Principal’s Message
Just last week, I was attending Fraser Coast Baptist Church, and Pastor Tim raised a question about ‘how do we level up in our faith’. This is a regular feature in his Service, and one in which members of the congregation are challenged to reflect on our faith and how we are growing, maturing, and developing on our journey with Christ. It is truly an interesting question to ponder. If we were participating in archery or swimming, would we not meet up with others with similar interests, and learn and improve our own practice? Should it not be the same with our faith?
One of the wonderful things I have learned from his sermons and preaching, is the importance of coming together as a community to worship. While there is clearly a personal benefit to worshipping together in community, we also benefit others when we support and encourage them in their worship. This is something that I have often not reflected on with sufficient attention. The Scripture that comes to mind is Matthew 18: 19-20:
“Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
This makes very clear, that we are indeed called to worship in community and that in so doing, we are able to express, grow, and mature in our faith. This has indeed been quite a significant shift in my thinking, as for a great many years, my experience of prayer and worship was that it was a deeply personal moment with God, and one not openly shared with others. While we can certainly have such moments alone in prayer, and these are truly important, there is so much to be said about worshipping together.
Leading a school is indeed a most wonderful privilege, but it is not one that I find easy, and at times I question why I ever decided to take on this responsibility. Knowing your every decision affects hundreds of children and their families, knowing that staff depend on you to make the right decision every time, and that the community expect to see the College grow and flourish, to mature, and to provide the very best offerings but to do so without increased expenditure weigh heavily on my mind. A school is a business and while we must be able to trade with appropriate cash flow and resources, we have a higher calling and duty – a Mission that sometimes does not align well with business principles. Our children and our community must come first.
One of my frequent errors is thinking that I need to solve all of these issues on my own. The reality is I cannot, no one can, and so we must turn to God, believe in Him, and seek His wisdom and resolution of these matters. When I do bring myself back to this position (and normally after a night of needless stress), I tend to have a path or solution laid out to me. The message here is that we all need to join in prayer and seek God’s blessing on our community and also pray for our local churches and seek their prayers for us. To hand these problems to Christ and seek His solution.
As we are strengthened in prayer when we come together, we too are strengthened when we celebrate as a community. The end of the school year is fast approaching and is truly a wonderful time for us all to gather, to pray together, and to celebrate the achievement, not only of our child, but of all children. How can we expect others to celebrate or recognise our child’s efforts if we do not do this for others? How can we claim to seek community, connection, or unification and support, if we do not come together for others? The answer is we simply cannot.
The Annual Award Ceremonies are nearly upon us and again I ask all families to please attend. This is important in helping us build a strong, resilient, and united community, not only for our child, but for all children. These nights will be held at Hervey Bay Baptist Church, and I thank them for once again hosting these special nights. I truly hope that every College family will hear the call and join together on this night to celebrate being a part of the community, and in doing so, help us to mature and grow together for every child.
Romans 12:5
“so, in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
Let us raise our Hallelujah together and share in the gift of our College community.
In other news, I am pleased to announce that our College Board has given their final approval for the development of our new canteen and that I have now signed the contract for its development. This is a wonderful step forward and I thank the Board for supporting the community in this capital development.
The new canteen, to be called The Castaway Café, will be located on the green space between the library and the Art, Hospitality and Science learning spaces. There is a great deal to do now in finalising the plans, getting all the required approvals, finalising the business plan, undertaking required assessments and registrations, but this is indeed a special week in which we start to deliver on our promise to you as a community.
I look forward to updating you on this development as we progress. At this stage, we anticipate construction and delivery to be completed sometime in March and look forward to commencing operations in Term 2. This will be a wonderful space to enjoy food and fellowship and will bring a wonderful new service to our community. I will be advertising for a Canteen manager in the coming weeks to assist in the development and hope that we may have people in our community willing to undertake such a role.
The Castaway Café – the perfect place to cast away your worries!
Brian Grimes
Principal/CEO
Bayside Buddies Competition Winner!
We had many entries in our Bayside Buddies competition. Thank you to all those who entered and found the Buddies, but there must only be one winner. Congratulations goes to Shayla A. for correctly identifying the web pages where the Bayside Buddies were hiding. The college will be in contact with you to organise your free pizza! Here are the correct answers:
Bubbles the Wombat – Learning: Overview
Daisy the Crocodile – Student Life: House Spirit: Burrows House
Flippy the Turtle – Enrolments: Scholarship Overview
Frazer the Dingo – Sunshine Kindy: Sunshine Kindy FAQs: What about lunches and snacks?
Lovey the Cockatoo – College Life: Principal’s Welcome
Mimi the Platypus – Services: Uniform Shop
Snuffle the Echidna – Our Staff: Staff Highlights
Australian Majors Dance Competition
Sasha S, year 5, placed 2nd at the Australian Majors Dance Competition in Brisbane for HipHop. Her team from Fraser Coast Cheer & Dance will be heading to Nationals in November. Well done Sasha!
Prep-Year 6 Disco
On Friday afternoon the Prep-Year 6 students enjoyed a night of fun and laughter while dancing to some tunes. It was a great turnout of students, considering the little time given to come. Thank you to everyone who made a success of the dance. It was truly an exciting afternoon.
Bayside Arts Showcase – What an incredible evening!
Bayside Arts students were in the spotlight on Friday the 28th of October for the new annual Arts Showcase!
The Exhibition space featured amazing displays from Visual Art, Media Art, Drama and Woodwork. If you looked carefully, you would have seen an abundance of waterfalls, puppets, 3D creations, weaving, shoe designs, panda’s, chopping boards, coy fish, salad servers and I could go on forever. Well done to all our creative students!
The next part of the evening was the performing arts concert. Every year level in the junior school performed and extra-curricular groups in the secondary school were able to showcase their many talents. We had singing, choral speaking, bands, African drumming, orchestra’s, boomwhackers, glockenspiels, choirs, percussion, dance routines and scenes from the College production this year. Well done to all our performing arts students!
Everyone should be extremely proud of their dedication and efforts leading up to the evening. Thank you to all the incredible Arts staff; Ms Frost, Mrs Geldenhuys, Ms Donovan, Mr Menard, Mrs Douglas, and Miss Lawler. A big thank you goes out to Mr Meyers for running sound production, to the year 12 students for taking photos and MC’ing the evening and to the instrumental music teachers Ms List and Mr Downes.
It was a fantastic showcase, and we can’t wait for 2023!
Junior Spelling Bee
The College had four teams competing at the Junior School heats of the Station Square Spelling Bee last Saturday. For most of the students it was their first time at the event and Mrs Herbert was proud of all their efforts. They competed against thirty-two other teams from schools around the Hervey Bay and Maryborough area and competition standards were high.
Well done to our Junior School spelling bee competitors!
Senior Spelling Bee
Last Saturday it was the senior student’s turn to compete in the Station Square Spelling Bee. Bayside Christian College was represented by a team in the year 7 and 8 category and a team in the year 9 and 10 category. Both teams did an amazing job, and after a nail biting tie breaker the year 7’s made it through to the finals.
Good luck in the finals girls!
LATE NEWS!
On Saturday Maya, Abiguele and Elizabeth competed very well in the finals of the Station Square Spelling Bee. They had a convincing win through the semi-finals and went on to give a challenging performance in the grand final. The came away with $250.00 worth of gift vouchers each for their efforts.
Well done Maya, Abiguele and Elizabeth, and all those who competed in this year’s Spelling Bee!
Year 7 Filters!
Year 7 students have been investigating components of the water cycle. They have modelled the water cycle in the lab. They have measured the amount of water released by trees through transpiration. Students have also designed and created successful water filtration systems.
Year 8 Rocks!
Year 8 students are investigating the rock cycle. They have examined our large range of mineral and rock samples. They have also modelled the formation of crystals in intrusive (large crystals) and extrusive (small crystals) igneous rocks.
Year 9 Woodwork
Year 9 woodwork students proudly displayed their projects. Students have created a range of items from wooden implements to stunning kitchen boards.
Senior Fashion
Senior Fashion students have been busy learning sewing skills. Here Jazlyn proudly shows the t-shirt she embroidered free hand.
Bronwyn Ashton
Head of Science and Technology
Teacher Spotlight: Kyleigh Christiansen – Soccer Star
Hi! My name is Kyleigh Christiansen and I teach Year 1. Soccer is one of my favourite things to do, and I am the captain of the Fraser Flames FQPL (Football Queensland Premier League) team. Recently we went undefeated and won the Grand Final in the women’s league that spans between Hervey Bay, Maryborough and Bundaberg. Soccer has been a huge part of my life since I was in primary school and has taught me so much about hard work, playing as a team and facing adversity. Sports provide amazing opportunities for both girls and boys to develop confidence, interpersonal skills and an overall sense of belonging.
Age 9 – 12 years Swimming Carnival
Perfect weather greet the 9-12 year old swimming carnival. The day before was wet, windy and cold! More photos to come.
PeaceWise Kids – 4 Topaz
Students in 4 Topaz have been learning how to be a peacemaker at home, school and in other places. We have been learning how we can truly impact relationships for good and see positive change if we develop our skills to be peacemakers. 4T enjoyed creating an A to Z list of all the ways we can be a peacemaker. We also enjoyed playing a game of Peacemaking Musical Statues. Students danced around to music and then chose a different pose to freeze in when the music stopped. Students could choose a pose for ‘overlook’, ‘talk’ or ‘get help’, all important elements of the PeaceWise Kids program.
Day for Daniel
Year 7 HASS Local Council Visit
On Friday 28th October, our Year 7 HASS students were treated to a very special visit from one of our Fraser Coast Local Council members, Mr David Lee who spoke with students about the roles and responsibilities within the local Council.
Students gained valuable information about the democratic and decision-making processes of the local Council, the legislative requirements they are required to uphold, the various departments and infrastructures as well as the future planning of our local area. Students also learned that it takes a lot of critical thinking, teamwork, and communication to ensure decisions are made to reflect the best interests of the wider community.
The Year 7 students also learned that each member of the council is not only responsible for their Division area, but they work collectively with the other Council members to continue to make the Fraser Coast a wonderful place to live.
Year 4 Quartz
Year 4 learned about column graphs in Mathematics last week, and the students made their way to the edge of the top oval to gather data. The students were armed with a table of different car colours, and tallied each car as it drove past over a ten minute period. The students then used their data to create their column graphs back in the classroom.
Four Quartz decided to make practicing their spelling words a competitive sport – the fastest person, or team, to gather all the required letters to spell each word correctly won the game. The students pushed each other to recall their spelling words in record time, with the spirit of good-natured competition.
Sunshine Kindy
Sunshine Kindy has celebrated all children during Children’s Week 22 – 30 October 2022.
Highlights of our week included:
- Joining in child safety awareness with Red Day for Daniel.
- Enjoying our first Chapel experience with Chappy Josh in the Library.
- Taking a sneak peek of our Prep rooms.
- Receiving the gift of LUCKY (a peach face bird who has been handraised by Miss Jenny).
- Continuing to look at other countries in our world.
Year 2 in the Garden
This term the Year 2 students are really excited to be focusing on their Christian giving project being to restore the school community garden beds. Students in Year Two will be working with the Bayside maintenance team to weed, soil, plant and grow a range of fruits and vegetables for the school to use. The children are learning about the importance of giving to others and taking responsibility. The children were very excited this week weeding and putting in new mulch. (send them to my place! Ed.) We look forward to sharing our updates with you from the year twos and their gardening experiences.
Year 6 Market Day
Another West Ham United Training camp selection!
A huge congratulations must go to Jake Hewitt for making it to the next stage of the West Ham training camp. Over the holidays he and others tried out on the Gold Coast and he was one of two chosen from Bayside to go to England in January for a 14-day training camp. It is a fantastic achievement and opportunity for him. Bayside is very proud of him and it’s good to see Soccer is strong at Bayside.
Spinnaker Year 1-2
The Year 1 and 2 Spinnaker students worked on a STEM activity that involved designing and building a LEGO maze. Building a LEGO maze involved planning, engineering, problem solving and designing and had them thinking on ways to create the most challenging maze. The students explored different mazes and the components that go into a maze, before beginning to design and build their own. Next week he students will be using their mazes and refining their coding skills to give directions for a LEGO mini figure to travel through their maze.
Spinnaker Year 3-4
The Year 3 and 4 Spinnaker students have worked on a series lessons that have expanded over the past few weeks through student inquiry. The initial lesson they learnt about different types of rocks, looking at the ways in which rocks are formed. This led to examining rocks formed by volcanoes and the students were interested in learning more about volcanoes. The next lesson they engaged in learning about why some volcanoes explode and others slowly erupt. The students explored how the pressure build up in thick lava was very different to thin lava resulting in different rock formations. Once the students had explored these volcanoes they created a volcano model out of plaster, which was rather messy. They returned later in the day to pull the volcano from the mould and using baking soda and vinegar made their volcano “erupt”.
