It was heartwarming to see all of our students return to face to face learning this week. Teaching is a human process and no technology in the world can replace the gentle exchange between a teacher and their student. Students have adjusted well to the wearing of masks and have accepted these as part of ‘the new normal’ of education.

This year we have launched our Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) Framework and I am incredibly proud of the work done by our PBL working group in 2021. This group, which included teachers, teacher aides, office staff and parents, have worked hard to develop all of the processes and procedures to implement a positive approach to behaviour management in the College. Our new College expectations are:

We encourage our Parents and Carers to use the same language in the home with their children. It is a consistent approach which focuses on teaching the correct behaviours and rewarding positive demonstrations of it. Over the next few weeks, this will be an important part of our Pastoral Care program. Please take some time to talk about our new PBL framework with your son or daughter.

Due to the Qld Health restrictions, we are disappointed that we cannot hold our usual Beginning of Year Mass and Scholars’ Assembly. We will still be holding some important liturgies with our Year 7 and 12 students and presenting awards during Homeroom. At this stage, we expect our assemblies, year level masses and parent gatherings to resume in Week 5 in the face to face mode.

Next Tuesday we will be holding our P&F Annual General Meeting via Zoom. A link will be sent to Parents and Carers this week. We look forward to many parents joining us in the P&F this year. 

Covid-19 - we have had a number of positive Covid-19 cases in our community this week. Please contact the College if your son or daughter tests positive or become a close contact.

Assistant Tuckshop Convenor - we are after a 15 hours/week helper in the Tuckshop. No previous experience is necessary. Please contact me on 47 43 2509 at the office.

Have a blessed week and stay safe.

Kathleen McCarthy

College Principal

Scholars' Awards

Our Celebration of Students Acheivements from Semester 2, 2021 has had to be a little different this year.

Scholars' Awards are awarded to those students who acheived an A standard in 50% of their subjects.

We would like to congratulate the following students who are being acknowledge for our Scholars’ Awards.

Years 7 - 11 Semester 2, 2021

Subject Prizes
Year 12 Semester 2, 2021

2021 College DUX

Updating Contact Details

If any of your contact information has changed, please inform the College Office so that we can update student details.

Departing Students

For anyone unenrolling from GSCC, we ask that an enrolling parent completes a departing student form prior to your final day of school. You can do this by contacting the College Office on (07) 4749 9400.

Compass Parent Portal

Do you have access to the Compass Parent Portal? If not, please see one of our wonderful office staff who can provide you with your username and password.

To access Compass, use this link:https://goodshepherd-qld.compass.education/

Some important features of Compass for parents include (click the links for instructions):

• Accessing School Report Cards
• Logging Student Absences
• Booking Parent / Teacher Conferences 
• Updating your Phone Number/Email Address (see image below)

Timetable/Daily Organisation

By now, all students should have received a hard copy of their 2022 timetable. A reminder that the timetable works on a two week cycle (Week A & Week B) - There are five lessons each day of 1 hour in length. Morning Tea is our larger break of the day, and runs from 10:50 am to 11:30am, with Lunch beginning at 1:35pm and finishing at 1:55pm. It is important that students arrive to school by 8:25am to ensure they are ready to enter Homeroom at 8:30am. 

Subject Changes

As we move towards the end of Week 2, it is important that students are settled into their classes, being involved in the introduction of their classes. As of next Friday (18/2), students should not be making any further subject changes.

As a gentle reminder, the process for changing subjects is below:

1. Discuss subject change with classroom teacher;
2. Collect a ‘subject change form’ from the College Office;
3. Complete form and have existing class, and new class teacher/Curriculum Leader sign (this is the first stage of the approval process);
4. Take the subject change form home - a parent or guardian must sign it;
5. Take the subject change form to the College Office for either Mrs Webb (7-10) or Mrs Wood (11 & 12) to process.
6. Collect your new timetable!

If you are in Year 11 or 12, you must complete this process with the Deputy Principal Teaching & Learning to ensure there will be no impact to your post schooling pathways.

Please note: not all subject changes are possible; however we will always do our best to accommodate requests.

Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L)

After 18 months of consultation and collaboration within our College community, we officially launched Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) as our new College behaviour management process. On Monday, students were given an overview of our new College expectations; the positive behaviours we would like them to demonstrate in locations around the College; and the processes we have implemented to manage negative behaviours and reward positive behaviours.

It is important that all students are taught what is expected of them and have opportunities to practise expected behaviours. A key role of all school staff is to set high expectations for behaviour and learning across the whole school community and for all students. Behaviour expectations will be explicitly taught to students through Pastoral Care and Homeroom lessons.

The successful implementation of PB4L requires that it is delivered from a whole

school approach to ensure consistency in student behaviour management along a continuum of intensity of support.  It will also require reflective practices that include ongoing review, monitoring and adjustment of the processes.

The GSCC PB4L Working Group will continue to meet every second Friday from 8 – 8.30am in the initial implementation phase to: seek community feedback; monitor the processes that are working well; improve or omit the processes that are not working well; and present recommendations to the College community if required.  

The first meeting is scheduled for this Friday, 10 February and we welcome any parents /carers to join our PB4L Working Group to provide us with your valuable feedback. If you are interested in joining the PB4L Working Group, please contact me on 47432509 or via email on pmorganson1@goodshepherd.catholic.edu.au for further details.

Parent Information about PB4L can be found on our College website.

Uniform Expectations

Last week I outlined our College uniform expectations and in our PB4L information, parents/carers are able to see the processes the College follows when students are not adhering to those expectations.

Students have been given a grace period this week to rectify any uniform infringements.  Please note that any infringements from Monday, 14th February will be consequated accordingly.

Facing Fear

At 27, after seven years and two World MotoGP Championships Casey Stoner shocked the World by retiring and walking away from a life most of us dream of living.

To say he was talented is an understatement. Casey finished no lower than fourth after his first season and his first title was on a Ducati bike, which was seen as inferior to that of his rivals.

At the time he said he had lost his passion and wasn’t enjoying the sport anymore. However, recently Stoner was diagnosed with anxiety, which he never knew was actually a thing. The diagnosis has helped him to reflect back and see how the diagnosis makes sense of his feelings during his career.

He felt pressure because he was the number one rider and everyone expected him to win every weekend. He put pressure on himself thinking of the 70-strong team helping him and everyone who helped him as a youngster and so the pressure built.

The better his weekend was going the more pressure he felt and between practices he would curl up on his motorhome floor with his stomach in knots, not wanting to race. 

“And then race day.” Casey said. “Until probably the last two years of racing MotoGP, the better weekend I had, the more I wanted to die.”

Like most people he told himself to suck it up and get on with it because everyone gets stressed. Then in the last two years of his career he adopted his own mantra which was “you can only do what you can do, and you cannot do more than that.”

To keep operating he focused on his preparation and making sure all the boxes were ticked and he had done everything he could to do his best. However, Casey revealed that even today when he gets in situations where he is not comfortable his back locks up from his anxiety.

That is why it is important we accept fear as part of our life and work to function when we experience it. I myself am shy and introverted but nobody believes me when I tell them that because they see me speaking with people and speaking with a microphone in front of a crowd.

I still get scared whenever I have to stand in front of a group and speak but I know that if I have practiced and know what I am going to say I can get through it. We overcome fear by facing it and the more prepared we are the less fear will affect us.

That is why we practice until actions become automatic and we can do them without thinking. I teach CPR which is mandatory within the mining industry and whenever I have the opportunity of speaking with someone who has been in a situation where they performed it for real I always ask.

“What were you thinking?”

The answer is always the same, they weren’t thinking, they just did it. However, in that situation you don’t know what is going to happen before you do but what if you do know and it scares you.

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." Nelson Mandela.

Australian Scotty James is one of the best halfpipe snowboarders in the World and is at the current Winter Olympics. It is one of the most dangerous sports, because competitors launch themselves high into the air and then come back and land on an unforgiving surface of ice.

People have died and suffered serious injuries and Scotty admits he deals with fear everyday and when the adrenaline is pumping that fear goes through the roof. So what Scotty does is find something that scares him more and pushes himself to face it.

He hates public speaking; so he does it all the time so he is scared and uncomfortable. He pushes himself to experience situations where he faces fear so that he can remind himself that fear is part of his life and he has faced it before and dealt with it.

You have two choices, you either face your fears or run away from them. Only one of them helps you grow and the more fears you face the more you will grow as a person.

National Apology Day

Anniversary of the National Apology Day to the Stolen Generations

On 13th February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd publicly apologised , on behalf of the Federal Government, to the Stolen Generations - the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their families and communities by successive colonial and Australian governments.

Did you know…

‘Sorry Day’ and the anniversary of ‘National Apology Day’ are two separate days.‘Sorry Day’ is held annually on the 26th May. The anniversary of the National Apology is a day which commemorates the event at which Kevin Rudd – then Prime Minister of Australia – made a formal apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples’, and those whose lives had been blighted by past government policies of forced child removal and assimilation. 

Healing Foundation

Emerging Leaders

Hi everyone, welcome back to 2022.

To all parents of our Emerging Leaders at Good Shepherd Catholic College, just a reminder that registrations for the Emerging Leaders program are now open.Within the next few weeks, students & their allocated mentors will discuss some Personal Incentive Goals for the year. In the meantime, you can register for the program below.

Registration Link:

Emerging Leaders Student Registration Link

This application is the first step on the Emerging Leaders journey for 2022, with registration on the program dependent upon a Personal Leadership Agreement (PLA) being developed for each Emerging Leader.

On the other hand, this year, we will begin an Emerging Leaders Homeroom every Friday (Juniors Week A, Seniors Week B). We will have our first Emerging Leaders Homeroom this Friday. On behalf of the Inidgenous Education Team, we look forward to sharing knowledge, building relationships and strengthening the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander culture and community within the school.

NAIDOC 2022

This year’s theme – Get up! Stand up! Show up! – encourages all of us to champion institutional, structural, collaborative, and cooperative change while celebrating those who have already driven and led change in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities over generations.

Events will be held around Australia during NAIDOC week to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. However, Good Shepherd Catholic College will be embracing this year's theme in Homeroom & Pastoral Care. 

Additionally, we encourage all of our Emerging leaders to consider the 2022 National NAIDOC poster competition. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists aged 13 years or older are invited to submit artwork that reflects the theme.

The winning artist will receive a $10,000 cash prize (tax free) and their artwork will be used as the official 2022 National NAIDOC Week Poster. Additionally, they will receive a ticket for themselves and one guest to the National NAIDOC Awards ceremony.

Entries for the poster competition close 14 March 2022 at 11:59PM (AEDT).

The Sports Department would like to welcome back all students to the 2022 sports year. Our staff and students have begun preparations for another busy term including training for our Senior Rugby League team, QISSN, Good Shepherd Netball Club as well as individual nominations for MISSA and North West teams. 

Listed below is a current list of sports that students are able to nominate for to represent the school in a Mount Isa or North West level. Students wanting to nominate are asked to see Mr Young at break times for more information. 

Nomination dates for the following sports, due dates and venues are displayed below

- Unless stated, nomination dates involve both Boys and Girls in different sporting codes.

- Students who nominate will need to travel independently at their own expense to attend the trial

Please see Mr Young for any nomination forms before the due date

Ambassador Amy!

Year 12 student Amy Jones has been selected to represent the College as a Queensland Minerals & Energy Academy (QMEA) 2022 Ambassador.  This is her story……

"At the end of 2021, I was selected as 1 of 20 students statewide to be an Ambassador for the Queensland Minerals and Energy Academy (QMEA) for 2022. Upon the acceptance of this role, I was given the opportunity to attend the QMEA camp and annual breakfast. During this camp, we partook in LinkedIn and networking activities, team-building skills, and shared our experiences in science and mining. As a group, we toured Safety In Mines Testing and Research Station (SIMTARS) and observed a number of explosions under controlled environments, and the Queensland Centre for Advanced Technologies (QCAT) where we saw the current advancements being made in robotics, space technology, and more. We also toured Hastings Deerings to gather insight on the different types of engineers and what they offer in the mining scene. Alongside this, we enjoyed multiple lectures by EMESCENT, Engineers, and Professors as we toured the Engineering parts of the University of Queensland. The week concluded with the annual QMEA breakfast where we received our certificate and badges, alongside being able to network with many important people in the Mining Industry. This experience was an amazing opportunity and I am proud to be a 2022 QMEA Ambassador."

We wish Amy the very best of luck as she continues her Ambassadorship throughout the year.  If any students want to know more I know Amy will be more than happy to answer any questions.  Just catch her during one of your breaks or send her an email.

Welcome back to 2022!

A very warm welcome to all of our new students, and those starting their high school journey in Year 7 this year. We are very excited to be welcoming you to our Good Shepherd Community and are looking forward to meeting you and getting to know you all over the next few weeks. 

This year has started in an unusual way, but I am so proud of the way the students have started back at school this week ready for a busy year. I wish to thank all of the Senior students for their efforts last week with online learning. 

It gives me great pleasure to introduce the 2022 English and Languages department team for 2022:

• Mrs Stephanie Whitehouse
• Mrs Claire Jones
• Miss Rebecca Stretton
• Dr Stephanie Massey
• Miss Jan Luarca
• Mr Travis Roberts
• Mr Nigel Mitchell
• Mr Jarvis Miller

I particularly would like to thank the staff for the huge amount of work that they have completed over the past couple of weeks in preparing for online learning and setting up Google Classrooms for the year ahead. 

The students have settled back into the school year well, and it has been wonderful to see everyone back on campus. The topics of study for English and Languages this year include:

• Year 7
  Protest Poetry

• Year 7 Italian
  Languages in Action- Beginner Italian

• Year 8
  Personal Stories

• Year 9
  Australian Identity

• Year 10
  Representations of Adolescents

• Year 11 General
  Unit 1: Perspectives and Texts
  Novel study: The Cellist of Sarajevo

• Year 11 Essential
  Unit 1: Language that Works

• Year 12 General
  Unit 3: Textual Connections
  Novel and Film study: 1984 and Blade Runner

• Year 12 Essential
  Unit 3: Language that Influences

If you have any questions, queries or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s classroom teacher at any point throughout the year. Alternatively, you can also contact myself on (07) 4743 2509 or sholland2@goodshepherd.catholic.edu.au.

We are looking forward to a wonderful, and busy 2022!

College Captain’s Welcome 

Hello Good Shepherd! Amy and Rachael here, wishing you a warm welcome to the new year. To quickly introduce ourselves, we are your College Captains for 2022. We are both extremely honoured and excited to have this role and would like to take this chance to let you know of some of our ideas for bettering the College this year.

Rachael: I am looking forward to creating initiatives to make the school community more inclusive for everyone, which also coincides with the College theme of Community for this year. To further elaborate on the theme, I also will provide a support system to all other students; so, if you ever need anything don’t be afraid to pop me an email or come and see me! 

Amy: This year I’m excited to work towards building a connected and positive school environment which provides multiple opportunities for every student. To embrace this year's College theme of Community, I’d also like to encourage everyone to get more involved in fundraising events and initiatives throughout the year. In addition to this, if anyone has any ideas for initiatives or events we could implement in our College, we invite you to let anyone of us on the leadership team know!

We also want to extend a special welcome to all of the fresh faces of the College, teachers and students alike! We wish you all the best for the year ahead. We particularly hope the Year 7’s have an amazing first year of High School and work hard to achieve any goals you have for this year. 

Just to leave all of you with some advice from your two “wise” captains, enjoy your time while you are here because it flies by. Don’t leave everything till last minute, even if it just means you work on homework or assignments bit by bit over time to get it done. Make friends and show kindness and compassion each and every day. If you have any concerns or questions make sure to email us or approach us, we don’t mind having a chat. Now go out and have fun and enjoy your time here at GSCC!  

Amy Haddon	Rachael Scrimgeour