It is hard to believe that we are already at the end of Term 1. After the many interruptions due to the pandemic in 2020, it has been wonderful to begin this new academic year welcoming our families back on campus and to see the reinstatement of so many College events. It has been a busy term which included the induction of our 2021 College Leaders, the long-awaited and much-anticipated Years 5 - 8 performance of 'Once Upon a Mattress', Cross Country events, Swimming Carnivals, Banjo's Games, HPE Week, Banjo's Poetry Recital and the Year 12 Formal, just to name a few.

Please enjoy our Term 1 wrap up video, proudly brought to you by our wonderful Community Relations team with help from Dennis House Leaders, Cyra, Liam, Nina and Alastair. 

Wishing our A.B. Paterson College community a safe and restful holiday. I look forward to welcoming all our students back to the College on Tuesday 20 April.

Joanne Sheehy
Principal/Head of College

As the first term of 2021 draws to a close I would like to take this opportunity to wish all members of our College community a wonderful break over the holidays.

As always, the first term of the year is full of hustle and bustle and 2021 proved no different. This term we have experienced 10 weeks packed full of intriguing learning experiences, opportunities to develop leadership skills, develop new friendships and display a tremendous amount of spirit and community through our House carnivals and events. With assessment and examinations finalised this week and reports being issued early Term 2, students can reflect on the progress they have made so far, and can begin planning how they are going to achieve their goals for the remainder of the year. Whether this be aiming to improve academic results, honing your skills on the netball court or remembering to bring the correct equipment to class, holding yourself accountable to the goals and standards you set is imperative.  

With goal setting in mind, I would like to remind our students that the high standards set in all areas of College life, form the solid foundation from which we are all able to build upon. This includes ensuring their uniform is clean, neat and tidy, shoes are shined and for girls, a check that their skirts are of the appropriate length to their calf.  Haircuts need to be in line with College expectations, that is, short hair for boys ensuring the length does not touch the collar, eyebrows or ears (with no undercuts), and for girls, hair up and pinned back with College approved accessories where needed. Jewellery should only consist of a watch and/or silver or gold studs (no stones) for girls. The benefits of taking pride in your uniform and presentation are many and include improved confidence, self-esteem and an increased sense of community.

Whilst it is important to take the time over the break to look forward to all the opportunities that lay ahead, it is essential that we rest and recharge. Of course, take the time to reflect on the achievements and challenges of the year so far but also remember to take time for yourself and spend time with families and friends. The holidays are an opportunity for us all to refresh and refocus ahead of what promises to be an exciting and inspiring Term 2 at A.B. Paterson College.

Charlotte Brook
Head of Senior School

Week 10 and the final week of Term 1 commenced with the Year 4 – 6 Assembly in the LPAC hosted by 5S. It continues to be wonderful to see the number of parents coming onto the College campus to engage in these events under our current COVID safe protocols. Apart from the highly engaging presenters and sharing of work completed in class, the number of varied musical performances was fabulous to see and hear.

On Tuesday and Wednesday evening we had the parent/teacher interviews online via Teams across the whole Junior School. Following this mode of parent/teacher interviews in 2020 it has been decided that we will continue with this format which has received substantial, positive feedback. Overwhelmingly, these online interviews ran smoothly and I wish to thank all parents and guardians for engaging in this format and to the teachers for their preparation and the two evenings in a row which have been dedicated to reporting back to parents.

The parent/teacher interviews caused the cancellation of Junior School APS training on Wednesday afternoon. We thank all students and parents/guardians for their understanding. We were fortunate to get in a final APS training session on Thursday due to the postponement of the Full College Assembly.

On behalf of the Junior School teachers and staff, I wish to thank you for your ongoing support and engagement. I am thoroughly looking forward to the commencement of Term 2. Wishing you a happy and safe Easter break. 

Simon Edgar
Head of Junior School

What a beautiful way to wrap up Term 1 for our 'littlest bunnies' (aka our Preps) - a colourful Easter Hat Parade!

There was glitter, ribbons, eggs, fluffy rabbits, chicks, cardboard and pipe cleaners galore as our students hopped through the Prep Playground to the delight of parents.

Our Junior School students got creative as they began gearing up for the Easter holidays. The A.B. Paterson College Libraries challenged students to create their own Easter baskets – and students hopped to the challenge! With almost 40 baskets entered, the Easter Bunny was busy filling all the baskets with Easter treats.

The bunny visiting the Lilly Pilly Learning Centre must be named Oprah, because ‘everyone was a winner’! The Easter Bunny just couldn’t decide on a top winner in each year level in Prep to Year 3, so all students enjoyed some Easter treats and prizes for their incredible efforts. While all students enjoyed treats in Year 4 to Year 6, the visiting bunnies declared Rion Abe (4B), Sienna Pilkington (5B) and Katherine Wang (6H) to be the grand prize winners in The Homestead.

Please enjoy the gorgeous gallery of photos as well as the list of talented and creative basket creators in our Junior School.

Have a wonderful term break and as always, happy reading from our team in the A.B. Paterson College Libraries.

Melinda Parkinson, Stephanne Siberry, Amy Carpenter and Janette Thompson 
 
Prep
Arabella Paffey PB
Parker White PL
Thane Webb PB
Evie Brown PM
Georgia Berger PM
Eliana Gexu PM
Christen Jensen PM
Aurella Riley PL
Ayami Paguti PL
Isabelle Glover PB
Oliver Ritson PB 

Year 1
Mayu Han 1F
Amanda Chen 1F
Treia Clancy 1H
Kai Payling 1F
Temperance Dittmann 1H
William Nand 1F
Oliver Corrigan 1F 

Year 2
James Phillips 2D
Max Durre 2S
Beau Morphett 2S
Mitchel Siladi 2D 

Year 3
Zyaire Weir 3B
Summer Mitchell 3B
Hannah Saxby 3H
Leeahn Kim 3H
Emily Wang 3H
Yumi Han 3C

Year 4
Grand Prize Winner - Rion Abe 4B
Arabella Morgan 4R
Rakhel Feldblyum 4B
Nikita Harish 4T
Meg Payling 4B

Year 5 
Grand Prize Winner - Sienna Pilkington 5B
Cameron Ballantyne – 5W
Constance Huang – 5D
Ava Cunningham – 5B

Year 6 
Grand Prize Winner - Katherine Wang 6H
Samuel Longhurst 6R
Hannah Foley 6R
Ariel Dittmann 6C
Amelia Watson 6R
Teya Morgan 6C

Have you had your say on the content of our first Foundation Webinar? The first webinar in our series - Family and Paediatric Nutrition - will be hosted by the university degree qualified team of nutritionists from My Nutrition Clinic.
This topic is quite vast and as such, we are asking our parent community to please complete a short four question survey to give us an idea of the type of information you would like to hear about in this space. Your insights are much appreciated.
Should you have any queries, please feel free to email Foundation Manager, Stephanie Bryan sbryan@abpat.qld.edu.au.

Webinar Series Survey

Throughout Term 1, I had the privilege of visiting SELF lessons and observing students engaged in Social Emotional Learning and Development. Prep students practised identifying feelings and emotions and the appropriate way in which they can express their own feelings and responding to that of others. Year 1 students self-evaluated and reflected on the character strengths that they possess which make them a good friend to others. Year 2 students discussed the definition of bullying while Years 3 and 4 students explored the topic of Cyber-safety and discussed strategies to remain safe online, as well as making responsible choices when communicating and navigating in cyberspace. Year 5 students were able to delve into Rock and Water lessons and practise various scenarios in which they made decisions on whether to be solid as a rock or flexible as water whilst exhibiting strength and compassion. I was able to observe and role play conflict resolution scenarios with Year 6 students in which students had to draw on their inner strength and understanding of the College values in order to have challenging conversations.

Social Emotional Learning Fundamentals (SELF) lessons are designed to enhance self and social awareness and to build resilience and emotional strength. According to child paediatrician Dr Neil Ginsburg, there are 7 Cs that make a resilient child; competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping and control. Each of these attributes correlate to character strengths defined in the College’s Positive Education Framework

Love of learning (competence) - ability and willingness to acquire news skills
Prudence (confidence) – ability to use good skill and judgement
Social intelligence (connection) – ability to socially connect to and understand others
Kindness (character) – ability to show compassion and empathy
Team player (contribution) – ability and willingness to contribute to a common goal  
Perseverance (coping) – ability to continue in presence of challenges
Self-regulation (control) – ability to regulate own feelings, actions and words

Sara Bakanay
Deputy Head of Junior School: Pastoral

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston S. Churchill

Year 5 have been exploring ‘Connections to Land’ in their HaSS unit this term and looking at the use of technology to communicate ideas and information as part of their Design and Digital Technologies curriculum. They were tasked with presenting information about either bushfires or floods in the form of a poster. They had to conduct research and present their findings to show that they understood what these events were, how they impacted the environment and how that impact could be managed. In order to add complexity and depth of understanding to the topic they were also asked to identify how we could learn from the land management techniques of the First Australians. 

To successfully communicate this information in an engaging way, students were set free with coloured card, stencils, glue and scissors. Then they were asked to add interactive and digital elements. Well-formatted texts and pictures, eye catching designs and the now ubiquitous QR code came into play. Students created links that enabled their audiences to listen to a soundtrack whilst looking at the poster, test their knowledge in a quiz or watch a video explaining the topic further. 

Seeing the students complete their projects with such enthusiasm and engagement was a great teaching moment for the whole Year 5 team and the final results were quite amazing. Students were able to show off and explain their posters at a Gallery Walk on Friday of Week 9. They were extremely excited to talk to Ms Sheehy, Mr Edgar, both the Lilly Pilly Learning Centre and The Homestead Library teams, their Year 4 teachers and a slew of high school teachers who came to the event. 

The Year 5 team would like to thank staff for their support and allowing the students to show how proud they were of their work. 

Year 5 Teachers
Genevieve Whittington, Caitlyn Sterry, Dean West, Georgina Burrows

I am excited this year to be undertaking a Special Teacher Project - Assessment and Analysis of Writing utilising Brightpath (Year 4 – 6). Brightpath is software which records the results of assessments and reports a range of formative and summative information to teachers. The data collected provides teachers with an informed basis for developing teaching programs specifically targeting the needs of individual students. It is based on over a decade of pioneering research at the University of Western Australia.

Literacy is the key to success. It forms the basis of all communication allowing people to both express their thoughts and opinions, whilst synthesising the ideas and beliefs of others. By consequence, this enables them to become ethically and socially responsible active global citizens. 

In order to effectively teach these literacy skills and develop these understandings all teachers must address the needs of the whole child. As we know, all students achieve success in different ways therefore nurturing strong teacher student relationships is essential. Indeed, these relationships form the foundation for engaging, motivating and intellectually stimulating learning experiences. Alongside strong relationships, we also need to use comprehensive data to identify specific learning needs for each student, enabling teachers to differentiate and effectively target skills and understandings to be built upon.

Assessing writing can be a complex task as writing needs to include a range of authorial choices, such as character and setting development, awareness of audience, expressing ideas clearly and in an engaging manner and the use of figurative language, as well as writing conventions such as cohesion, paragraphing, sentence structure, spelling, grammar and punctuation. Brightpath supports teachers to explicitly identify and assess each of these elements and then use that data to develop teaching points specific for each individual student.

While still in the very early days of this project, I am excited to continue to explore and utilise this program and bring my fellow Year 5 teachers onboard next term, to explore how A.B. Paterson College can best utilise this program in the future to drive our targeted and comprehensive literacy programs and teaching practises.

Caitlyn Sterry
Year 5 Teacher

This term in Years 4-6 Makerspace we have been exploring robotics using the VEX IQ system. Students learnt to follow complex building instructions, work as a team and solve engineering problems. We started by building ‘Grabbers’ to pick up bricks and build towers. The students then had to make their grabbers longer and stronger so that they could build towers from one metre away - not as easy as it sounds! Cheers filled The Winton Centre flexible learning space as our winning team built a tower three blocks tall in under two minutes. Then we progressed to building a robot that could be controlled using either the hand controller or the VEXcode app. Students persevered with this more complex build and eventually found success driving their robots around The Winton Centre. I’d like to thank our Senior School helpers, Oisin, Jasper, Piper and Zack for working with the Junior School students so effectively.

Next term Makerspace will be exploring movement by building catapults, marble runs, zip lines and rubber band-powered cars among other things. The program will commence on Thursday 29 April and conclude on Thursday 10 June 2021. The total cost of the program will be $90. This includes all resources used throughout the term. Places are limited to 20 so make sure you sign up early. 

If you would like to register your child to attend the Term 2 program, please go to the following link: https://makerspace.abpat.qld.edu.au/

Any questions, please email Mrs Whittington (Year 5 teacher), GWhittington@abpat.qld.edu.au. 

Banjo’s Science Club was started in 2019 for all high school students to join in STEAM-related activities. These activities are run by Mrs Dewar and the Banjo’s Science Club Science Ambassadors every Tuesday at lunch in O6.

Some of the challenges this term involved creating the strongest electromagnet, the highest voltage battery using fruits and vegetables, creating rocket launchers, making a 5m wave machine using gummy bears and duct tape, and engineering the best Easter egg catapult. 

In Term 2, some competitions that will be running include the RACI Titration Competition and the RACI Crystal Growing Competition. The sunflower competition which commenced this term will continue into Term 2.

The Banjo’s Science Club Ambassadors are all passionate about science and wish to share this enthusiasm with other students at the College. So who are this year’s Banjo’s Science Club Ambassadors? Let’s meet them.

“Hello my name is Zack and I am a year 11 student currently studying Physics and Chemistry. My special interests include space exploration and the works of organisations such as NASA and SpaceX. 

The unexpected year of 2020, marks a perfect example of the world’s dependence on scientific research and I am also passionate about research in health and medicine. I look forward to discussing your interests and working with you to further develop your passion in the intriguing field of science.”

“Hey, my name is Lily Lahood, and I am currently in Grade 11.

Coming from St Francis Xavier Primary School, I joined A.B. Paterson College when I transitioned into high school. I found my passion for science (especially Biology) and humanity subjects, like History.

I have my goals set that I want to work in the emergency department in a hospital. I have always had a passion for helping people in need of support.

I am so grateful that I was chosen to be a Science Ambassador, as it offers me a chance to grow my leadership and communication skills and inspire other like-minded people and gain a fresh perspective through engaging the younger generation.” 

“Hey, I’m Soraya Comley! I take Biology and Chemistry, and I love to meet new people. I look forward to working with all of you as we figure out a bit more of this crazy world of ours!

I would also like to let you know that I’ll be the person to relay the information between you and the rest of the group. I think we’ll try to send most of our messages on Teams, but just in case, you’ll be getting emails from me! 😊”

“Hi there, my name is Charlie Morris and I’m a Science Ambassador at the College for 2021. I currently take Chemistry and Physics in Year 11, but really enjoy talking about all kinds of science topics. In particular, I’d love quantum and astrophysics, and am looking forward to spreading science around the College community.” 

“My name is Grace Lahood and I am a Year 11 UQ Science Ambassador at A.B. Paterson College. I became a Science Ambassador with the goal of helping people as I love spreading kind gestures and lending a helping hand wherever I can. I strongly believe that if we help people, it might not change the world, but it may change the world for that one person.”

“Hi, I'm Hyojoo Park! I take Physics. I like science, space and ramen. I'm always happy to have a chat and I hope to work with all of you in the future. This year, we look forward to promoting science through Banjo's Science Club and events such as the Sunflower Competition. Hope to see all of you there!”

“Hello, my name is Lachlan Middendorf and I’m one of the 2021 Science Ambassadors for A.B. Paterson College! I love all the sciences, but Chemistry has got to be my favourite. I am very excited for what is to come in the near future regarding science at the College.”

At Monday’s Junior Chess Club (in the Beginner’s Group), awards were given out to recognise students who not only demonstrated excellent chess skills, but also demonstrated exemplary behaviour during Term 1.

Congratulations to the following award winners:

Gold - Evan Yao 2S
Silver - George Hu 2T
Bronze - Aaryan Vig 4B

Keep up the great work in Term 2!

On Sunday 13 June we will be holding the annual A.B. Paterson College Vocal Festival (Year 4-12). The Vocal Festival is an Eisteddfod-style performance event providing an opportunity for talented singers across the College to perform solo.

If you (or your child) have not already received information about how to take part in this event and would like to be involved, please contact Miss Newcombe (rnewcombe@abpat.qld.edu.au).

Start warming up the vocal cords!

You are invited to join the A.B. Paterson College Foundation for a beautiful Mother’s Day High Tea at Links Hope Island! 

With Alumni and College student performances, it will be the perfect way to celebrate the amazing mothers and women within our community.

Tickets can be purchased by clicking the tile below, or go to Mother's Day High Tea Tickets.

Tickets are $45/person and will remain on sale until Thursday 27 April, unless sold out prior.

The event includes amazing lucky door and raffle prizes.

Should you have any queries, or would like information about sponsorship or how to support the event, please feel free to email Foundation Manager, Stephanie Bryan sbryan@abpat.qld.edu.au or phone (07) 55 947 947.

Bumper sticker competition is back for 2021!

Each week, two lucky winners will receive $100 off their school fee invoice for the following Term. At the end of Term 3, the 40 lucky weekly winners will be invited to an exclusive afternoon tea where one lucky family will win free tuition for their eldest child for Term 4!

Hurry! Competition starts Week 1 of Term 2! All you need to do is collect your bumper sticker from College Reception, put it on the back of your car and then register your vehicle details at collegebumperstickercompetition@abpat.qld.edu.au

More information available in the flyer below.

Good luck!