Faith News 2023 | Term 3, Week 5

Video Transcript

Well, good morning to all of our Faith families and Staff out there, right across the State of Queensland, overseas, travelling in caravans, doing all the things that you do! It’s lovely to see you, we’re about halfway through the Term, and there are some things I want to bring you up to date with. 

Welcome New Families & Staff

Firstly, welcome to our new students who’ve started with us this Term, there are quite a few of them, and several new staff that have joined us, as well – welcome to the Faith family! I hope by now that you’ve got Learning@Faith all rocking and rolling, and you’re able to do all the things you need to do, but don’t forget to ask for help if you need it. 

Term 3 Events

New Zealand Ski Trip

We’ve had a couple of big gigs over the last little while. One of them is our first New Zealand Snowy Trip! We had a bunch of kids and a couple of teachers head over to Christchurch and ski The Remarkables! So, if you’re interested in going to the snow next year, if you’re a Senior student, Grade 10, 11 and 12, keep an eye out for the application form, the sooner you start saving for that trip, the better! 

Pedal Prix

The other big event that we had last weekend was the Round 5 of the Queensland Super Series Pedal Prix, and we had 14 schools that we hosted at Nundah Criterium Track, 35 competitors, each of those vehicles had 8 or so kids involved, 100 metres of tents down the side of the track, and they competed in that event for 16 hours in nine different categories. And our teams, first year we’ve done it, we’ve got number 17, and number 18, our Senior Boys team, which has a couple of girls in it, by the way, because you’re allowed to have up to half the team girls, came 3rd in their category, and they’re coming 2nd in the State at the moment in that category, which is the toughest one. Our Junior Boys are coming 4th in their category, and they are 10th in the State, out of about 60 competitors, so if you’d like to be involved with Pedal Prix, go to Learning@Faith, sign up, and you can be involved with that Competition. 

Year 12 Graduation – Round 2 Tickets Open

Graduation Night is coming up, and we’ve got a second round of tickets that you can buy. It’s going to be a fabulous event, so please come along to that, if you’re available, and enjoy a wonderful evening of celebration of all the wonderful blessings God has done for our children over their time at School. 

Parent Advisory Group

I’d like to do a big thank you to our Parents Advisory Group! Now, this is a group of a couple of parents from every Region, and they’re organised through Mark, who runs our RTO, and they meet regularly, and they’ve put forward quite a few suggestions. One of the things that we’ve just implemented, as a result of this discussion, is more clarification around a Communications Policy, and we put that together and got it out to Staff, and there are some features of that you need to be aware of. One is that we ask that Staff at our School get back to parents who make an email inquiry within two days, 48 hours, okay, sometimes it takes longer to get an answer to say we’ve got your email, we’re getting back to you. Another one is reassuring our Staff that between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. and on weekends, they don’t have to respond to an email unless they choose to. So, all that is in our Communication Policy. It is out now to the families and we will put it up on the website, just to tidy up that clarification to make sure that everybody needs to know how to go about communicating with each other in our School. 

Regional Workshops

By now, you d be aware that there are some Workshops coming up, great social activities for people get to know each other and some other things that people can do to learn things, as well, and it’s a great feature of our School that we get together regularly across twelve Workshops around the State. Please keep an eye on that and come along. 

Athletics Carnival

By now, you would have probably been to one of our nine Athletics Carnivals around the State. Great time to run, jump and throw, and also to enjoy each other’s company, and perhaps even have a sausage sizzle! So, thank you for coming along to support that. One of the features of our School is that we invite people from the Homeschooling Community to our events. They pay a little bit of money, they get to compete, earn a ribbon if they’re good, and also qualify if they want to, to go on to District and to Regional. Now, we’ve got about 20 kids so far this year, who have signed up for a District or Regional event in their area, if they’re good at running or a sport, they can get the School to sign a form, and head off, just like any other School, to go and try out for a District or a Regional team. If you’re interested in that, just keep an eye on the Newsletter, and be able to fill out paperwork, and we can send that off on your behalf. 

Mission Partnership Outreach (Boggabilla Team)

Earlier this year, our Seniors went on a Mission Trip to Boggabilla, and the second version of that is coming up. I love the fact that our kids can go out on Mission now! All that shut down during COVID, and this is our relaunch of our Mission Trips, we’re starting local, just within our State, and as we get bigger and better, we’ll be able to go back to doing overseas Mission Trips, where we go overseas and bless the community and care for them, and also give our children a chance to learn and develop, and also to preach and to play music and do things that are appropriate for a Mission Trip. Mission is very important for us at Faith Christian School. We go out and help people, but also it helps strengthen our own personal faith, because it’s not just about us, it’s about what we can do for other people. 

Reports

School Reports, that time twice a year, when you get your official end of Semester results, we’ve sent out our new version of Reports. Thank you for the people who ve feedback things that they wanted to have a little look at and we’ve checked on those and got those Reports back to you. Now, the wonderful thing about Faith Christian School is that the Report is just the last statement. All through the Semester, you’re getting feedback from your teachers, little bits and things along the way, especially if you’re doing the Formative and other parts of it, you can get feedback regularly, so you know how your child is tracking, so that the final Report is merely a simple statement, saying,  This is the final result . Also, I notice that we’ve got more and more kids getting involved with Co-Curricular, and we list all the things that you can do, and tick the ones that your kids are involved with, so as you read your Report and say,  Oh, my kid did this or this, maybe next year I’ll do that and that,  gives you a chance to be more involved with the School in Sporting and Workshops and all the other things that we do.

Faith Christian School – A Christian School…

 I just want to finish with this: As a Christian School, we say we are a  Christian  School, and that comes out in all sorts of different ways, but we’re more than just lip service to that, we have  Christian  in our name, and we have Christian information in all our units, but one of the examples of our Christian willingness to declare that we’re a Christian School, is that our two teams that are in Pedal Prix are named after Bible Verses. So, our Senior team is called  Eagles Wings , and you know that verse from Isaiah where it talks about eagle s wings, and our Junior team is  Strength and Courage , which comes from Joshua, as he’s going back to take over the land when he went back into the nation of Israel. So, we want to declare, publicly and loudly, that we are Christian people following Scripture, and competing and doing all sorts of things, because as our God walks with us, and as He guides us, and as we listen to the sweet whisperings of The Holy Spirit, we can do more than just talk about Christianity, we can be Christian in everything that we do. So, if you want to look those verses up, there are some photos coming out about our Pedal Prix, you’ll see our two Pedal Prix vehicles, and the only ones at the Competition with Bible verses on them, and you can see that we do this very loud and proud. Have a great week, everybody, and we’ll see you at the next event!