12th February 2020
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From the Principal
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New Staff
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2020 Teaching Staff
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Ready to Learn Sessions
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Outdoor Learning and Play
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Learning Treasures
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School Photos
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Canberra Chocolate Boxes
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Grade 6 PCYC
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Grade 3-6 Swimming Carnival
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Forms To Be Returned
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Parents and Friends
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Breakfast Club
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Pastoral Care & Wellbeing
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Religious Education
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Coronavirus Information Sheet
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Swim Club
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SWIRL Teen Active
Welcome Back
Welcome back to all our families. We hope that you all had a fantastic break over the summer period. We will be holding our "Welcome & Information" afternoon next Tuesday, 18th February 3pm - 6pm. This will be an opportunity to meet with classroom teachers and to find out further information about class routines, goals and expectations. A free sausage sizzle will be provided from 3pm. Further information will be provided in a letter to families. We hope to see you all next Tuesday.
Sunday Connection - Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Gospel Reading Matthew 5:17–37
I have not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them.
Family Connection
Families have rules. Without rules, family life would be chaos. As a family, brainstorm a list of rules that you are all called to follow in your home in order for you all to get along together. Think about rules for play time, rules for eating, rules for how to speak to one another, rules for going out with friends, and so on. Emphasise that families follow rules as a way of showing love and respect for one another. Explain that in this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus talks about following the Law. Say: God’s Law of love can be thought of as rules that we are to follow in order to show our love and respect for one another. Read aloud this Sunday’s Gospel, Matthew 5:17–37. Talk specifically with one another about how anger is to be dealt with in your family. Conclude by praying for the grace to overcome anger and to show respect for one another as a family by following God’s Law of love.
Ref:© Copyright Loyola Press. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. http://www.loyolapress.com
We welcome Mrs Leone Cowen to the St Peter Chanel Catholic School community and wish her all the best for 2020 in Grade One.
Kinder - Mrs Anna Hart
Prep - Miss Kelli Cook
Grade One - Mrs Leone Cowen
Grade Two - Miss Anne Kennedy
Grade Three - Mr John van Keulen
Grade Four - Miss Nicki Pitt (Making Jesus Real Coordinator)
Grade Five - Miss Tracey Fletcher
Grade Six - Miss Montana Bradley (Digital Technologies Coordinator)
PE/Health - Mrs Danielle Hodgetts (Religious Education Coordinator)
Music - Mr Nick Hart
Drama - Mrs Anna Hart
Leadership Team
Principal - Mrs Christina Gretton
Deputy Principal - Mrs Andrea Jaffray Morf
Special Learning Needs & Curriculum Leader - Mrs Brooke Lardner
Last Friday the students participated in four different sessions in preparation for the 2020 school year.
PBS - Positive Behaviour Support: Our three school PBS values consist of ‘We are here to Learn’, ‘We are Respectful’ and ‘We are Safe’. During our PBS sessions we explored the different areas of our school and how we display and uphold these values.
MYTERN - Take Emotional Responsibility Now
Language influences the way you think. How do you learn to think differently?
By thinking and speaking a different language. MYTERN is a transformational language that crosses age and cultural barriers, teaching individuals how to take control of their response to people and circumstance, turning a victim into a victor.
In this modern life we cannot eliminate the stress and problems that so often negatively impact our lives. However, it is our response to these triggers that is the key. The language of MYTERN teaches you how to be in control of that response, and that changes everything!
Based on neuroscience and positive psychology, MYTERN creates a language that challenges the cultural patterns of always needing to be happy and trying to be perfect. By constantly picking everyone off the rough roads and placing them on the smooth, people are unable to build their own emotional resilience.
MYTERN teaches self-regulation, replacing blame and judgement with responsibility, empathy and compassion. Through creating a powerful common language, MYTERN has the potential to change culture; transforming you, your school, your home, and your workplace.
MYTERN fridge magnet - The ideal location for your MYTERN City Map magnet is on the door of the fridge, where each member of the family will see it every day, moving their car on to the appropriate road. The map creates an objective and non-judgemental way of showing how you are feeling, and is a wonderful tool to use when a family member experiences conflict in the home, at school or at work.
Rock & Water
On Friday, 7th February, classes participated in Rock and Water sessions. The Rock and Water program focuses on children’s self awareness. One’s own strength and capabilities and one’s ability to play together, work together and live together with others in an ever changing society.
Rock and Water helps develop the psychosocial skills in children through participating in a framework of physical exercises, in order to develop a strong physical basis. Students are exposed to learning how to “ground” and “centre” themselves, to help focus.
Students participated in a brief overview of what Rock and Water exercises can do to help them feel confident about themselves and achieve self realisation.
Please discuss with your child/children what they learnt about Rock and Water and how they feel the activities can help them be more aware of themselves and how they interact with others.
Flipping Your Lid - Our Brain and feelings.
These sessions focussed on helping students to understand where their feelings and emotions come from and gave them some strategies to calm before they do “Flip their Lid”. We also discussed how our brain focuses on our safety, but sometimes it can be too overprotective and get it wrong with just little things. This may be why we get anxious, so just ask yourself the question..”Am I in real danger?” If not, take 5 slow deep breaths.
Since 2014 Catholic Education Tasmania has supported schools in offering children creative play and learning within our school outdoor spaces through our Outdoor Play and Learning Policy.
It is timely to restate some purposes of this policy, being to: Support learning and creative play with reasonable levels of risk-taking. Offer age appropriate activities and items to encourage development of gross motor, collaboration and risk assessment skills and enable children to extend their capabilities
Examples of loose parts items students use: Logs, sticks, milk crates, rocks, tyres, mud play, cable reels, pallets, etc
If your child is participating and you wish to discuss how they are finding this please contact the office to chat to one of our Leadship staff.
School Photos are Tuesday 25th, February. Yesterday families received their order forms to either purchase online or via a cash payment. Please return these to the office, prior to photo day. For a family photo order form, please see the office to collect a form. Students will be required to wear their full Summer Uniform for school photos.
Any outstanding chocolate boxes from last year for our Canberra Fundraising are due for payment to the office now. Thank you for your cooperation with this.
This Friday, Grade Six along with Miss Bradley and Mrs Spinks are heading to Burnie to the PCYC for their Leadership day. Students are required to wear their Sports Uniform. The Leavers' Polo Tops will be handed out. Please ensure payment has been made prior.
On Wednesday, 19th February, students in Grades three to six will be participating in our school swimming carnival at SWIRL. As per the letter home, for students to participate, the consent form must be signed and returned. The carnival will run from 12 -2pm.
At the end of 2019 with student reports families received the following forms:
Payment arrangement & fee structure
Medical form
Validation form
Student ICT agreement
If you are yet to complete and return these forms please do so as soon as possible. These forms are sent annually to ensure details are current and correct. Thank you for your cooperation with this.
Fortnightly Cake Raffle
This year our wonderful Parents and Friends group will be running a fortnightly cake raffle. Families are able to purchase tickets for $1.00 on the Qkr! App and each assembly a name will be drawn out for the winner.
Easter Raffle
Our Parents and Friends will be running an Easter Raffle. We are seeking donations for items for the Easter hampers. We are hoping that each family can donate something.
Families will be given raffle books to sell. Raffle tickets will also be available for purchase at the front office. Thank you for your ongoing support.
Welcome back to a fresh start to the year. Breakfast Club is held in the hall kitchenette at the rear of the main building. If your child has missed breakfast or has been on a long bus journey to school they are welcome to access this free program of toast and hot milo (Hot Milo - Winter only).
We are in need of some support from you, a carer, grandparent, relative or friend to assist spreading toast between 8.15 and 9am once a fortnight. If you can help us out please contact the office for more details.
Welcome back for a great year in 2020. To start the year off, last Friday we held our ‘Ready to Learn’ sessions in preparation for the new year. I presented a session called “Flip your Lid” which was about our emotions and feelings and how we can learn skills or strategies to calm ourselves before we do lose control. Some ideas or suggestions that students came up with were using your iPad or phone to help distract their thoughts. That is fine if apps are safe but sometimes other users have hidden agendas. I have added some important parental information about a popular app called Tik Tok.
How safe is TikTok?
TikTok is a free social media app that lets you watch, create, and share videos -- often to a soundtrack of the top hits in music, as well as view the clips and videos of others -- right from your phone. It was originally available as Musical.ly but was rebranded when the two apps merged in August 2018.
When you sign up for TikTok, your account is public by default, meaning anyone can see your videos, send you direct messages, and use your location information. Parents should make sure to turn on all privacy settings for accounts kids are using, so only people you know can interact with your videos or message you on the app. That means either opting for a private account or changing the settings for comments, duets, reactions, and messages to "Friends" instead of "Everyone." You can also turn those features off completely.
What should parents be aware of?
Like with Musical.ly, Tik Tok also puts young people at risk of seeing highly inappropriate content. Many videos include swearing and sexual lyrics. It’s also easy to find people wearing revealing clothing and dancing suggestively, although Tik Tok won’t let you search for objectionable content such as “sex” or “porn”. Musical.ly had trouble keeping tabs on the nature of its content and users at 100 million accounts, jumping to 400 million users overnight will likely see many of these challenges continue to rise.
All social media platforms encourage users to connect, to share content, to like and to comment. This also means public and private chats are available and young people can certainly be contacted by those who don’t have their best interests at heart. Users can connect their other social media accounts to their Tik Tok account making it easier for them to be found and contacted via these apps as well.
The app store rating is 12+, however Common Sense Media rates it at 16+.
- Remember, if your child has friends over and they are creating videos, this may not be something other children’s families are ok with so one should always check before uploading any videos of other people’s kids
Also be aware there are in app purchases of up to $99 so you may want to turn that feature off too!
Like all games and social networks it is certainly imperative that parents do their homework if they are going to allow their child on apps that are generally not recommended for their age. That means finding out all you can on how to set it up safely, recognising the risks and having the appropriate and ongoing conversations with your child. If we are allowing them to play in public places, we must recognise that the cognitive brain development of most young people is simply not there yet to make some of the important decisions and engage in the critical thinking that is expected of them at this level of playing.
We have many upcoming events and celebrations in our church calendar in Term 1. All families are welcome to attend. Some key dates are below;
- Welcome Liturgy – Thursday, 13th February, 10.30-10.50am. (Led by our school and house captains)
- Ash Wednesday Prayer Liturgy – Wednesday 26th February, 11.30am (Led by Prep and Grade 4)
- Whole School Welcome Mass – Thursday, 27th February, 9.00am. (Led by class and school captains)
- World Day of Prayer Liturgy - Friday, 6th March, 11.30am. (Led by Grade 1 and Grade 3)
- Catholic Education Week Liturgy – Thursday, 26th March, 11.30am. (Led by our school and house captains)
- Palm Sunday Liturgy – Monday, 6th April, 2pm. (Led by Grade 5)
- Easter Prayer Liturgy - Thursday, 9th April 11.30am. (Led by Grade 2 & Grade 6)
Mrs Danielle Hodgetts
Religious Education Coordinator