The Winter Season has certainly arrived this last week at OLSCC! As the temperature plummets for the start of the real winter for 2025, it’s a timely reminder to label all extra layers to minimise lost property and cold children. As a dad, I certainly understand the frustration of forking out for new uniform items when they are lost, so please label your child’s clothing well so that items can be reunited with the correct children when they are found by others.

Semester 1 Report Cards

Reporting to parents is taken very seriously at OLSCC and we carefully consider all aspects of reporting. As communicated by Mrs Brennan previously, we continue to modify the report cards we produce for each child across the College to ensure that the information you need is communicated clearly and purposefully. I am proud of the journey we have undertaken to improve the accuracy, personalisation and succinctness of reports for our parents. Our reports showcase achievement as well as attitude and application to learning and a personalised comment for every child. It is not our intent to include every detail of each curriculum area. If you feel you would like to discuss your child’s progress more often than the two general opportunities provided through Learning Discussions, please feel free to reach out to your child’s teacher and book a meeting time.

A distinct advantage of our changes to the reporting process over recent years is that it reduces the administrative burden on our teachers. While the reporting period is a very busy time of assessment, marking and judgement making, the reduction of generic comments means that we can keep our focus on “teachers teaching”.  Our learning continues every day of regular classes until the holidays. Please support your child to ensure they maintain their commitment to learning and College life all the way up until 3:10pm on Friday 27 June.  

Athletics Carnivals

I emphasise again, 93% attendance is required for continuity of learning for students in all year levels. Though this isn’t just for literacy and numeracy. It’s also significantly important for wellbeing, and the most critical elements to any young persons wellbeing is knowing that: a) they belong, and b) their life is purposeful. Attending events such as athletics carnivals, even if not competing in many events, demonstrates a young person’s importance as a social being. It is by attending these events that they enact their importance to a collective team, a house, and can get involved in more than just their day to day schoolwork. 

So, in week 10, I encourage all students, with the support of their parents to turn up to their respective athletics carnivals (as well as their classes) – no matter whether it’s their thing or not. There is something that everyone can at least attempt at athletics, either in competing or participating, in order to contribute to their team. While it may be perceived that these days won’t help their literacy and numeracy, I would argue to the contrary. It’s about belonging, contributing, seeing that others are there to support you, being part of the conversation, acknowledging vulnerability, showcasing your skills or lack of them, and supporting your mates. At OLSCC, we grow great people, and great people show up. By the way - great people aren’t afraid to have a little fun every now and then either!!

Far too often I have conversations with parents regarding student attendance and/or eligibility for extracurricular events. Our basic standard of 90% attendance is very reasonable, and we even flex down to 85% attendance in this regard. Again, this is very reasonable. We have exactly 185 school days in 2025, so to stay above 90%, students can be absent for 18 days per year! We are attempting to develop habits in young people that make them great employees in the future, and I can assure you that no employer that contacts the College is ever looking for someone who has a day off every fortnight! The challenge of these conversations is that parents will often refer to the few days the child was sick or injured as the reason for the poor attendance. Unfortunately, it is rarely the case that the illness is the problem – it is almost always because students had 3 days off in the last week of term, didn’t go to an athletics, swimming, or cross-country event, or arrived 20 minutes late or left 20 minutes early on 14 instances throughout the year. It is the additional absences beyond illnesses, funerals and medical/dental appointments (the reasonable excuses according to the Department of Education) that cause the issue for the considerable majority of all cases.

Dalby Eisteddfod

This morning I was blessed to watch our primary students perform at the Dalby Eisteddfod – and when the low temperatures couldn’t make things any more cheerless, hundreds of smiling parents warmed the MPC with their pride. It was amazing to watch each and every year level get up on stage (or choir stand in this case) and perform in front of a big audience of parents, grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins and peers. Congratulations to each and every one of our students who turned up today and performed, and thank you to the Dalby Eisteddfod as well as all our wonderful community members who came along to support.

I was asked just last week why OLSCC continues to engage in the Dalby Eisteddfod while other schools find it difficult to find the time. For me the answer is a simple question – “Why wouldn’t we?”. The only answer I can give to this is “because it’s easier not to.” So I guess my response to why would we continue to embrace the opportunity provided by the Dalby Eisteddfod Committee would include:

• We want to grow leaders, and leaders must be able to stand up in front of an audience and perform. Without opportunities like this, kids don’t learn these skills.
• Students are highly capable and may not realise the flare they have for performance unless they are given the chance
• Everyone has a role in a group performance, and it requires a whole team to get the job done well – at the exact same time, with the exact same moves. Nothing else can prepare them for this
• It’s fun
• We aspire to grow great people in everything we do and performances like these are the determining factors in what makes great people stand out from the rest.

I would like to make a special mention of Year 5. For those who know the cohort, you would expect that there are a fair few students who don’t consider themselves as the singing and performing type. I even spoke to a Mum the other day who said what a challenge it might be to get her son here for the performance today. But this morning – each and every single Year 5 student turned up and performed – 55 out of 55. Though they didn’t just perform, they performed remarkably with enthusiasm and effort. During times of sickness, it is often rare to have 100% attendance on a given day – but to have every Year 5 student turn up today, in costume and do such an amazing job (they won by the way), clearly demonstrates the learning dispositions, as well as the values, that are lived every day by our students.

College Extra Curricular Program (CECP) – Guitar

We have done a review of the current Guitar program in the CECP and have determined that now is the time to restructure our program so that we can provide a high quality guitar program into the future at OLSCC. A letter will be sent to all existing Guitar students early next week outlining the details, as well as providing the opportunity for them to uptake the new program for the remainder of the year if they wish. Should places still be available at the conclusion of this process, these will be made available for new students. This change will increase the rigour of the teaching and individual progress of the students, though will come at the expense of changes to the current guitar timetable, greater requirement for students to practice and develop, and the cost will also increase. The current program will continue until the end of the term. I am sure that this is a positive step in the right direction for our CECP Guitar students.

Peter Cuskelly