To all our wonderful Holy Trinity students, families and teachers – welcome to a wonderful 2018.  

We have a very busy and fun year ahead, and have made a cracking start to the year. There are many projects and plans underway – please make sure you get involved as much as you can – you won’t regret it and your children will love having you around the school.

We started the year with our fantastic welcome BBQ– thank you to the fantastic Rob Shiner, Mark Bauer and the BBQ team, thanks also to all the wonderful parents who helped out to make the night a great success. It was great to see the new and not so new faces all having a great time and building connections.

Huge thank you and congratulations to Jen Graham for a massively successful Movie Night. Again, this Holy Trinity tradition was a fantastic night for the whole community. Special thanks to Mark Bauer for his ninja set up and take down skills – and the loan of floodlights so everyone could find their way safely home. With goodies on sale for both young and old, it - was a lovely to see everyone have a fantastic night.

Tuckshop and Uniform shops are both in full swing – thank you to all the volunteers who give their time so graciously to support these services – without your support these services simply wouldn’t be able to happen. The hot cross bun day last week was a great success and the kids loved their treats.

Thank you to everyone who got their green forms in – this makes organising groups and setting up for the year much easier. If you still want to help out with something, but not sure where to start, drop me an email and I can link you up with whoever needs help.

Everyone should have received their School Directory by now – keep it safe! Thank you again to Jill Rasmussen for making this massive task look easy!

The amazing Briony Heffernan is working with a diligent group of parents to create our Holy Trinity cookbook – working title ‘Holy Guacamole’!. The cookbook is shaping up to be a beautiful high quality cookbook that captures a moment in time of the Holy Trinity community.

If you haven’t already made contact with your class coordinator – I encourage you to do so – they are the linchpins of our school and an important way of connecting with our community. Thank you Louise Willis and your team of coordinators for their hard work.

This year is our fete year – thank you everyone who has put their hands up to help out. We’ll be having a catch up early in Term 2 to get the party started – look out for dates/times next term.  

And finally, we are having our first working bee of 2018 – we’re mixing things up and having this one on Friday afternoon after school. There’s a list of jobs that need to be done, so many hands make like work. The wonderful Rob is putting on a sausuage sizzle for the workers so come along and help out – the weather is promised to be lovely.

Whew – when its all down on paper – yes we’ve been busy! So, get involved – its fun and more rewarding than you can ever expect.

Blessings and best wishes for the year ahead

Carmel Brennan                                         Mark Bauer

P&F President                                            Rob Shiner

htpfpresident@gmail.com                        P&F Vice Presidents

Holy Week Liturgies

Thank you to 3/4 White and Green and their teachers who lead our school community in a moving Good Friday Liturgy last Thursday. On Tuesday we celebrated Jesus’s Resurrection with a liturgy lead by the staff. 

 Project Compassion Easter Egg Raffle

Congratulations to Alexander, Carie, Caiden and Jeremy our winners of the Caritas Easter Raffle. The money raised from the sales of the Easter Raffle tickets was just over $550. A big thank you to our “Caritas Team”, Claire, Sophia and Amy for all their efforts during last week. Combined with the collection from the classroom Caritas donation boxes, Holy Trinity raised over $900 for Caritas this Lenten Season. Thank you to everyone for their support and generous donations.

ANZAC Day Liturgy 

5/6 Red will lead us in our ANZAC Day Liturgy next Friday, 13th April at 9:30. I am asking that any Australian Services person that would like to be part of the liturgy to contact me via email. I am also taking a small team of 5/6 students to the ANZAC and Peace Day Ceremony next Wednesday, 11th April.

ELC Community Consultation Group The ELC is establishing a Community Consultation group of parents who would be invested in helping shape Centre decisions, assist in the ELC self-assessment and provide input into our continual quality improvement. It is open for all parents/carers of ELC children or Primary aged children who are in the BSC or ASC programs. The first meeting will be held on 12 April at 7pm. The night will have a social element with wine and cheese on offer.

School Holiday Program Confirmation of school holiday bookings will be sent home with students today. If you still require a place in the School Holiday Program, booking forms are available from the ELC office or by email request elc.holytrinity@cg.catholic.edu.au

ELC Working Bee Friday 6 April from 3.30-6.30. Drop by for 30 minutes or 3 hours, we would love your help in adding fresh sand to our sandpit, sorting toys and equipment and general cleaning. Add your name to the sign-up sheet in the classrooms.

Stay and Play every Wednesday morning from 9-10am at the ELC playground. All families from the ELC, Primary School and broader community are very welcome.

Below are some photos from the ELC participating in the Cross Country.

When kids’ heroes fall

The recent ball tampering scandal involving the Australian cricket team has been front and centre in the media in recent days. The condemnation of the actions of Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, the main protagonists in this ongoing drama has been swift, vigorous and harsh.

While much has been written about the toxic culture of the Australian team itself, it’s the sudden fall from grace by sporting heroes that’s perhaps hardest to comprehend. In particular, deposed captain Steve Smith has gone from hero to villain, icon to demon, idol to devil in the matter of a few days. In a country that routinely holds up sporting heroes as figures for the next generation to aspire to there’s now a need to help young people makes sense of what’s going on.

These events provide rich fodder for family conversations about many issues that are very pertinent to children and young people. Here are some possible starting points:

When heroes reveal their feet of clay
Fair play is something that is drummed into kids from an early age so when your hero freely admits to breaking the rules to get an advantage it’s hard to feel anything else but shock and disappointment. These are legitimate emotions yet they don’t justify further vilification that is seems to be occurring in the media at the moment. Conversations that focus on the pressure that these young men can experience; a win at all costs attitude that can lead to such actions and the impact that group pressure can have on individuals.

When good people make bad decisions
Much of the current commentary is polarising and unforgiving. Smith, Warner and Bancroft have been roundly pilloried for their actions. They’ve been labelled many things including ‘cheats’, ‘idiots’ and ‘arrogant’. The language used has been black not white, rarely have there been any shades of grey used. It’s easy to forget that these are young men who under intense pressure made poor choices. Good people make bad decisions every day that don’t make front page news.  Doing the right things can be hard sometimes. Label the deed, not the dude. These are important messages to impress upon children and young people.

There’s no shame in losing
We all love a winner. No one wants to be a loser. In fact, being labelled a loser is perhaps the biggest ignominy of all for a young person these days. When did losing become shameful?  There is a tremendous need to impress upon kids that there is no shame in losing and that a win at all costs attitude generally has its own price.

Cheats, fair play and bending the rules
It’s been noted that Cricket Australia’s CEO James Sutherland has avoided using the word cheat at all costs while fronting the media on South Africa. Most likely he avoids the word for legal reasons but it’s also evident that it’s a value-laden, emotive word. Labelling someone a cheat is perhaps one of the biggest slurs of all. Yet, we condone bending rules; going close to the line of fair play and getting a mental edge over an opponent. This is great time for family conversations about fair play, spirit of sport and bending rules which can be commonplace in everything from backyard cricket to a simple game of cards. 

There by the grace of God go I
We live in a society that’s quick to judge others. Reality TV relies on viewers passing judgement on contestants, in voyeuristic ways. We risk raising a generation with an empathy deficit that is quick to judge other’s harshly and slow to forgive. At present a little empathy wouldn’t go astray. A comment such as “I wonder how these guys are feeling right now?” can help kids see things from other perspectives. It’s easy to be judgemental, hard to be empathetic; harder still to be forgiving and allow them to come back into the fold. It’s also useful to discuss the fact that we are all be capable of acting outside our values and beliefs at times. Yep, we’re all human.

The ball tampering incident is highly emotive as it’s hit at the core of many values that we hold sacred. But it’s also useful to remember that front and centre are young men who are fallible like the rest of us, and while they deserve to experience the consequences of their choices, they don’t deserve to be personally vilified for doing something that we encourage them to do that is, to win. It’s sport, not war. Kids need to understand that too!

(parentingideas.com.au)

Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge - CMRC

2018 sees the return of the Chief Minster’s Reading Challenge to Holy Trinity.

Each child from the ELC to Year 6 is ‘challenged’ to read 15 age appropriate books over a 15-week time frame. (The challenge does go for longer but I try to wrap it up at the start of term 3). We will officially start the challenge Week 10 of this term and run it until after the July holidays.
I have been telling the children that - Any books read in the last month can also be included in the challenge (particularly for the big kids as their books take longer to read).

This year in line with the school’s efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and reduce the amount of paper that we use, all children will be recording books that they have read online in Google docs. We will be providing each child with a QR Code which will take them straight to the Holy Trinity Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge Google Doc where they will record; their name, which class they are in, the book title and when they have finished reading the book. To assist this process all parents need to download the QR Code Reader to their child’s tablet or to the parent’s smart phone.

The 15 books can be from class reading and individual reading. Fiction or non-fiction, poetry, EBooks, audio books, books on Overdrive, graphic books, home books and of course library books. As long as the books are age appropriate.

Generally, the ELC, Kinder and Year 1 complete the challenge in class but extra home reading and is always welcomed. All children can record books read in class - individually or with the teacher. Classes will have their own QR Code.

There will be a display in the hallway near Year 1 that keeps track of which child finishes the 15 books and a tally of how many books they have read.

There is also a raffle that runs throughout the challenge. Once a child reads 15 books they get a raffle a ticket. Prizes are given to each grade level from Redgum book club funds.

At the end of the challenge, I take four great readers to the awards ceremony, morning tea and a shop at Paperchain. Big fun!

Please contact me at kate.mertz@cg.catholic.edu.au for any further information.

Thanks in advance,

K x

Cross Country

On Wednesday 4^th April, all students including the ELC took part in the annual Cross Country Carnival. It was pleasing to see students give it their best and demonstrate good sportsperson-ship throughout the event. Thank you to all the parents who came to support their children. The winning house on the day was the Green House, well done. Qualifying students for the South Western Carnival will be notified next week.

South Western Swimming Carnival

Yesteraday, fifteen students represented Holy Trinity at the South Western Swimming Carnival at the AIS. Well done to all the students who qualified and competed in this event.

Catholic Schools Soccer Carnival

On Sunday 8^th April, two teams from Years 3 to 6 will participate in the annual Catholic Schools Soccer Carnival at the University of Canberra. Thank you to the coaches and managers who have already been in contact with the teams communicating important information for the day. Show bags including food vouchers and team jerseys will be sent home with the players before the end of the week.

Coles for Sport

The promotion has now concluded at Coles. Can all vouchers please be sent into school to the collection boxes. We are hoping to send in our vouchers by the end of the tem. Thank you for helping contribute to this great promotion. Hopefully later this year we will receive a delivery of new sports equipment for the school.

Jump Rope for Heart

Earlier this term we took part in the Heart Foundations, Jump Rope for Heart event. Thank you for all your generous donations to the worthy cause. If there are still any more nomination sheets at home could they be sent into school as soon as possible. We need to send off all donations by the end of the term.

TERM 1, WEEK 10 - WED 11 APR

Team Leader: Lana Eldridge, Dean Prail, Ross Hamilton, David/Athena Cains, Michael Chan

 

Firstly, we would like to send a BIG thank you and shout out to Lana Eldridge for her incredible efforts over the last 7+ years running the Entertainment Book fundraising event for HT!

J Exciting news to report – we have achieved 16 Entertainment Book membership purchases (combination of hard copy and digital) in our first few weeks of sales which is fantastic!  Purchases have been for Canberra, Sydney, Geelong, Ballarat and surrounds.

As a result, we have also earned entries for the Hyatt and Jamala lodge competitions which the Canberra Entertainment Office are running.  IF we are lucky enough to win, voucher(s) can be gifted on and included in our fete raffle to continue our awesome fundraising efforts –yippee!!

Let’s keep going – bonus early bird offers for our annual Entertainment Book fundraising are still available until 10 April unless sold out before.

Why/What?

An Entertainment Book provides a great opportunity to have fun, discounted adventures together with family and friends for 14+ months (valid 12 April 2018 to 30 June 2019) while also raising $ for HT.  20% of every membership sold is donated to our school fundraising efforts.

How?

Digital or hard copy entertainment books for the ACT and surrounding regions can be ordered by either:

• going to our online HT payment page (https://www.entertainmentbook.com.au/orderbooks/232w05) for electronic completion; OR

• completing the hard copy flyer (previously sent home with your child/ren) and returning to the front office or your classroom teacher as soon as possible.

Don't forget to select "Pick Up" as Delivery Option for hard copy memberships - we will send it home with your child/ren once books available.

Note: it is also possible to purchase memberships for family and friends which are valid for other states - any birthdays, special occasions, new staff relocating etc you can consider gifting entertainment book(s) to?

Any qus or issues, please contact Jo Hamilton on htpsentertainmentbook@gmail.com or
0407 002 513.

Thank you for your valuable support - it is genuinely appreciated.