Welcome back to everyone for Term 3.  I trust our children had a good break, and I hope parents and carers were able to get some time off as well, perhaps in warmer climes!!  We also warmly welcome back Mrs Brearley and Ms Everding from their trip to Kenya, which was part of our commitment to the Global School Partners Project.  I’m sure their trip was rewarding and challenging, and we look forward to hearing more about it.

The second half of the year will be very busy, with the highlight being the Fete in term 4 on 3 November.  We are looking for contributions to the Tombola stall this week, and there will be other opportunities to contribute as the clock winds down.

The Board is also planning to host a Parent Engagement Evening – similar to the successful one last year – which will likely be in Term 4.  Further details to follow.  In addition, the Revue is scheduled for 22 September, which promises to be a fun night.

We also have coming up some important school events coming up.  In Week 3, we are hosting a visit by a Registration Panel from the Catholic Education Office.  Board and P and F members will be meeting with the Panel on Monday 6^th August, and will take the opportunity to inform the panel of the many special things about our school. 

In March 2019, Holy Trinity School will be visited by representatives from the International Baccalaureate Organisation, to evaluate our journey as an IB World School, offering the Primary Years Program. The visiting team will look at every aspect of our school, from its leadership and management to the rigour of our academic programs and the ways in which students and parents are involved in inquiry-based learning.

In preparation for this we are currently undertaking a PYP self-study. The self-study is a requirement of the International Baccalaureate (IB). Our self-study is a year long process that involves staff, students, parents and board members. The purpose of the self-study is to ensure that we are maintaining the IB Programme Standards and Practices. As the staff conduct the self-study, we are looking to identify our achievements and areas that need further development in terms of our practices. The self-study allows teachers to reflect on their practices, but it also calls on parents and students to participate by reflecting on the school's practices and commitment to the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP).

SURVEY 

We look forward to your participation and responses in this survey. Thanks in advance for your time and input.

I wish everyone a great Term 3, and look forward to seeing you around our school.

John Owens

Chair, Holy Trinity School Board

Over the next few weeks, construction will begin next door at the old convent site.  This is soon to be a privately owned Day Care Centre.  Many of you would have already noticed the fencing up and the land being cleared in preparation for this.  Because of this (which may cause traffic congestion on Theodore st) , and because of our general safety concerns, I would like to again remind  families about our pick up procedures as follows: 

• Students are to be picked up from the Kindergarten courtyard, the morning assembly area or at the drive through area at the top of the car park.  Students need to be at any of these three areas, because of safety and supervision.  We have noticed that there are some children in danger because they are either crossing the front of school at the ring road, walking across the entrance to drive through, rather than using the crossing, or walking on the side of drive through, rather than the safety of the crossing.
• Parents who park to collect students should not be waiting for the students at their car, especially at the top of Theodore st.  A large volume of students are playing around pick up areas and then moving to car park areas, before families have arrived. 

Please be assured these reminders are all about student safety- our care and concern for our students are our utmost priority.  I appreciate and value your support with this.

Stop telling children they need to sit still

Shona Hendley | June 05, 2019

Asking your child to sit still seems part and parcel with being a parent. As they wiggle their way around the couch, car, at the dinner table, at the movies or as they kick the seat of the passenger in front on them on the plane, bus or train, 99 percent of parents all around the world ask, “Can’t you just sit still?” While simultaneously apologising to whoever they have inadvertently hurt (or annoyed). The little wiggly worms and jumping beans are wiggly and jumping for an actual reason and developmentally it's near impossible for primary school and pre-school aged children to sit still.

It turns out though the answer is, NO, they can’t.

The little wiggly worms and jumping beans are wiggly and jumping for an actual reason and according to research (and lots of it not only is it developmentally near impossible for primary school and pre-school aged children to sit still), it can actually have a negative impact on their learning.

Parenting educator, former teacher and author, Michael Grose says, “little kids aren’t designed for sitting for long periods of time” and movement is actually an important part of their “brain development.”

“Movement actually stimulates the brain at this age, it goes hand in hand,” Grose told Kidspot.  Anatomically, movement actually helps the brain to work. Because movement creates more oxygen and blood flow to the brain it creates more optimal function. It also releases chemicals that promote focus, memory, motivation and mood; all fundamental in the art of learning.

The first sensory systems to mature in humans are actually those in charge of the cerebellum (motor activity) and the vestibular (spatial orientation). Simply put, we are wired to learn by moving and interacting with our environment, not by sitting still.

Movement can help learning

Movement also assists primary school and pre-school aged children with learning because it engages more of the brain in the learning process, creating arousal or the “lighting up” of the brain says Grose. This allows learning to be more productive and for children to retain more information.

Movement can be a range of things from moving from one space to another in a classroom, going outside for a period of time, using blocks or other tangible objects that can be touched as a part of the learning, singing a song with matching movements or even a game of Simon Says. The use of “kinaesthetic learning or learning by movement engages children in learning and it makes sense to them,” Grose explained.

According to a 2016 Paediatrics study: “Physical activity especially physical education, improves classroom behaviours and benefits several aspects of academic achievement, especially mathematics-related skills [and] reading.”

"Learning isn’t just from the classroom"

As we know learning isn’t just from the classroom either, it is from the world around us so getting out and moving around can help us learn in whole new way and teach us a whole new set of things.

Not only does movement encourage effective learning it can also assist in reducing behavioural issues that impact learning because it “gets rid of the wriggles.” Physical activity makes children less fidgety and more on task. So, when children do need to sit still and concentrate for a particular activity, like listening to a story, they can.

Playing or physical activity from walking, non-competitive ball games, stretching, a rough and tumble game of football, digging in a sand pit, negotiating the monkey bars or building a cubby house, is also learning and the importance of that should not be underestimated for many reasons, including biologically. Research shows that physical play allows children to make mistakes, handle stress, conflict resolution, social skills, emotional intelligence, it is also a proven elevator of mood. 

An additional benefit of movement for learning is with children with additional needs, “particularly those on the Autism spectrum” Michael says. There is also evidence to show great benefit of movement to children who suffer from dyslexia with improvements in dexterity, reading and verbal communication. 

So, with movement being so fundamental to children with a wide variety of needs and to their learning “switching things up” and “not having kids sitting for too long”, as Grose encourages, is incredibly important even if the wiggly worms and jumping beans occasionally drive us a tad insane.

(Source: kidspot.com.au)

Welcome to Term 3!

This term our students begin looking towards Jesus' Divinity as present in the Eucharist. This will be a big focus, particularly for our Year 4 students who will be celebrating their First Eucharist in September. 

Over the break Philippa Brearley and Kristy Everding visited our Global School Partner school in Kenya, Eveland Hekima. It was wonderful to see all the photos of them witnessing the efforts of our fundraising. A tree was planted by both schools to signify the new relationship between our two communities. 

Next week 

Monday 30th July: Prayer Assembly @ 2.30pm. Led by Kinder with a prayer focus of Courage.

Friday 3rd August: Feast of the Transfiguration Mass @ Sts Peter and Paul, 12pm 

Important Term Dates

This week: First Eucharist Registration

Wednesday 8th August: First Eucharist Leader and Parent Information Night. 6pm (leaders), 6.30pm (parents), in the Parish Centre

Thursday 13th August: First Eucharist Retreat day @ Holy Trinity

Saturday 15th August: First Eucharist Mass @ Holy Trinity, 6pm

Wednesday 8th August: Feast of the Assumption Mass @ Holy Trinity, 9.30am.

Saturday 25th August: Parish Mass, 6pm

First Reconciliation Registration commences: Week 10, Monday 24th September.

Listening to the Spirit: Towards the 2020 Plenary Council

What do you think God is asking of us in Australia?

There is still time to register! This short course held at ACU, will explore the future of the Church in Australia, with a specific focus on the 2020 Plenary Council. Guest speakers inlcude a listening and dialogue session in week four with Rev Tony Percy (Vicar-General, Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn). 

Dates: 30 July and 6, 13 and 20 August 2018

Time: 6 – 8pm (refreshments from 6pm, lecture starts at 6.30pm)

Venue: ACU Canberra Campus, 223 Antill Street, Watson

To register and for further information 

http://www.acu.edu.au/about_acu/faculties,_institutes_and_centres/theology_and_philosophy/theology/short_courses/canberra 

Hopeful kids are happy kids

by Dr Justin Coulson

Think of two children who you have regular contact with: one who is resilient and happy, and one who is struggling and languishing. Imagine you are interviewing each of them and you ask them to rate their response to these six questionnaire items:

• I think I am doing pretty well
• I can think of many ways to get the things in life that are important to me
• I am doing just as well as other kids my age
• When I have a problem I can come up with lots of ways to solve it
• I think the things I have done in the past will help me in the future
• Even when others want to quit, I can find ways to solve the problem.

Chances are that the child who is resilient will respond affirmatively to these items. The child who is struggling is more likely to say ‘no’ than ‘yes’.

These items form the basis of the internationally-recognised Children’s Hope Scale that is used to assess the hopefulness of children and teens. Hope is a critically important predictor of their wellbeing and resilience.

Understanding hope

Psychologists say a person has hope when they believe that they can find ways to achieve their goals and to motivate themselves to try and follow those ways and meet those goals. Hope theory suggests we need three things to actually have ‘hope’:

• goals: something we are aiming to achieve in the future
• pathways: at least one way (and hopefully more than one) that we might follow to achieve those goals
• agency (sometimes called efficacy): the belief that we can actually make things happen along those pathways in order to meet the goals.

Hope or optimism

Hope sounds a bit like optimism. We hope good things will happen … so we’re optimistic. But there’s more to it than that.

While optimism is the belief that good things will happen in the future, and the sense that the glass is half full, hope is about taking that optimism, making it goal oriented and putting legs on it to make things happen.

And while optimism is great for boosting wellbeing and can act as a useful tool for inoculating people against depression, it seems hope does it better. This may be because while optimism is a positive mindset, hope is about action.

In contrast, if you don’t have hope, you’re, well, hope-less. That’s related to all the things we don’t want for our children. Hopeless kids don’t try, have poor relationships and feel helpless. They don’t achieve goals, often because they don’t set any. And when they do set them, that’s where it stops because they don’t have enough hope to find ways to achieve those goals.

Encouraging kids to be hopeful

Parents who want to instil hope in their children can try the following three ideas:

1.  Build a future focus

Speak to your children about their possible futures. What do they want to achieve, and why? Have them imagine their potential best selves. Talk to them about what they’re looking forward to. Ask them what they want to have, do and be.

2. Work with them on plans (or pathways)

When your child or young person says “I want to be a marine biologist”, be encouraging and then ask them, “What do you need to do to get there?” Discuss pathways, options and possibilities. Thinking about the future and making plans is central to fostering hope.

3. Help them solve problems

When your child or young person is stuck, instead of giving them an answer, ask them, “What do you think is the next best thing to do?” or “When have you overcome something like this before?” This type of question promotes a sense of agency or efficacy. Rather than having our children rely on us for all the answers, they can rely on themselves, their resourcefulness and their initiative. They can recall times they’ve succeeded before and use that to build hope that they can succeed again.

As parents, our wish for our children is that they will grow up happy and resilient. Our wish can become ‘hope’ when we use these three keys to build hope in them as they look towards the future.

Bike Program

Holy Trinity is again offering the Safe Cycle Program which is an initiative by the Physical Activity Foundation, with the support of the ACT Government, to implement a bicycle awareness and safety program into schools.

The Safe Cycle Program will be undertaken on Wednesdays. Years 5/6 weeks 3, 5, 7 and 9 of Term 3. Year 3/4 will run during Term 4 on Wednesdays of weeks 1,3, 5 and 7. The Bike Program will be implemented in Physical Education lessons and other curriculum areas. This program provides all students the opportunity to develop, demonstrate and practise correct bike handling skills, simple maintenance awareness and also to engage in local riding excursions as part of Physical Education lessons.

Permission forms for 5/6 students have been sent out via Schoolzine and are due back by Friday 3^rd August, end of week 2.

St Monica’s is delighted to host the 2018 Catholic Primary Schools Netball Carnival.

Venue: Tuggeranong Netball Association Courts, Were Street Calwell ACT 2905

Date:    Saturday 20 October 2018

Registration Fees

A fee of $30 per competitor is required to enter the carnival. The registration fee includes a food voucher (a sausage sandwich, a fruit drink, a piece of fruit and a bag of chips) per competitor. If your child has any dietary requirements, please ensure you let the school know on the registration form for catering purposes. Competitors will also receive information to assist them and their team in participating for the day. Payment can be made via QKR or to the front office.

In the event that the safety of participants is perceived as being placed at an unacceptable risk or the grounds are closed due to wet weather, the event will be cancelled. If this occurs, it is not practical to reschedule or refund team registration fees.

Whilst there will be plenty of netball, there will also be other activities on the day to keep the young at heart entertained. For your convenience, there will also be food stalls selling a range of sweet and savoury items so remember to bring some cash along on the day.

There will be several water refill stations around the grounds on the day, though we recommend each child brings along plenty of water.  It is also advisable to bring a hat and sunscreen as it could be a warm spring day.

St Monica’s Primary School community is looking forward to hosting this exciting event for the primary schools of the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn. We hope to see many of our school communities at this fun-filled day.

Registrations close on 17/8/2018

Like the St Monica’s Facebook page –

https://www.facebook.com/2018catholicschoolsnetballcarnivalcanberra/ and receive all the exciting updates, upcoming events, news and draws (when available).

Permission forms have been sent out via Schoolzine.

On Friday, 6^th July (Week 10) Claire, Angus, Alby, Xavier and myself all travelled to the Cathedral in Manuka to participate in the 2018 NAIDOC Mass.
The four children represented Holy Trinity beautifully and managed to get the perfect spots for the smoking ceremony and the Mass (nothing like telling Year 3 children that the best spots are close to the front). They chatted with the Arch Bishop and the visiting Bishop, listened beautifully and were involved in the entire Mass. The choir was amazing.

The NAIDOC Mass was attended by representatives from 90% of schools in our archdiocese and was a great celebration of Aboriginal customs, traditions and culture.

We finished our outing with morning tea at one of the cafes in Manuka. Practically perfect.

TERM 3, WEEK 2 - WED 1 AUG

Team Leader: Peter Conlon, Michael Miller, David Pembroke, Wayne Poels, Simon Frawley