Dear Friends,

Welcome to the end of Week 7 and our second week of remote learning.  The prayer above was shared at our staff prayer and  meeting on Monday morning-  a very pertinent way to begin this week and the beginning of Phase 2 remote learning.  Thank you again to all families who have contacted myself, school or their child's teacher throughout the week with such positive feedback and gratitude.  Staff are working incredibly hard (as I know families are at home!) and your support is very much appreciated. 

TOP TIPS FOR MAXIMISING LEARNING

• CREATE A POSITIVE LEARNING SPACE
• Set up a quiet space that is free from distraction
• ESTABLISH A ROUTINE FOR LEARNING
• Schedule time for learning and time for breaks
•  
• SEEK ASSISTANCE WHEN NEEDED
• Email your teacher if you have any questions
•  
• REMAIN POSITIVE
  We are all in this together!

Father’s Day

Although we can not gather as a community next week to celebrate Fathers Day, we still would like to make the day special for our dads. We are calling for photos of Dads with their children to be emailed to emily.capper@cg.catholic.edu.au by next Wednesday 2^nd September.

Schook Counselling Services

Just a reminder that the school counselling is still available during lock downn. CECG’s school counselling service providers have adapted their delivery to be available via Zoom and Microsoft Teams. This is an important resource that is available, not only for students, but also for parents and caregivers during remote learning and lock downn. The counselling service has undertaken a more proactive well being case management approach to include well being check-ins. Due to this change in approach and the move to a telehealth platform, a new Informed Consent will be required. All CECGG school counsellors are now using updated forms for this purpose.

 the following information sheets may also be useful:

• Learning From Home During Lockdown – School Counselling Wellbeing Check In Service: This is an editable document where you can add your school logo and the name and email address of your school counsellor. 
• Looking After Your Mental Health During COVID-19Lockdown: General information regarding free online programs that assist with mental health concerns. This document is editable so you can add your school logo and counsellor contact details.

·        School Counselling and Informed Consent: General information about what school counselling is and what to expect

Building resilience during the COVID pandemic

by Michael Grose

The pandemic continues to bring worry and anxiety to children and young people. Resilience can help kids get through these difficult times, but it is not something they are born with. Resilience is built up over time as kids interact with the environment and each other. Emerging relatively unscathed from a setback or hardship can boost future resilience. On the other hand, if experiences are too overwhelming or stressful, kids can be traumatised, making it difficult to respond with future hardships with resilience.

The Harvard University Centre for the Developing Child depicts resilience as ‘a see-saw or balance scale, where negative experiences tip the scale toward bad outcomes, and positive experiences tip it toward good outcomes. The point where the scale balances is called the “fulcrum,” and if it is more to one side or the other, it can make it harder or easier to tip the resilience scale to the positive.’ Everyone’s fulcrum is in a different spot—which explains why hardships impact on people so differently.

Reduce the impact of COVID by reducing stress

During the pandemic there has been a constant build-up of stress and disappointment for many kids. Remote learning, postponement or cancellation of highly anticipated events such as graduations and formals, limited access to community activities and extra-curricular activities are just some of the negative outcomes that kids have experienced.

Most of these stressors are out of parents’ control however any efforts to lighten the load on kids and tip the balance to a more positive side will help build resilience. Reducing sources of stress on kids include:

•  facilitating visits to recreation areas for play and contact with friends
•  ensuring academic expectations are realistic and reflect the circumstances of each child
•  back and forth parent-teacher communication responding to pandemic-induced problems
•  alleviating unnecessary family conflict such as temporarily loosening digital limits

Build up positive outcomes through supportive relationships

The presence of healthy supportive adult relationships with children and teenagers is a recognised contributor to resilience. Harvard University state, “The one thing that most children who develop resilience have in common is a stable, committed relationship with a supportive parent, caregiver, or other adult. Adults need those supportive relationships, too!”

Parents can build more positive outcomes for kids by strengthening the connections they have with friends, family and members of the community. Relationship-building activities can include:

•  increasing family connections through shared mealtimes and enjoyable family activities
•  positive one-on-one activities between parents and kids
•  encouraging regular digital or face-to-face connection with friends
•  maintaining contact with extended family

Strengthening core skills and coping capacities

Children and adults need a set of core skills to manage their daily lives. These skills include planning, ability to focus, self-control, self-awareness and adaptability. When children and young people are under extreme stress it’s difficult to apply these core skills so the ability to manage even simple tasks can be compromised.

Parents can strengthen these skills in children and young people by:

• building daily organisational skills at age-appropriate levels including the use of schedules, timetables and other visual organisers
• encouraging children to relax and enjoy regular downtime
• developing anxiety-management tools such as deep breathing and mindfulness
• embedding well being strategies of relaxation, exercise and play into family life

Building resilience in children and young people during the current pandemic is a continuous task for families. Resilience is best promoted by relieving stressors on kids, ensuring they experience a variety of supporting relationships with adults and other children, and building core executive functioning skills so that they can successfully manage their daily lives during these times of change.

Congratulations to the Dorji Family (Karma-Jigme 3 /4 G) on the recent birth of another boy!  So good to have some happy news to finish with!

Stay safe, enjoy this precious time at home with your families and please do not hesitate to reach out for anything at all.

Philippa 

Youth Ministry Good News

Before lockdown our Youth Ministry team created their own Good News Channel. Here is episode 1! We hope you enjoy!!

Term 3 Fundraising

Term 3’s fundraising is always focused on a local community and this year a Year 6 student spoke to the Christian Outreach team about the charity Roundabout Canberra.

Roundabout Canberra provides safe and clean baby and children's items to families in need through our network of community and not-for-profit organisations.  We allow the services we assist to focus on their core business while we ensure essential items are available in great condition for their clients. After all, every child deserves a safe start and every family deserves dignity.

The Christian Outreach team decided that we would do a drive collecting baby and children’s item that could be donated. However, due to lockdown we were unable to hold the drive. Lucky for us we had another plan!

Due to upcoming renovations, the shipping container that held the school bikes needed to be moved. Students in the Christian Outreach team with Mr Bugden thought that they could sell the BMX bikes and donate the money to Roundabout Canberra. With the remaining bikes, Mr Bugden reached out to Bill Caddy the Operations Manger at cyclabilities.

‘Cyclabilities is a family and community-based therapy program for kids with needs. They teach children with disabilities about road safety and cycling skills.’

Overall we were able to donate 7 bikes to Cyclabilies and donate $1100 to Roundabout! Well done Holy Trinity!!!!

Book Week in Lockdown2021 @ HT.

Sometimes the best laid plans are just not meant to be ☹..
We have been preparing for Book Week in our library classes for 5 weeks now. Unpacking the different categories, reading books, completing craft and voting for our favourite ‘Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner”.
We love Book Week…
We had a performance coming from Melbourne (which as time went on became an online event), a book parade planned, costumes organised and a staff play in the making – but rest assured on our return to school we will endeavour to continue the fun.

While in lockdown grades have still been involved in Book Week preparations and will continue to do so for a few more weeks.

This week ….

The older grades have viewed a youtube presentation of the awards ceremony and completed a pic collage on each of the categories. There is always a winner and two honour books.

Year 2 have viewed the book – ‘How to Make a Bird’ which won Picture Book of the Year. The were asked to pop on some sort of dress up and write a short reflection on somewhere they would like to fly to. Great photos and reflections were sent.

Kinder and Year 1 were asked to pop on a favourite dress up and view the book ‘No! Never!’  This book won Early Childhood Book of the Year. They completed a front cover makeover. Great art work and some fabulous pictures were also sent.

 

 

 

On another note – This week we received a report from Catholic Education on our borrowing records from Sora, the online reading app – Holy Trinity has borrowed 987 books online this month. Congratulations to you all, we are the third highest borrowers in our diocese this month. Keep up the great work. ?

 

Take Care, Keep Reading and Smiling, And don't forget-  Holy Trinity Book Week celebrations will happen as soon as we get back to school!!!  Watch this space!!!

Kate Mertz ? x