St Ursula's College End of Year Newsletter

From the Principal

As we approach the end of the year, it is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the learning journey your daughter has undertaken. The End of Semester Two reports for Year 7 to 10, available on Tuesday 3 December, and Year 11 Unit Two Reports, already distributed, offer a comprehensive overview of each student's achievements and progress. This is a time to celebrate the hard work, dedication, and successes of our students. Whether it’s mastering a challenging concept, participating in extracurricular activities, or showing growth in personal development, every accomplishment is a testament to their effort and resilience.

Looking ahead, these reports also provide valuable insights into areas where students can continue to grow and improve. We encourage you to discuss these reports with your daughter, setting goals and identifying strategies to support their learning journey.

To go one step further, I encourage you as a family, with your daughter, to write these goals down and place them on the fridge or in a visible place as an explicit focus for 2025. Writing down goals and visualizing them can significantly enhance your chances of achieving them.

According to research, writing down your goals makes them tangible and helps you intellectually engage and emotionally connect with the outcomes you want. This practice clarifies your objectives and boosts motivation and focus by creating a clear vision of success. Additionally, the act of writing activates cognitive processes that reinforce your commitment and determination. By visualizing your goals, you can mentally rehearse achieving them, which primes your brain for success. This combination of writing and visualization creates a powerful tool for personal and professional growth.

Just an idea… well worth trying!

I did want to take the opportunity to thank you, our parents and guardians, for your ongoing partnership across this year. At times, we have had to navigate challenging conversations or scenarios to help our young people thrive through those moments, and I extend my appreciation to you for your support across these times.

As part of Toowoomba Catholic Schools (TCS), to assist in that parent engagement and partnership, I refer our parents to the TCS Parent Engagement Charter and new TCS Parent Code of Conduct. Both are referred to as part of the Enrolment Agreement that we will now operate under, effective from January 2025.

Please refer to the letter attached that provides more information as well as links to the relevant documents.

As parents, we value your contribution to our areas of growth and improvement. It was wonderful to engage with a number of parents as part of the recent Listening Forums. Thank you to those parents who made time to attend.

I am now seeking your feedback to shape our College Masterplan.

Over these next few weeks, we are gathering feedback from staff and parents, and in the new year, at the beginning of Term One 2025, we will look to incorporate student voice. It is an exciting time for our College and will certainly allow us to articulate and visualize our goals.

At our final whole school assembly last week, we had the chance to thank and extend our well wishes to a number of staff who finish up at the end of this term. We acknowledged and thanked…

• Ingrid Renken who has been assisting us across Term 4 covering a number of Science classes.
• Teryn Smith who joined us to cover Lynne Elphick’s classes across this term.
• Carol Steele who once again joined us across Term 3 and 4 to assist in covering classes due to staff movement.
• Louise Delahunty who joined the College to assist in the areas of Careers across Semester Two.

We are most grateful to Ingrid, Teryn, Carol and Louise for their contribution to our College.

We also extended our blessings over Mrs Helen Winten who takes maternity leave at the end of this term, as she prepares to welcome her new baby. We wish Mrs Winten all the best and look forward to her return in Semester Two 2025. Ms Christle Cash is getting married over the holidays and we wish her and Mr Power all the best for their special day.

We extended a blessing over our exchange student, Sophia Magrone, who returns to Italy in the new year. We thank Emilee and the Grimmer family, who made this wonderful opportunity possible. And finally, we wished Ms Laura Booth and our four Japanese students. Sarah, Georgia, Seraphina and Samantha, all the best as they prepare for their Immersion experience at Hachinohe St Ursula High, departing on Saturday for three weeks.

As I write this article, we are literally moving over to Sentral… the data migration is occurring, and work will then occur to check data integrity. This will be a high-level manual task for which I am very grateful to our staff, at the end of a very busy year, who are now managing this task. The planning has been a six-month (++) long project, and we are very grateful to the team from Toowoomba Catholic Schools, namely Steve Joslin, Joel Attwood and Sharron Jones, who have supported us across this process.

Stay tuned… for information in the new year on how to load the new parent Sentral app.

As we move to our new Mobile Phone Policy in 2025, I wanted to remind parents now would be a good time to set up a Flexischools Account to allow easy access to the College Canteen. Log In to Flexischools here

Students have always been able to order their lunches via this application, ready for collection across the first or second break. As our girls have operated more independently in the Senior years, it may be necessary for them to set up other ways of paying for food when purchased from the canteen, as many have used their phone to do so. There are several ways available to families.

These include:

• You can link your daughter’s College ID Card to the Flexischools account. This will allow your daughter to purchase items from the canteen using her ID card. Download and set up a Flexischools account and then add your daughter’s ID card. Whilst the girls will be issued with a new card in the new year, the link to their ID will remain the same throughout all of her years at the College.
• Students can use a prepaid visa card, like Spriggy.
• Students can use a credit and/or debit card.

Families are encouraged to explore what option works best for them, but mobile phones will not be able to be accessed to make any payments at the Canteen.

Across this past week, we have loved engaging with our fellow Primary schools to deliver some opportunities, as part of our growing partnerships. Following a very successful Liverpool Football Academy Community Day on the Saturday, we then embarked on a road show of four schools in three days… visiting Year 4 students across St Thomas More, Our Lady of Lourdes, Holy Name and St Saviour’s Primary schools. What a joy it has been to share our excitement around the Liverpool Way with our community of schools. We also loved spending an afternoon at Our Lady of Lourdes delivering some Drills and Skills as part of exposing students to our St Ursula’s College Netball Program. What a pleasure.

My thanks to the many who contributed to this, but in particular to Joe Kelly, LFCIA Coach James Darlington, Jaime Thomas and Julian Cattonar, as well as our students, Lucy Ryan, Lucy Dyson, Georgia McAuliffe and Ali Murray.

Finally, I wanted to be transparent about our College Fees and Levies as we head into 2025. It has been one of the most asked questions across this year, and unfortunately moving to Toowoomba Catholic Schools does not give us access to any additional sources of funding that allow us to change our fee structure.

All schools in recent years have moved to a new School Funding model. This has required schools to manage their own funding, with government contributions based on a Capacity to Contribute rating for individual schools. Our DMI (Direct Measure of Income) is high, in comparison to other TCS schools, which means we have a greater capacity to contribute, and therefore attract lower government funding. Our college, whilst we have transitioned to TCS continue to finance a number of support systems that operate across all facets of the College, with a plan to slowly transition these across to enterprise solutions supported by TCS. As one cost disappears, a system costs replaces this. The functionality of our college, from staffing to other expenditure items continue to be the same as they were one year ago, and there is no overnight solution to these committed costs without impacting on what we offer that many parents identify as the reasons they choose St Ursula’s College, and our strengths.

As a school, we continue to provide support for our families, financially, and if this is the case for you, we invite you to contact us regarding a bursary.

The other area where many questions have been raised is around a diocesan discount across Toowoomba Catholic Schools.

The discount that currently exists is not actually a diocesan discount but one that has come about due to an agreement across some individual colleges. We have been enquiring about this discount, and the inclusion of St Ursula’s College. This has now landed with TCS who are considering a consistent application of sibling discounts across the four identified secondary colleges. But further conversations need to occur and the timing of these is beyond our control. As further information comes to hand, I will share what is known.

And so, over the coming weeks, 2025 Fees and Levies will be published. We appreciate your patience as we finalise our Staffing and Budget Projections with Toowoomba Catholic Schools. As you know, each year, costs increase, and normally fees are increased to reflect the general CPI. TCS have recommended a minimum increase of 3.5%, but at this time, we are negotiating to hopefully see our increase sit under this percentage.

I hope this provides some background to our College Fees and Levies and the reality of what this will look like as we head into the new year.

Please enjoy, attached, the Year in Review for 2024. We have much to celebrate but equally as much to look forward to in 2025.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, and I look forward to the exciting times ahead in 2025!

Together, in Serviam,

Deidre Young

Principal

Presentation Assembly: Service & Academic Award Recipients

Deputy Principal

Welcome to the last school week of 2024. Congratulations to both you, our supportive parents, and your daughters on completing 2024. 

During 2024 we have worked together to encourage each other to have the courage to do something, get moving, be confident, risk new things, stick with it and have received many surprises and blessings. Last week our student body once again modelled this through their commitment to creating and donating hampers for a range of organisations that support so many in our community.  I believe it is gratitude that comes from these encounters that gives us the motivation to reach out and love the stranger. Serviam is ultimately a commitment to make sacrifices not just for those we love, but for strangers. I ask that your prayer for all the staff at St Ursula’s College is for joy and peace over Christmas and that we return from our holidays with hearts overflowing with gratitude. I join with all the staff at St  Ursula’s College to wish you the same. 

My sincere thanks for your support throughout the year. I wish you all a restful break, special moments with loved ones and the PEACE of Christmas. 

God Bless 

Bernadette Witham

 END OF YEAR Some key dates: 

• TUESDAY 3 December - Year 7 to 10 Report cards available via Parent Dashboard 2:00pm onwards. Teachers will be at the College until 12:00pm on Wednesday 4 December should you wish to talk through any questions. 

• WEDNESDAY 11 December – Year 12 results available through their LUI account.  

• FRIDAY 13 December - ATAR through QTAC 

2025 KEY DATES: 

• Wednesday 29 January
  • 7:30am Breakfast for All Year 12
  • 8:30am – Orientation Day for All New Students
  • Year 12’s at the College 

• Thursday 30 January - SCHOOL STARTS for ALL students
  • 2024 Year 12’s invited back for Assembly and announcement of 2024 Dux and Proxima Assess 

• Thursday 30 January – College Photos – Formal Uniform required 
• Friday 31 January – College Photos – Formal Uniform Required 

2025 College Photos

The College’s Photo Days for 2025 will be in Week 1 on Thursday 30 January and Friday 31 January 2025. All students are required to wear their formal College summer uniform, including the College blazer.  We expect all students to adhere to the uniform guidelines as outlined in the College’s student diary; including acceptable jewellery, no make-up, appropriately styled hair, and clean shoes.

More information about the College Photos is included in this letter.

Assistant Principal Pastoral Care

A busy year requires a wind down. 

Each year seems to clock over faster and faster. Not sure if it is the reality but it certainly feels that way. By the time the holidays arrive our students are exhausted and in need of a break. They have been involved in so many activities throughout the year, that their minds and bodies need time to relax.  

It is important that once on holidays that the days are not entirely spent on mobile devices playing games or watching endless shows. There are some simple, yet effective, activities that allow teenagers to have the opportunity to destress from the exhaustive year and then refocus their energy in preparation for the next academic year.   

1. Keep busy. Plan daily activities to do in advance.  

       2. Set daily goals. These can be simple goals, such as cleaning out a wardrobe or reading a chapter of a book.  

      3. Exercise at least for 20mins per day. Exercise boosts energy and can improve muscle strength. When exercising, the body releases chemicals called endorphins. These endorphins interact with the receptors in the brain that trigger a positive feeling in the body.  

     4. Catch some rays of sunshine. The health benefits of sunlight include generating the production of vitamin D, supporting bone health, lowering blood pressure, preventing disease, and promoting good mental health.  

      5. Drink plenty of water. It is important to keep hydrated in these warmer months. Drink at least 10 glasses a day of water (about 2.5L a day).  

      7. Take time for self-care. Take a long soaking bath, put on a face mask or painting nails. These simple self-care activities allow time to focus on oneself. Who doesn’t feel better after a long soaking bath?  

       8. Connect with family and friends. Catch up with the ‘tribe’ and do something together. Maybe a picnic at the park or a quick shop at Grand Central. If it is difficult to meet them personally, try an old-fashioned phone call.  

       9. Do some chores. Help out at home. This may win some brownie points! This is a great way to enact Serviam…do the jobs because you are a good person who does things because you want to, rather than because you have to.   

      10. Get ready for 2025. Sort out the study space now. Clear out old paperwork and tidy up the study space so that it is ready for next year. Maybe get some new stationery.  

      11. Set goals for 2025. Now is a great time to set some goals (academically and personally). Make a poster of these goals and put them somewhere visible. A visible reminder means that there will be a greater chance of achievement.   

  As we wind down the 2024 school year and set sails towards a long break, it is wonderful to reflect on how blessed we have been with this year. It never ceases to amaze me how creative, fun-loving and wonderful our students are, and they inspire me every day.   

  God bless you and your families. I wish everyone a safe and restful holiday.  

Maria Gibson

College Fees

Payment of Outstanding Fees

As we approach the end of the year, we kindly remind you to settle any outstanding College fees and finalise your accounts at your earliest convenience. The quality education provided by the College is dependent upon the prompt payment of fees and should there be an outstanding balance on your account, a $150 penalty charge will be applied to your account, as per the Fee Policy.

2025 Fees

Over the coming weeks, our fees for the 2025 academic year will be finalised and released on the College website.
Term 1, 2025 Fees will be charged in early January, with payment due by 24 January 2025.
The following payment options are available:

• Direct Debit – please complete the attached direct debit form and return it to the College as soon as possible.
  We encourage families to setup direct debits from the beginning of January and leave the end date open.  This ensures that school fees are paid in full by the end of the academic year. Payment arrangements can be weekly / fortnightly / monthly (Direct Debit Form)
• Credit Card – payments can be weekly / fortnightly / monthly (Recurrent Payment by Credit Card Form)
• Direct Deposit – BPAY or electronic funds transfer.  The College fee account details are:          
• St Ursula’s College, Toowoomba
• BSB 064 446
• Account number 1028 1134

Annual payment in advance – a 3% discount on tuition fees if annual fees are paid by 24 January 2025.

In circumstances of financial hardship, it is important that the College is notified immediately so that compassionate considerations may be provided. Please contact the Business Manager, Kerry Chrusciel by emailing businessmanagerstursulas@twb.catholic.edu.au to discuss.

For any queries or assistance, please contact our Accounts team by emailing accountsstursulas@twb.catholic.edu.au

We appreciate your prompt attention to these matters and thank you for your continued support.

Office Closure

Host Families Needed