Welcome back!

We’ve been back at school for almost a month and we’ve had a cracking good start.  CCC has three additional teachers and additional teacher aide hours to support our over 2200 students.  I was delighted to read in the latest OECD Report on “The Future of Education and Skills”, the high priority given to student agency, creativity, collaboration and innovation.  CCC’s current agenda including the IB Learner Profile is absolutely on target in response to this important report.  I will make this available from the ‘Principal’s Welcome’ on the webpage.

Junior School has dived straight into Inquiry and there are parent information sessions coming soon for new parents who want to learn about our International Baccalaureate curriculum.  ‘Meet and Greet’ was a great success with parents enjoying group information, tours and classroom visits.  There is a great opportunity for students in Years 1-4 to participate in Coding Workshops after school, advertised elsewhere in this newsletter.

Junior Secondary has also ‘hit the track running’ and our grade 7 cohort has settled in so well, they are making great use of the new student organisers and have their ‘Keys to Consistency’ down pat.  We have had a few issues with Campion, our digital text provider, but these have now been resolved and the students are accessing their digital texts and using their computer and tablets.  Just remember, we do have lockers and you can access these through student services, registering the locker and using your own combination lock.

Seniors began the year in style with a great day together building their goals and a sense of team to drive them forward, as our beloved ‘half cohort’, our first Preps, our first Sevens into Secondary School and now our last OP graduating year – what a ride for parents and students alike.  The IB Diploma team have settled into the groove of IB with a busy year ahead and one excursion to UQ already completed.

Secondary Swimming Carnival was a great House Day, and we have taken the concerns on board about the sun and the heat.  Every shade shelter the College owned was  at the pool and students were asked to wear sun shirts and reminded, every half hour, to use sunscreen.  We are now considering a reduced group of students, who can be sheltered from the sun or a twilight carnival.  We will communicate further on this matter.

Our College Council is not to be outdone and next week is hosting a STEM workshop led by the UQ STEM Ambassador and Regional STEM Champion Mr Brett Crawford.  Our Mathematics and Science teachers will be in attendance using this relationship to craft our Inquiry lessons; Brett is happy to work in classrooms in following weeks. Our P&C had a bumper ‘Cuppa with Greta’ last week with so many parents taking the opportunity to get to know each other and enjoy learning more about the College and our community.

Instrumental Music has record numbers of students with over 200 students enrolled in woodwind, brass, percussion (including Taiko) and strings. There are now as many students in strings as the other instrument which is marvelous news for our orchestra.  We have an additional string teacher, Mr O’Donohue, so there are now six days of tuition a week for our instrumental music students as well as Mr Simmons working in Junior School music and Secondary classroom music.

What a great year we have ahead of us.  Please join us for the first P&C Meeting on March 19th.

Curious, Creative, Clever – no better place to be, than CCC.