the fun had by a home educated family.

The students (and parents) work hard throughout the year and it is nice to have their efforts awarded. We are all uniquely created and it was wonderful to hear how the students have progressed and grown in their own ways. It was good to see the faces of the children as they receive their awards and their beaming smiles as they were recognised for their effort in their schoolwork and for their special personal qualities. A big thank you to all of the fathers who presented awards.

We are delighted for the Year 12 graduates who are excitedly moving forward into the next stage of their life. We pray God’s richest blessings for them.

Have a wonderful break and we look forward to what 2018 will bring for us all.

South Brisbane Excursion at Beenleigh PCYC We celebrated the end of a great year with a fun, energetic and jam-packed day at the Beenleigh PCYC. Over fifty students, parents and teachers came together on Friday 8 December for a day of fellowship and fun. There was a jumping castle, the gladiator ring, the Velcro wall and many rock climbing walls at varying difficulty levels. It was great to see the students all connecting and having a blast together. The unity and support from all of the students and parents who belayed (the person holding the rope as the climber climbs up the rock wall) was wonderful. Young and old scaled the walls and relished in the challenge of making it to the top. Decked out in a Velcro suit, the goal of the Velcro wall was to jump as high as you could then stick on the vertical wall. It was a bizarre sensation and a lot of fun as you tried to release yourself from the clutches of the Velcro wall. The gladiator ring was your chance to rein supreme as you tried to balance on your podium and knock your opponent off their podium. There were lots of laughs as the students, parents and teachers enjoyed all of the activities. We look forward to visiting this centre again and hope you can join us again next time. Let the Battle Begin…

North Brisbane End of Year Excursion – High and Low Ropes Course The storm clouds cleared in time for a wonderful afternoon of end of year celebrations in the North Brisbane area with about 40 students. At this High and Low Ropes Course, students were challenged physically and mentally in a fun and safe environment. It was great to see students encouraging each other and working together as a team.

Mackay Awards and End of Year This term had a challenging finish with our teacher Mrs. Prinsloo surviving a serious car accident. So we have all had to be a bit flexible -just as our dancer demonstrated at our fantastic night. This event was shared with a huge crowd supporting their students to celebrate a year of fun, learning progress and attainment. We were so blesed to have Mrs. Prinsloo up and about helping and co-ordinating the evening with her wonderful supportive parents and families. The students performed music, song and dance and the everyone enjoyed receiving their awards. There was a wonderful dinner that we all shared together and I was very impressed with the family feel and caring hearts of all involved. I enjoyed the evening so

much and spent so much time encouraging families and talking to parents that I forgot to take photos… Mackay is a very special place and I am looking forward to all that God is doing there. We also pray for Mrs. Prinsloos continued healing. Regards Jason Caldwell

Wide Bay Awards and Workshop Praise God for the great opportunity to celebrate with the lovely students of the Wide Bay region. This event was well attended and the standard of the performances was outstanding. I hope to bring you some photos next term. Sunshine Coast News With all reporting visits complete I wish to thank all families for their time, commitment, hard work and for having me in their homes. I am so blessed to be your area teacher, having been spoilt with morning teas, lunch, afternoon teas, playing with pets, having a portrait sketched of me, live demonstrations and most of all viewing your children’s school work. Now, most of you know how to tell the boiled egg amongst the raw eggs too after I demonstrated this by spinning the two on the table - the boiled egg continues to spin because it is solid. Congratulations to Samuel, Matthew and Katheryne who were the only people who already knew this.

Congratulations also to Buddy who received the highest score with the Silly Sausage. Even greater congratulations go to Michaela and Jackson for completing year 12. I wish Michaela well in her career to pursue veterinary nursing and Jackson to finalise his carpentry apprenticeship. Have a safe and pleasant Christmas holiday period, and I will see you in 2018 refreshed and revitalised! May God bless every one of you! Sharon Bryant