Channel Newsletter | 16 February

From The Principal

Practice Faithful Stewardship

Last year our organisation, Christian Schools Tasmania, thought deeply about our Vison, Mission and Values. Together we finalised our vision as “To be a Transformational Christian Learning Community”. To achieve this, we aim “to provide the highest quality Christ-centred education that prepares and equips students for life” (mission). We underpin all we do with FAITH, HOPE and LOVE. But the greatest of these is LOVE. (1 Cor 13:13) What a blessing to have these statements which clearly identify why we do what we do.

Staff at Channel Christian School continued to take this journey further through identifying core values and beliefs that are unique to our school. After lots of discussions and reflective thinking we settled on these three statements:

At Channel Christian School we:

Practice faithful stewardship
Build courageous learners
Grow through partnership

Throughout Term 1 we will focus on “practice faithful stewardship”. We discuss this with our students in the classroom, at morning line up, and remind each other at every opportunity that we are called to be faithful stewards by God.

We aim to explore stewardship in its many dimensions, including stewardship of time, talent and treasure.

The Oxford dictionary defines stewardship as: the job of supervising or taking care of something. Students have been challenged to think about stewardship as taking care of and looking after things we have been given. If we look through the lens of “treasure” we discover many good gifts. Through a child’s eye these include toys, classroom furniture, equipment, uniform, etc. But as we dig deeper we will also discover that friends, family, environment, finances are also good gifts. Being faithful stewards reminds us that we need to remain loyal and steadfast to the giver of all good things – God. (James 1:17)

I look forward to unpacking what it means to practice faithful stewardship at Channel as students, staff and families.

Margaret Louw — Principal

Welcome to Monty

We are pleased to welcome Monty to the Channel School community. Monty is a nearly 5-year-old Golden Retriever. He loves working with students and ‘hanging’ in the classroom. Monty’s favourite thing is getting cuddles from students and going for walks around the playground. He also loves to fall asleep after lunch!

You will find Monty most mornings waiting to greet families in the playground with Mrs Brocklesby. He has already met so many of you. He will always be on lead when he’s outside on school property and is really looking forward to sharing his birthday with you all very soon at morning line-up. Monty loves to meet other dogs. Please remember to keep your dog on a lead at all times when on school property.

Pokemon Cards and Other Toys

As a school we would love to support you as parents to teach our students about faithful stewardship. You give your children many great gifts. These include expensive toys. It is best practice to leave these at home, as we cannot guarantee their safety and protection. At school they often become the source of distraction, envy, greed and jealously leading to actions which are undesirable.

Could you please support us and remind your child to keep these items at home, including Pokemon cards. There are of course exceptions to this rule. This includes ‘Show and tell’, ‘All about me’ bags and ‘Star of the day/week’ items. They should be given to the teacher who will put them in a safe spot until it is time to share with the class. They are not to be played with during recess and lunch times. Thank you for your understanding.

COVID-19

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we navigate through these first few weeks of school. To assist families who need to isolate/quarantine for long periods of time we have added a page to our Channel webpage with information and activities suitable for children of different ages. You can find via the Parents Page of the Channel website.

You can also visit the page directly at channel.tas.edu.au/home-learning

VISIT THE HOME LEARNING PAGE

Rapid Antigen Tests for Students

If you have needed to use your RATs to test your children because they were classed as close contacts (household), or had symptoms, we ask that you send through an email to the office stating why you used the test and what the results are.

Once the student is able to return to school and we have received the necessary communications, we are able to provide you with replacements.

Year 4/5

Year 4/5 are making a fantastic start to 2022. We welcome several new students and their families, as well as welcoming back many old friends. Over the past 10 days, we have spent time getting to know each other better, setting our personal growth and learning goals for the year, learning classroom and school routines, as well as doing some deep thinking about our overarching learning focus for 2022: Seeking Justice.

And the heavens proclaim his righteousness because he is a God of justice — Psalm 50:6

Throughout every subject area, we will be seeking to understand how we might use our knowledge and skills to be agents of justice in God's world. We are excited to get to know God better through this learning journey. Please pray for God's blessing.

In the photo above, we are wearing t-shirts we made that share fun facts about us. We hope you like them!

Exthoxia Lynch — Year 4/5 Teacher

Staffing Update

As we announced last week, Mr Marc Mumford has taken up a Librarian position at Calvin Christian School starting from Monday 28 February.

God is faithful and has provided a very capable and confident replacement in our very own Mrs Bil Heit. I look forward to seeing her making the library her own and am wondering if this may include extravagant, eclectic hats?

Her role as teacher aide has in turn been filled by a new person to our community, Mrs Narelle Chester. Check out our Facebook posts over the next few weeks to read more about all our new staff.

Channel Community
Assist Survey

Throughout the year, there are a number of events and programs that Channel runs which take more than a single pair of hands to make happen.

There are the regular events like the Welcome BBQ, Grandparents Day, the Lantern Walk and the Twilight Fair. There are also optional extras: Things like dancing or craft groups that are run after school hours, or simple one-off occurrences, like showing a class how to sew on a button correctly.

If you’re interested in helping out our school community, we’d love to know where your hobbies, skills and strengths lie, so that when the need arises for some baked goods, or a sports coach, or an extra pair of hands to help flip a sausage or cover library books, we can ask the right people.

COMPLETE THE SURVEY

School Calendar

MARCH
14 | Public Holiday
15 | Huon Channel Swimming Carnival (selected Year 3 - 6 students)
18 | Taste of Channel (save the date - details to follow)

APRIL
4 - 8 | School Fire Education
4 - 14 | Swimming Lessons (Prep - Year 6) Kingston Pool
14 | Last day of Term 1
15 | Good Friday
18 | Easter Monday
19 - 3 May | School Holidays

MAY
4 | Term 2 Commences

VIEW FULL SCHOOL CALENDAR

Channel Prayer Wall

Pray for continued protection throughout the pandemic for our students, staff and families. Pray for those families who are isolating due to being close contacts or who are positive.
Pray for our Year 6 students as they are now the student leaders in the school.
Be thankful for all the good gifts we have been given and ask for wisdom and guidance as we practice faithful stewardship.

Office Reminders

Student Data Collection Notice

Each year the Australian Government collect data regarding your child and their enrolment. This data is used to inform Commonwealth School Education Policy, and to help ensure that Commonwealth funding arrangements for non-government schools are based on need, and are fair and transparent.
Our school provides this data to the Department of Education, Skills and Employment automatically, but is required to inform you that this will occur. You can read more about this process or contact us if you have any questions.

Hats

Students are to wear hats whilst outside of the classroom. Please make sure your child has a hat for this term.

Check in TAS App

If you enter any of the buildings at Channel you must use the “Check in TAS” App which can be located in each room. Please download this app, alternatively you can paper sign in through the office.

All Absentees

Fill out the webform at the bottom of the Parents Page on our website OR email us.

Parents Page

Don't forget our Parents Page, with Handbooks, Term Dates, Medical Forms, and lots more!