Love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort and keep on learning.  Carol Dweck

Developing a growth mindset in our students is a strategic goal across all year levels at St Peters. Mrs Johnson, our school Counsellor, has visited our Primary classrooms to share strategies to develop a growth mindset which is then carried over into classroom lessons. 

As mentioned in a previous article, our primary teachers are developing mathematical mindsets in their classrooms. At a recent staff meeting the focus was on celebrating mistakes in maths, which opens the way for more learning. Carol Dweck, an expert on growth mindset, tells parents in her workshops that it is important to communicate to their children that it is not impressive to get work correct as it shows they were not learning. Teachers are changing the message about mistakes. We look for many opportunities to share this message with our student community.

On Wednesday 31 July, our Primary students will be taking part in a show called Ned’s Mindset Mission. At a special Assembly, our visitors from the USA will introduce a cartoon boy named NED who is on a very important mission: to find his mindset. Throughout the performance our students will discover how to activate their growth mindset to overcome social, emotional and academic challenges.

Linked with this show is the Pay It Forward concept. We were fortunate to have this show come to St Peters from another school who contributed to the cost by selling mindset merchandise. We would like to do the same for another school. In Week 1 a letter will be sent home with more details about the show and the products on sale. They will be on sale for five days from the show date.

We look forward to watching the show so that the ideas we have been sharing with our student community over the past two years will be reinforced.

Important Dates:

Wednesday 17 July French Celebration Day
Please see recent email regarding the week of celebrations – French dress theme day as well as special French Tuckshop orders available

Have a safe and enjoyable midyear break and we look forward to seeing our students return on Monday 15 July.


Warm regards

Debbie West-McInnes
Head of Primary

Friday 21 June

Term 2 concludes
SPY, 6-8pm, Hub

Sunday 6 July

French exchange students arrive

Monday 8 July to Saturday 13 July

Blood Service’s Red25 at Bunnings Springfield, (blood donations) supported by St Peters Springfield 

Monday 15 July

Term 3 Commences

Wednesday 17 July

French Day Celebration

Monday 15 July to Friday 19 July 2019

Yr 8 Production

Friday 19 July

Year 8 Production Performance

“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” John 1:5

This week is the longest night of the year. The Winter Solstice marks the turning point where the days cease shortening and we begin the journey back to days of greater light. For early-risers this is a welcome milestone each year.  

The Winter Solstice is marked by various festivals.  In the Northern Hemisphere festivals of Yule, Midwinter, Yalda Night, Makar Sankranti, Sol Invictus, Saturnalia and Dong Zhi are just some of the names of observances of this occasion. Typically, observances include themes of rebirth, the coming of winter and light in darkness. 

The metaphor of darkness has been long used to describe the human experience of suffering and evil. A dark night of the soul is a time of suffering. The phrase originated with St John of the Cross who wrote “The Dark Night of the Soul” in 1584, which describes the spiritual tribulations of our journey toward God. 

Darkness invades our lives in many ways – the heaviness of grief, the sadness of parting, the struggle of ill health, pain of loneliness, the brazen evil of violence, the disquiet of relationships gone wrong, the burden of responsibility, the emptiness of disappointment, the disturbance of injustice and so on. We all have times of the dark night of the soul. We all have times when it seems the darkness stretches on forever. 

Many spiritual outlooks suggest there is an equality between light and dark, an evenness of good and evil. This is a dualistic outlook.  The Christian story is different. It tells us of a God whose first act of creation was to create light. It tells us of God whose greatest act of redemption was to send Jesus to be the light of the world. 

The good news is the light shines in the darkness but the darkness did not overcome the light. Jesus experienced darkness – sin, violence, death – but these did not conquer him. Jesus rose from the dead and his light shines forever. His love overcame all else. 

Jesus’ light is brighter than the longest, darkest night. We need never think light is a mere temporary respite from darkness. Jesus’ light could not be put out, even by death. Jesus’ light will shine forever. His light shines in our hearts now.  His light will guide us forever.

May Jesus light your way on your longest, darkest nights.

Pastor Matt Wilksch
Springfield Chaplain

Last week, five Year 6 students represented St Peters at the annual Ipswich Reader’s Cup Event held at Ipswich Girls Grammar. They competed against 35 other teams and finished in 5th place overall. Students read 5 novels and then answered in depth questions with confidence. Their weekly reading challenges and collaborative questioning skills enabled them to perform so strong within the competition. Mr Knight and Mrs Braiden are very proud of their efforts and achievements this term. A big thank you to our librarian Mrs Wanda Ryan for supporting the team with the novels required and for organising our team to compete. Students involved are looking forward to participating next year as well.

St Peters Youth Secondary Students are invited to celebrate the end of Term 2 and the longest night with fun and games and pizza on Friday night.  

Bring $5 for pizza and bring your friends. 

6pm to 8pm in The Hub

To Book please visit the Event booking page on Eventbrite. *Tickets selling fast!

Last week we had 4 students from Year 10 participate in the Griffith Business Ambassadors Program. This program is run for high achieving students interested in learning more about business in a wider sense. It also serves these students well to check out how University works by immersing themselves in the experience and culture of the Griffith Campus. 

Rebekah Qleibo and Hope Treloar, pictured, were joined by Grace Thompson for a day at Nathan Campus on 13 June attending a workshop called, Delivery Change for the Better.

There were prizes and it was a wonderful experience in regards to being both interactive and informative. Daniel Storey attended the Logan Campus on Wednesday 12 June and he participated in a session called, Getting Game Fit. If you’re after any opportunities at Griffith see Mrs Johnson’s blog on Firefly. 

If you’re interested in future Business opportunities Mr Sheppard has some further information.

Last Wednesday, St Peters Springfield was privileged to receive a visit from Pali High, an American school. Pali High students are doing a series of workshops with selected schools and also participating in some tourist adventures. Students undertook combined workshops. The combined bands worked under the guidance of Mr Grantley Sutch, and the combined strings worked with Ms Elizabeth Stoyanovich. The series of workshops culminated in a lunchtime concert for the St Peters Springfield student body.

Gold Band, Platinum Band and Cantabile Strings students rose to the challenge and excitement of playing in a large ensemble, and immensely enjoyed the opportunity to present new works to our school.

Thank you Pali High, we hope to see you again in the future.