Richmond Christian College TIDINGS

 “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, … so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”                                                   Joshua 4

On many occasions throughout the Bible we see God instruct his people to make a pillar of remembrance to the Lord to remind other people of the goodness of God and what he has done for us.

Such pillars often served as reminders of significant moments of relationship or achievement. In the particular instance above God has just parted the waters so that 40 million Israelites can walk through safely into the promised land – something worth celebrating, remembering and inspiring those to come.

CELEBRATION DAY & NIGHT

This year, our final day, Celebration Day, will be held on Wednesday 11 December.

Celebration Day is one of the ‘special’ occasions in the life of the Richmond Christian College Community. On this day we set aside time for us as a community to set up our own pillars, to celebrate and thank God together for what He has done throughout the year.

The celebration will begin with our traditional lunch to thank and celebrate our community and our families who play such an important role. Notes have come out this week. Everyone is invited to come and have lunch and enjoy the last day of term with us.

The celebration will continue in the evening with our Celebration Night.  At this occasion we will celebrate our students’ achievements through presentations, awards and ceremony.

At Richmond Christian College we believe in recognising the value and achievement of every student in a variety of ways. We believe it is important and significant to provide moments of special recognition for students who have achieved significant excellence in the many and varied areas within our school life.

This celebration of excellence promotes a culture that values personal achievement, resilience and a determination to succeed.

I look forward to celebrating our wonderful year with you on this night.

Celebration Lunch: 12.30pm

Please note – students are welcome to go home with their parents after lunch, but schooling activities will still be provided for those who stay.

Celebration Night: Doors open at 5pm with some celebration of student works as entertainment. Official program begins at 5.30pm. We will be finished as close to 7.30pm as possible. 

Please note: Students are required to attend in full formal school uniform.

2020 STAFFING

Due to significant changes in our staff this year and some more recent announcements, I am going to postpone the final communication of class teachers for Primary 2020. When staffing is finalised, I will email everyone the details for 2020. We will also have a ‘Meet the Teachers’ afternoon tea in the week before Term 1 begins for parents and students to come and say hello. More information on this will be released early 2020, so keep an eye out on Facebook, email or Skoolbag for this.

For now, the summary of staffing changes for 2020 is:

Ian Coutts has resigned to begin work in church ministry. We pray the richest blessings on Ian and his family and thank him for his years of commitment and service to both the high school and the primary schools of RCC. Thank you, Ian for the investment you have made into the student’s lives and the clear passion you have for their holistic well-being.

Penny Woolley has resigned to take up a position at Casino Christian School where she feels God calling and guiding her. She will also be able to work with her husband, Jonny. Penny has been a wonderful, valuable teacher since she arrived 3 years ago. Thank you, Penny for your passion for the lost and the broken and how you have instilled this into your students.

Finally, Chantelle Foster has also resigned as a Teacher’s Aide. Chantelle has worked wonderfully to support our teachers and students in their learning over the last few years. It has been wonderful to have Chantelle sow into our community. We wish Chantelle God’s blessing as she moves onto what God has for her next. 

I have announced earlier, Peita Patch, Simon Breen and Sam West are also leaving us next year and Kristy Suffolk and Meg Potter are taking a year’s leave of absence.

It is important in a time of change to remember that God calls those he wants to the places he desires in order to establish His Kingdom. We have been blessed to have such wonderful people serve God in this place for so long and we are excited that they are faithful, courageous and humble enough to continue to listen to the call of God on their life.

It is also important to remember that just as God called these people here for this time, so he will call more to establish RCC to be the school he desires us to be. As such, I wanted to take the time introduce our new staff so far:  

We have already welcomed Sue Weaver to our school. Sue is doing an outstanding job in Year 4 and we are excited to have her continuing with us next year.

Kathie Tanttari will be joining us next year as a teacher’s aide. We are so happy to have someone with such a range of experience and wonderful passion for God’s children join our team. We are excited to see the joy and ability she will inspire in our students.

We are also excited to welcome Clare Hickey. Clare comes to us as a graduate from ACU’s selective exceptional teacher program. It is wonderful to know Clare will bring her passion for delivering excellent Christian education to all her students and inspire us with her fresh innovation and enthusiasm.

We are also excited to welcome Jono Miller.  Jono has been teaching for many years; specifically, his last couple of years he has been employing his teaching skills ministering in Tajikistan. Jono brings a clear passion for fun, excellent Christian education and we are excited to see how his story will impact and feed into RCC’s. 

Finally, I would like to welcome Lisa Weingarth as teacher and Coordinator of Teaching and Learning PreK-12. One truth we do not shy away from at RCC is that the teacher and their relationship with the students is the most critical indicator of student’s success. Hence, we are so excited to bring Lisa into this role at RCC to focus on maximising the opportunities our staff have to refine their craft and continue their journey as the excellent practitioners they are.

Lisa is one of only 4 teachers to become Lead teacher recognised this year, the highest level of qualification given to teachers by NSW Education Standards Authority. Lisa has also completed her Masters in Educational Leadership. Lisa has a passion, matched by her experience, for developing excellent Christian educators and inspiring her students to achieve.

We still have two more teachers to employ for next year and a wonderful list of candidates we will be interviewing next week. Please pray that God continues to call those he wants to this school so that He can continue to establish Richmond Christian College as a faith-filled, innovative and excellent learning community.

I appreciate your time in reading these notices this week. Please continue to pray that our new staff find peace and purpose as they begin their time with us and that those who are leaving do so with God’s richest blessing and our best wishes and congratulations.

Good tidings.

 Jonno

As a part of our commitment to ensuring families in this area receive excellent Christian education, we are very excited to announce that from the beginning of next year, we will have a direct RCC bus from the Plateau to Richmond, with an afternoon return, for the exclusive use of RCC students, PreK – 12.

Service Route:

The service will begin at Wollongbar at 8am and proceed through Alstonville, Tuckombil, Teven, Tintenbar and Cumbalum and then on to Richmond Christian College by 8.40am. The service will then leave RCC at 3.05pm and conclude at Wollongbar at approximately 3.45pm. 

The costs for unlimited travel will be:

·       First child $200 per term

·       Second child $150 per term

·       Third child $75 per term

·       Fourth and subsequent children – free

We will offer this service free of charge for weeks 1 & 2 of Term 1, 2020 to allow families time to trial and be comfortable with the service.

The options for payment are:

a)     add the annual cost to school fees where a payment plan is in place

b)     pay up front per term (non-refundable) for a 5% discount

c)     pay up front per annum (non-refundable) for a 10% discount

Pre-Kindy children can travel provided they are supervised by a responsible older student.

Register now!

Families who are intending on using this service, even for the trial, need to register their interest with the school by emailing or calling the school office on or before, Wednesday 23 January 2020. 

Upon confirmation of the final route we will contact those who have registered interest and provide the final details for payment and permission. 

This week we welcomed our new School Counsellor, Miss Lorin Ripley.  Lorin completed a Masters in Counselling at Christian Heritage College and she has a background as a youth pastor, chaplain as well as a providing a private counselling practice. Lorin is passionate about the healing and growth that counselling can bring into the lives of children and youth to lead balanced happy lives.  She is a firm believer in supporting students, especially children and adolescence, towards their fullest potential and we look forward to the work God will do through her in our school community.

Sound Waves has been a huge success in Kindergarten this year. Kindergarten looks forward to Sound Waves lessons everyday. It has given all students the foundations to build strong reading and spelling skills. Kindergarten students are achieving higher than grade level results in both Reading and Spelling.   

Miss Tiffany Chilcott
Kindergarten  Teacher

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This year the Sound Waves spelling program has been introduced to students from Kindergarten to Year 6. Sound Waves is a whole-school synthetic phonics and word study program which focuses on the process of synthesising, taking smaller parts and putting them together to form a whole. Systematic synthetic phonics is the explicit teaching of how speech sounds (phonemes) are represented by letters (graphemes). Instruction focuses on developing students’ ability to segment words into sounds and synthesise, or blend, sounds to form words. Lessons are systematically sequenced so that students progress from learning simple, broadly applicable sound–letter relationships to those that are more complex and unusual. In the early years, lessons also incorporate the use of decodable texts to teach reading.

Current research indicates that systematic synthetic phonics is an essential and effective method for developing students’ reading and spelling proficiency (Buckingham, 2018; Coltheart & Prior, 2007; Johnston, McGeown & Watson, 2011).

Please speak with primary staff about how Sound Waves is being implemented at school and how you can support your child’s spelling progress at home. See the links below for further information about the Sound Waves phonemic approach to spelling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDjsMV5EyX4&disable_polymer=true

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM3dMF-Bxuk

https://theconversation.com/why-every-child-needs-explicit-phonics-instruction-to-learn-to-read-125065