Newsletter

A healthy culture of learning involves some risk…

I’ve recently enjoyed reading the story of Peter walking on the water again. I love Peter. He’s a heart-on-his-sleeve, act-first-ask-questions-later kind of guy, and while that gets him in trouble at times, it also gets him closer to Jesus than many others did.  Peter was not afraid to ‘take a stab’, to ‘have a go’, to ‘give it a shot’. Whether that was stating who Jesus actually was (before any of the others had worked it out), or whether it was jumping out of a boat in a storm to get to Jesus, Peter didn’t often allow fear of the unknown, or what other people might think to stop him from pushing into new opportunities.

To learn anything new or to have any new learning experience involves some level of risk. It requires us to step outside of existing comfort zones, to be willing to let go of previously held conceptions (or misconceptions) about who we are and what we’re capable of, and to ignore those nagging fears (‘it won’t work’, ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘what will people think?’). But what a joy when we do and what deep and rich learning happens in that moment! What a wonderful gift God has given us, the ability to learn something new!

It is one of the most important goals we have here at the College, to create learning environments where students feel safe to step into the unknown and confident to try something new, and most importantly, when they take a risk and fall, to extend our hand to lift them back up onto their feet to try again, just like Jesus did for Peter. 

Please Pray for: 

• Mitch Forbes – our Chaplain – as he continues to establish relationships with staff and students and as he discerns God’s leading into his focus areas.  
• Preparations for upcoming camps for Years 7-11
• Families in our College community who are experiencing challenges with health issues – for God’s provision and protection over them.

Praise Points:

• New students and staff are settling in well and finding their place in our community.
• Our Senior Student Leadership Team had a wonderful time at the Compass Leadership Conference in Canberra.

Introducing Mrs Amanda Dart – Prep Coordinator

Where have you come from? 
I was born and bred on the Central Coast but moved to Sydney during my studies at university. It was during this time that I met my pastor husband. After a number of years in Sydney and interstate we moved back to the Coast in 2001, where I have worked in several preschools as an early childhood teacher and director as well as setting up an Out Of School Hours Care Service for our church.

What church do you attend?
We are currently part of a new church plant in Long Jetty called “Greenhouse Church”. 

What are your interests?
I love sewing, patchwork and renovating vintage caravans.

A little bit about your new position at the College.
I am the new director of Belmont Christian College Prep. I love working with the beautiful children here and am blessed with a fantastic team of educators. I am looking forward to seeing what God will do this year in Prep.

Any other information you’d like to share.
I have two lovely grown children of my own. Emily is 21 and is also an early childhood educator and Joshua is 24 and has his own media production business. 

oe Haig, our Director of ICT/Integrator, is heading down to Melbourne next week to speak at the Futureschools Conference. He’ll be speaking about facilitating the integration of Technology into teaching and learning as well as leveraging Technology to foster creativity in children. 

In June and July he’s been invited to present at the Global Digital and Blended Learning Transformation from Early Childhood to K-12 Summit in Sydney and Melbourne.  At that time, he’ll be speaking about Robotics and how and why it is a great way to teach children the principles of Computer Science. One of the reasons robots work so well as a teaching tool is because of the way they tap into children’s intrinsic motivation – children see robots in action and want to improve their performance, tweaking their code so they will perform better next time.  

Nate Armsberry, our Studies of Religion teacher was also invited to present at the recent NSW/ACT Principals’ Retreat in Sydney. Dr Brian Harris, the Principal of Vose Seminary was the keynote speaker and presented sessions titled, “And Who is My Neighbour?”, “After Christendom” and “On The Shoulders of Giants”. The sessions were about lessons from the early church for 21st Century Christians and loving, challenging and living winsomely. Our own Nate Armsberry in response, presented his paper, “Finding Wisdom in a Brave New World”. He spoke about our vision to see Belmont Christian College become a safe space for every young person, whatever their journey. We discussed the challenges and fears that can undermine a loving response, and we talked about helpful strategies to ensure that our approach reflects the character and priorities of God. As a Christian College our hope is that every single young person will discover the life that is found in knowing Jesus personally. This cultural moment is profound, and schools have a vital role to play in creating safe and supportive environments for young people and their families. Nate has also been invited to present this Christian School Response at the National Policy Forum in Canberra.

Please pray for both Joe and Nate as they represent the College at these significant events.

Primary School & Student Representative Council (SRC) Leaders

We are thrilled to introduce our 2019 Primary School Leaders, Olivia Goodman, James Chesterfield, Thomas Langejans and Phoebe Duffy-Smith. They are all keen to carry out their leadership responsibilities in the Primary School with new and exciting roles planned as they embark on new adventures for 2019.

Welcome Primary Leaders! We will meet our Secondary leaders in the next newsletter. 

At our Week 6 assembly we took the opportunity to thank, pray for and pin badges on our new Term One Primary SRC team:
S1A – Luke Dalgety; Ruby Rorke
S1AM – Brooke Jones; Josiah Bell
S1K – Isaac Sanchez; Leilani Hindson
S2A – Lara Jones; Appin Paterson
S2EJ – Savannah Scharfe; Eli Sanchez
S2L – Silas Brown; Jocelyn Cossgrove
S3C – Olivia Blowes (Chairperson); Kai O’Sullivan
S3D – Piper Rorke (Communications Officer); Victoria Robinson
S3K – Ali Booth (Secretary); Riley Fallis
S3T – Brydie O’Connor (Publicity Officer); Amber Millett

Please pray for our Primary School Leaders and our new SRC team as they take up the challenge of making our College an even better place to be.

Cybersafety Tips

Our ICT Director, Joe Haig encourages us to consider the following:

Don’t talk to strangers

For generations parents have cautioned their children against talking to strangers. Sadly, while this provides some degree of protection, we now know that most of the offences committed against children are perpetrated by someone they know. Similarly, many cyberbullying incidents, and other incidents relating to misuse of the Internet, are often initiated by someone known to the child. In an age of increased connectivity though, from online gaming to messenger services, it’s still important to teach our children not to trust strangers.

Random chat apps

Children may be attracted to these out of curiosity and excitement. All of these apps are inappropriate for children and can quickly lead them to find themselves in compromising situations.

Online Challenges

Online challenges are back in the news. They exploit vulnerable children by setting them tasks which initially seem relatively innocuous but as the victim progresses they become darker. Often disturbing images are sent to the child, who may feel trapped and become frightened of the consequences of quitting the challenge, for example that an entity will punish them. In addition to risks to the child’s safety and mental health these schemes are often run by scammers who are seeking personal information.

Online Gaming

Offenders who groom children tend to play online games between 3PM and 5PM because there’s a greater likelihood that children will be unsupervised. Make sure you’re aware of the levels of communication allowed by the games your child plays and that they aren’t putting themselves at risk.

It’s worth considering using a system such as Disney Circle to monitor Internet use and filter content, particularly if you have younger children.

Helpful links

https://www.thinkuknow.org.au/
https://www.esafety.gov.au/
https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/online-safety
https://www.australia.gov.au/information-and-services/public-safety-and-law/online-safety 

Year 7 students…it’s time for you to be the teacher!

Tuesday 26th March at 7pm in the Theatrette

Bring your Mum or Dad…and your Chromebook … charged…

…and teach them what you know!
…and learn some new things too 

~ There will be KAHOOT competitions ~
~ There will be prizes ~
~ And everyone will go home with a certificate – parents too! ~

Sign up via our Google form if you are coming….
Link…https://goo.gl/forms/sxxAwubVpFsoczpY2
RSVP Monday 25th March

We look forward to seeing you on the night.
If you have any questions drop into Student Services and see Mrs Rapp.

All Schools Triathlon

Last week four teams represented the College at the All Schools Triathlon. All teams performed well, especially as it was the first time the College attended the event.

Surfest Schools Team Challenge

Our BCC boy’s team entered this year’s Surfest High School Teams Challenge over two days last week scoring a creditable 2nd in each of their heat rounds.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t repeat the success in the competition they achieved last year, and narrowly missed out on surfing in the final 8 teams. Overall they ranked 12th out of 36 teams. Well done boys.

Friday 29th March

The Cross Country Carnival will be held off site at Croudace Bay Park for students from Years 2 – 12. Students will travel by bus to the park from 10:45am and return to school from 1:30 pm.

Parents are most welcome to attend, however you are asked to observe several regulations in order to assist the smooth running of the carnival and safety of the students.

• If you are attending, please come down to start/finish line area (near the boat ramp carpark at the Eleebana end of the park) to watch your child. Any unauthorised individuals will be questioned by staff designated as Course Marshall.
• No parents/friends etc are permitted to run alongside their child, if this occurs your child will be disqualified. The course is a looped course around the park allowing for spectators to see the students run past at least twice. 
• If you wish to take your child home from the carnival, please sign them out with their teacher who is their Bus Supervisor, so we can account for all children at the end of the carnival. Your child must have a written note, to leave with their supervising teacher upon departure even if you are physically present.

If your child is leaving from the carnival with a family member or friend, your child must have a written note from their parent.
 The College Prefects and Student Council will be holding a Sausage Sizzle on the day, raising funds to support representative sports students. To pre-order your sausage sizzle please go online here using School Code: 2524963. Orders are due by 21 March. No purchases available on the day.

Sausage Sandwiches   $2.50
Cans of Soft Drink   $2.00
Juice Poppers   $2.50
Water 600ml   $1.50

Parents need to either provide your child with recess and lunch or have them pre-order from the sausage sizzle. 

Great Success at the Primary Zone Swimming Carnival

13 Swimmers travelled to Blacktown for the NSW CSSA Swimming Carnival on Monday. There were some very impressive performances, with some students taking over 3 seconds off their 50m Zone times. Of the 24 events involving our swimmers, 17 of them involved BCC swimmers setting a time that was better than their Zone time. There were quite a few ‘Personal Bests’ recorded at this meet. Our Hunter Zone finished 2nd overall in NSW CSSA.

Congratulations to our Junior Boys 4x50m Relay team, consisting of Flynn Morris, Steele Ellemans, Appin Paterson, and Hamish Rae who won the event, with Hamish coming from third in the final change to run down the competition. These boys will be joined at the NSW CIS Carnival next week by Victoria Robinson, who will compete in the Multiclass 50m Freestyle, Breaststroke and Backstroke. Appin Paterson will swim the 50m Freestyle and Hamish Rae will also swim 50m Freestyle, along with 50m Breaststroke and the Junior 200m Individual Medley.

Well done also to Appin Paterson (9yr), Hamish Rae (10yr) and Victoria Robinson (Open Multiclass) who each finished 3rd in their respective overall Age Championship.

BCC win the Challenge Cup at the Secondary Zone Swimming Carnival

Last week a team of 30 students represented the College at the THACCCSA Zone Swimming Carnival, the team performed exceptionally well! While Green Point (a much larger school) won the outright points competition, Belmont won the Challenge Cup, a competition which adjusts points based on enrolled students.

Congratulations to the following students who were awarded Age Champions: –
Jacob Hale – 18 Boys, Eliza Davies  – 18 Girls, Adele Austin – 17 Girls, Brew Austin – 16 Boys. 

Calling All Musicians

The Annual Morton Music Awards is a sponsored prize run by Belmont Rotary Club. Each year BCC hosts the auditions and prize ceremony. This is an amazing opportunity for our music students in Primary and Secondary, with monetary prizes up for grabs. Students who are successful at audition may receive up to $500 to further their music education. 

An Application form can be found here and will close on Friday 12^th April.  

Click here for further information or please address correspondence or questions to the award organisers via email… 
info@belmontrotary.org.au, pfgtowner@bigpond.com or pbl45134@bigpond.net.au