Dear Lord,

As we begin a new term, make us ready, attentive and available to hear you.  Thank you for the gifts of faith, hope and love; thank you for the gift of being able to rise each day with the assurance that you walk through it with us.

Amen

Dear Friends,

Last week out staff shared together a wonderful afternoon  perusing our artefacts and artistic statements that represented out Professional Inquiry Projects created over the last three school terms.  We decided in professional development week (way back in January!)  that, as life long learners, we would also participate in our own professional inquiry- a component of our professional learning community model. (see diagram below) Each individual teacher inquiry  enabled us as educators and lifelong learners to actively explore our reality and pursue a passion or interest that we wished to further develop. It also enabled us as educators to experience the risk taking, collaboration, challenges and learning that we expect our own students to engage with, within a unit of inquiry. This also was a component of a goal in our 3 year strategic plan as follows: 

GOAL 3:  Increase student agency to foster life-long learners

Key Improvement Strategies

• Build teacher agency e.g. Inspiring our Professional Learning Community, PIP Professional Inquiry Project
• Create high functioning collaborative teams
•   Enhance professionalism with individual coaching methods for staff (Inspiring our professional learning community)

 We know the most powerful professional learning is embedded in everyday work and this PIP has enabled teacher agency and the opportunity to explore and develop new innovations. As written by Hargreaves and Shirley 2009:

 “Teachers are the ultimate arbiters of educational change. The classroom door is

the open portal to innovation or the raised drawbridge that holds innovation at bay.”

 Below are some of the artefacts and artistic statements we presented to each other throughout the afternoon: 

From these personal inquiry projects we will decide which of the learning will continue to be explored in 2021 and which we will embed as practice, and thus be included in our Annual Improvement Plan for 2021.  Therefore staff will collaboratively inquire together about some of these learnings to help co create our preferred future as educators of Holy Trinity School. In my privileged role as Principal of Holy Trinity school, I could not be prouder and more in awe of the teachers at Holy Trinity. This PIP sharing only reiterated the incredible talent, commitment and expertise we have on our teaching staff at both the Primary School and ELC.

With this professionalism in mind, we come to that time of the year when we begin organising staffing for 2021 and class lists. As our school is steadily increasing enrolments, most year levels are now 2 or 3 streamed.  When forming the class lists the following factors are taken into consideration:

gender, learning needs, work habits, cognitive ability, friendships, behaviour, health considerations, common names.

As  a PYP school, collaboration is an essential component of your child's learning, and although students are placed in home rooms with a specific teacher, there are many occasions throughout the day or week, where classes are mixed or opened for differing groupings, based on the learning occurring. If a parent has a particular concern regarding the placement of their child/ren in classes, this should be written in an email to me by Friday Week 4, 6th November, and this concern will be considered seriously. However, there are no definite guarantees regarding parent requests as there is much to consider as stated above.  Please note, teacher requests are not to be included in these emails. 

As we did last year, I will not be asking teachers to have students complete and send home sociograms to be considered in their class for 2021.  It is an unreal expectation that school can accommodate all requests, including friendships, and teachers as professionals, who spend the majority of the day with children, need to be trusted to make the right decisions around learning.  Even with the best designed plans in place, every year there are always students and parents who feel their child's friendships or circumstances have changed between the time of drafting class lists and the start of the school year.  Many of these changes are out of control of the family or school.  For example, the child wants to be with different students or has a falling out with friends late in the term or over the holidays, a child leaves the school and leaves them without one of the friends on the sociogram and so on. 

Be assured your child's teacher and other key staff in the school know our students well and have information and data about them which assists in placing them in the best class for 2021.  Children are more resilient than we often give them credit for and they will able to learn and enjoy school in whichever class they are placed. There is also much time given to transition for particular students, depending on their individual needs, including a transition staff meeting, where staff from 2020 will share knowledge about students to their teachers for 2021.  On Tuesday 15th December, students (including those Year 1-6 new to the school) will also be placed in their class for 2021, with their new teacher (where possible) to spend some time together in preparation for the new year.  Class lists will then be emailed to all families on the last day of the year (Friday December 18th) and no changes will be made to the class lists after this. 

With every best wish for a holy and peace-filled week ahead with your beautiful families,

Philippa

Remembrance Day

Our military families and students will lead the school in our Remembrance Day Service. I am asking that any Australian Services persons that would like to be part of the service to please contact me by sending an email to emily.capper@cg.catholic.edu.au

First Eucharist

Youth Ministry- A message from Grace 

Our final term of Youth Ministry is going to be our best yet! The southside Youth Ministers are holding a Youth Rally 'SUMMIT' for Years 6-9 students from schools around Canberra, see the video and poster below for details! To register click the following link https://www.trybooking.com/BMGUQ

Our Youth Ministry Team will continue meeting at lunchtimes on Tuesdays. Students are growing in faith and sharing it with the lower grades through biblical dramas, helping with prayer reflections and supporting stage 2 with their First Eucharist preparations. 

Later in the term, the parish Youth Ministers will be talking to Year 5-6 about self-esteem and hopefully will leave them with some practical faith-based strategies and mindsets to take with them into high school.

Our Youth Ministry Team wishes you a blessed term, may you 'soar on wings like eagles and run and not grow weary' as the end of the year gets busier before wrapping up! 

After speaking to staff , we are currently looking at all our Term 4 events and adjusting with the current easing of restrictions accordingly . However, as you can appreciate, there is much to consider and many people affected when making these decisions.  Staff are naturally concerned  around the movement in the holidays and that is why we have continued in weeks 1 and 2 to be conservative with our restrictions.  However from next week we will make the following changes: 

• Morning drop off and afternoon pick up will go back to usual procedure.  Parents can park and pick up children form the bitumen area between the kinder courtyard and the pencils.  We will continue with car pick up, but only in the car park area, not the front ring road. The ring road will only be used for parents to park and pick up if they are arriving after 9am and before 3:10pm (only if there is a specific need to pick up early). 
• Morning Assembly and notices will continue over the PA, once children settled in classrooms. Therefore, drop off areas for morning will continue- Kinder and Year 2 in courtyard and Year 1, 3 /4 and 5 /6 at black top. 
• Assemblies to remain parent free - staff will still record and send home. We know this has enabled families to share the assembly together and given more opportunity for parents committed at work to see the assembly. 
• Kinder orientation in Week 6 will go ahead with social distancing when dropping children off and picking them up;  however the parent meeting will be via Zoom at 5pm that afternoon-  more information will be sent home in a letter to families of Kinder students 2021 next week. 
• ELC orientation will occur in smaller groups throughout Week 4
• Excursions are able to go ahead, with social distancing of adults. 
• Christmas Concert will be shared together via a video recording with each class performing something- more information to come! 
• PYP Exhibition format not decided yet, however we still occur in Week 7
• End of year events will still have restrictions, however more information will come about these as the ACT gives next notification on the 6th of November. 

We will continue to keep you informed as changes occur and I thank you again for your understanding and support. 

2020 has been a big year and for the first time ever (almost like the AFL Grand final) Book Week was moved from August, Term 3 to October, Term 4…. We were all involved in the build up to Book Week over a 6 week time frame and then celebrated with a big parade yesterday. We will conclude with an author visit tomorrow.

The parade was broken into two sessions for an hour each, Year 3 – Year 6 then ELC - Year 2. The kids looked fantastic, had a wonderful time and all knew who they were. They laughed, danced and celebrated the wonderful world of books with much style.

Below is a selection of photos and a few reflections of the celebrations from our senior students…. Included in the photos are some photos of the ‘Best Dressed’ from every grade.

Congratulations also to Owen, Audrey and Ilaria for entering our 2D or 3D Curious Creature competition. Impressive entries and hard to pick a winner.

Book Week 2020:
In a year of Bushfires and Coronavirus, Book Week is something we were all looking forward to. Although it wasn’t the same as past years, we still had bucket loads of fun. Coming in with the win of older readers, younger readers, Picture book, and information book was… The Little Wave, My Friend Fred, I need a parrot, and Young Dark Emu. These books all tie in with the theme for this year, which was Curious Creatures. All our costumes were amazing, especially Mrs B.W, and ¾ Blues. A special thanks to all our staff, for joining in, and Mrs Mertz for organising that amazing week.

By Izzy M

Book Week 2020 was a blast for all the teachers and students. The Book Week theme this year was Curious Creatures and Wild Minds, Everyone did a great job with fitting into the category. Everyone looked exquisite in their well thought out outfits. From aliens to 80’s girls it was a very hard choice to pick the winners. We are all a bit upset that the parents could not attend this year’s assembly, but we thank them fo helping us make our fantastic outfits. We thank Mrs. Mertz, Mr. Bugden and Mr. Sloane each for putting so much effort into our wonderful day, without out them there would not have been a Book Week (for Holy Trinity) at all!

Great job everyone!

Anastasia L & Sara P

Only 8 weeks until the school fete!

Over the coming weeks there will be many fete communications but essentially we are asking families to support us in the following five ways:

1. Consider volunteering

Thank you to all the wonderful families who have signed up to be fete-day volunteers. There are still positions available, especially in the afternoon, and you can register at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0D48A9A82DABFCC61-fete    

2. Please buy your fete-day tickets

Fete tickets have gone on sale today on QKR. The tickets are all inclusive and priced at $25 per student (two students = $50, three or more students = $75). Tickets need to be pre-purchased - there will be NO CASH on the fete day. The fete ticket is exactly the same for all students, everyone will have access to all the festivities. No child will be excluded from the fete but we need all families who can purchase tickets to do so, in order for the fete day to be possible. 

3. Donate a fete-day ticket

If you are able, there is an option to donate a fete-day ticket when you make your purchase on QKR. This will help the P&F cover the costs for families who might be struggling at this difficult time.

4. Donations drives

There will be two donation drives to bring in goodies for the fete. These are scheduled for Week Two (this week) & Week Six. This week we are asking families to bring in chocolates - packets of bite size chocolates, snack chocolates, chocolate bars etc. These will be packaged up as prizes for kids to win on the fete day. Please remember to avoid products with nuts! Please ask your kids to give them to their class teacher, who will pass them on to the P&F. In Week Six, our focus will be on lollies.

5. Lend us your stuff!

As we develop a list of things we need (like marquees and halloween decorations) we will publish a 'wish-list' and ask you to lend us things that you might have available at home. We will of course return these items - it will be very handy if we don't have to purchase them :)

If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch.

Kind Regards,
Jenny Van de Meeberg
Fete Co-ordinator
htpspf2021fete@gmail.com

BYOD Program for 2021

Due to COVID-19 Restrictions, our 2021 3-6 BYOD Launch will not be hosted on school grounds. Therefore, I have provided all information I usually give out on the night including Acceptable Use Agreements, technical device requirements (minumum) and other information relating to our BYOD Program. If you have any further questions, please email me: rebecca.casey@cg.catholic.edu.au

Holy Trinity conducted a 1:1 iPad program in place in Years 5 and 6 from 2013 – 2015. We trialled a BYOD program in Years 3/4 in 2015 and after finding it worthwhile and effective, moved into BYOD from Years 3-6 in 2016 and 2017. This has successfully continued over the past few years.

At Holy Trinity, we believe it is important that our teaching and learning reflects the needs of students in today’s current climate. Within the classroom environment, a personal device also provides the children with multiple opportunities.

Why BYOD? Our BYOD Program provides:

• More choice for parents (not just iPads)
• Increased student engagement
• Greater access to research and information
• Unlimited ways to present ideas and apply critical thinking
• Central control for robotics
• No issues of work being deleted or tampered with by sharing a device
• A personal device can be tailored to individual needs
• Continued learning from school to home
• Exposure to different operating systems
• Security of personal log ins and passwords

Over the last three years, we have had extensive changes to our wireless network. This included detailed mapping of our wireless, upgrade of routers to handle heavy traffic and the ease of connecting a variety of devices. This created a safe, reliable wireless environment to support our BYOD model for Years 3 through to 6 continuing in 2021.

Therefore, in keeping with this plan, all students in Year 3 -6 will engage in this program by bringing a personal device to school in 2021. The specifics of the devices and the rights and responsibilities associated with the program are contained in: 

• Facts and FAQ's document.

• The School Wide Network Usage Agreement and the 1:1 Device Policies and Acceptable Use Agreements 

• Recommended Essential Apps

• Screentime- Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavioursrecommended by Australian Health Guidelines (2019)

At the start of the 2021 school year, all students in Years 3 - 6 will participate in cyber safety and digital citizenship boot camps. Depending on COVID-19 restrictions, Parent information sessions will be offered to provide parents with material regarding varying ICT topics. Once the students and parents have signed and returned the necessary acceptable use agreements, students will be permitted to bring their personal device to school.

* If this provides difficulty for any families please contact our principal, Philippa Brearley.

Regards,

Rebecca Casey

ICT Coordinator

rebecca.casey@cg.catholic.edu.au

We have a number of lost property items in the Front Office.   Please come and collect them if they are yours.

TERM 4, WEEK 3 - WED 28 OCT

Team Leader: Greg Bayada, Tom Green, Stephanie Lehoczky, Ben Williams, Justin Hooper

Reminder:  Could team leaders please ensure the ELC is vacuumed, as well as the main building and annexe.   Just the carpeted areas, as the bathrooms are done by the cleaners.

Next week October 26-30 is Ride or Walk Safely to School week. Although Holy Trinity is not doing an organised event this time. We are still encouraging students to ride or walk safely to school during the week.

Health Benefits
Cycling or walking are simple ways for children to incorporate physical activity into their everyday lives. Children and young people need to participate in at least 60 minutes of moderate physical activity each day to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Social Benefits
Supervised riding or walking to school in early primary school years can develop the confidence and skills to independently travel in higher primary years. Children can also interact with parents and other students walking or riding the same way home.

Educational Benefits
Research shows that children who ride or walk to school are more likely to arrive at school alert and ready to learn.

Environmental Benefits
Riding and walking to school provides environmental benefits to the broader community through:
- Reducing traffic congestion
- Reducing noise and air pollution
- Reducing greenhouse emissions
- Creating safer environments with less cars around schools

Mel Punyer
Sports Coordinator

School banking will recommence next Wednesday, 28 October. We thank Carrie Kilpin again for volunteering to coordinate school banking here at Holy Trinity this year.

Due to changes and legalities within the Commonwealth Bank, student banking (Dolamite) needs to come into the school on the actual day of banking. Our banking day is every Wednesday.

The new procedures will be that Carrie will be at the school of a Wedneday morning from 8.30am - 8.55am to process the banking. If your child does school banking they will need to get a green pass from a teacher on duty and come into the board room (old office space) and bring their banking book directly to Carrie. Once Carrie has processed their banking, she will hand the book back directly to the student. If any bank books are brought up to the Front Office after this time, they will be sent home with that child. Unfortunately, we have been advised by the Commonwealth Bank that they can no longer be stored here at school.