Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

Dear Friends,

This week we celebrated the feast of the Assumption, and our staff and students reflected on the incredible impact Mary's life continues to have on us all.  Above I have shared photos of a place I visited in the Holy Land called Haifa.  It is here that Mary, after walking a long way, arrived at her cousin's place,  Elizabeth,  and shares the news abut becoming Jesus' mother. They pray together the Magnifact and Mary stays with Elizabeth for three months, supporting her.  Elizabeth already quite pregnant with John the Baptist, was grateful for Mary's help and love.  This selflessness is reflective of Mary's entire life- a women whose  faithfulness, kindness and love continues to impact our lives as Christians today.

Kinder Green also shared their Class Assembly on Monday afternoon. Kinder Green has been learning about ‘Sharing the Planet', focussing on how we achieve harmony through our choices. 

In Kinder Green we are: 

Inquirers: We are curious and enjoy learning about the world. 

Caring: We have a caring attitude towards people and the environment. 

Principled: We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences. 

We have been learning about God’s wonderful creation and how we need to look after the earth. Kinder Green recently went to the zoo to learn about what living things need to survive. We have learnt lots of fascinating facts about animals and enjoyed sharing all our new knowledge with the school. 

A HUGE thank you to our P and F and many parents who organised this term's  special tuckshop day on Tuesday.  There was many children (and staff!) very excited about their sushi or chicken nuggets pack and  ice blocks!  These days take planning and organisation and we are very grateful to our parents who gave of their time for this special treat for our students.

After discussions with the School Board, our Year 6 Leaders, and feedback from the survey last term, we now have a school support dog coming to Holy Trinity very soon!  Our year 6 students nominated some names for her, and on Monday morning assembly, "Maggie" was chosen from these suggestions.

Our School support dog program relates directly to student well-being. The use of dogs to provide emotional support to students has increased significantly in recent years. There is both scientific and anecdotal evidence to support the use of dogs to provide emotional support to students. Research shows a range of benefits, including:

Increase in school attendance,

Gains in confidence and increased motivation,

Decrease in learner anxiety behaviours, resulting in improved learning outcomes,

Enhanced relationships with peers and teachers due to experiencing trust and unconditional love.

The role of school support dogs is to react and respond to people and their environment, under the guidance and direction of their handler. Some examples include:

• Teach empathy and appropriate interpersonal skills.
• Help individuals develop social skills.
• The dog could be used as a non-confronting audience for student reading activities.
• The dog may be used to provide emotional support through animal assisted therapy which can come in many forms.

At Holy Trinity our school and ELC support dog will work with multiple people and will always be supervised by an adult. Students and adults will always be asked to give permission for the support dog to be in their presence or involved in any activity with them.

How did we choose our dog?

Our school support dog has been chosen because the breed does not shed hair which is considered less likely to produce allergenic reactions in sensitive people. They also have a naturally calm disposition and is medium in size.  Maggie has also come from a breeder who has supplied cavoodle dogs to other Catholic schools and ELCs in our region successfully,

Maggie will not be working with students at Holy Trinity until she is fully vaccinated and has successfully completed a 4-week training course at Pups for Fun in Fisher. Once this stage has been completed, she will visit the school/students for socialisation and to prepare for working as a school support dog. The process of familiarising her with the school environment will be done slowly and in a way that has the students, staff and support dogs’ well being in mind. Our school support dog will be de-sexed, micro chipped and registered with ACT and Australia dog registrations.  

What are our guidelines?

The following practices must be followed to ensure all legislative requirements are met:

• Only a person 18 years of age and older can be responsible for the dog.
• Maggie’s handler (person who is responsible for the dog) must be close by to the classroom teacher whenever a dog is working with a class.
• Maggie’s handler must have undertaken appropriate dog and handler training and be able to demonstrate appropriate management skills with the dog.
• Maggie must be on a leash, when outside the CST Room or Leadership Team’ Offices.
• Maggie must wear a collar that shows her name and the telephone number of the handler.
• Maggie must not be within zones used for serving, preparing or consuming food.
• Students should not eat around the dog or feed the dog

Responsibilities of the School:

Holy Trinity’s school support dog will be slowly integrated into the school week.  The days Maggie comes to the school are regarded as workdays that stimulate and make demands on the animal. This workload will be managed by the handler, Learning Support teacher and Leadership Team.

Maggie will be provided with an area where she can rest and have time away from the stimulus of the school at regular intervals through the day and be provided with food and water.

Copies of the Maggie’s health records, such as vaccination certificates, and vet visit will be provided to the school.

Advice about appropriate hygiene for students and opportunities for hand washing after handling the dog(s) and before eating food must be made available.

No person other than the adults responsible for the dog will feed the dog while it is at the school.

The whole school community, including students, staff, and families, will be kept informed about the role Maggie plays. Those with allergies or fear reactions will be allowed to avoid contact.

We will share more news about Maggie as we integrate her into our community.  Please feel free to email me if you require further information now about Maggie. 

This term we begin planning for staffing allocations and  classes preparing for 2024.  To help with staffing needs, could I please ask that families planning to leave Holy Trinity at the end of this year, (other than our Year 6 students), please fill in the form below: 

Leaving Holy Trinity at the end of the year?  Click here

I know families have now been contacted by Jane Seaborn to participate in our own school survey.  Jane has informed me that we have already had over 130 responses to this survey, which is fabulous! Thank you so much! Interestingly, Jane noted only 20% of these respondents  are male- please note that both parents/carers in a given family can respond individually to the survey. 

Have a wonderful weekend and a peace-filled week ahead with your beautiful families. 

Philippa

ELC SCHOOL HOLIDAY PROGRAM

The ELC will run the school holiday program in the September/October holidays. (Monday 2 October is a public holiday the ELC will be closed).The program is open to ELC and Kindergarten children. Please click here for further information and bookings.

Lids4Kids

The ELC is once again collecting lids for the Lids4Kids program, as an 'action' from the current unit of inquiry. Clean lids can be dropped in the bucket on the deck or foyer.

This program has many benefits including;

• reduce the amount of plastic waste going to landfill

• become an agent of change for your local community in promoting reusing and recycling plastic products

• inspire their students and local community to do the right thing and reduce the amount of plastic dumped in our environment

Stay and Play

Stay and Play is a playgroup for pre-preschoolers and their carer each Wednesday in school term 9am-10am in the ELC Adventure Garden (weather permitting). All families and the broader community are welcome to attend.

Dear All,

Next week is Book Week at Holy Trinity. Please read below....

• On Wednesday, 23^rd August, we will once again have our famous Holy Trinity Book Week Parade…. students are invited to come to school in a costume /outfit that reflects a book character that they love or enjoy.
• It is always great if your child knows what character they are. If possible, send in a copy of the book they are using or even a picture of the front cover.
• Weather permitting, we will meet on the black top at 9.10am and have our Book Week Parade.
• Parents, carers and grandparents are most welcome to come along (if needed - BYO chair).
• After our parade, the children will then head to the hall to celebrate the winning books.
• Here is the Book Week shortlist for 2023…

https://cbca.org.au/shortlist-2023

• There will be prizes given across the grades for best dressed or original outfit. The theme for Book Week 2023 is ‘Read, Grow, Inspire’. I find that Pinterest is a great resource to check out costume ideas.

Next…

• Kate and Jol Temple (our fabulous visiting authors) will be here on Wednesday, 30^th August,
• There will be three sessions with Kate and Jol…
  ELC – Year 2 will unpack the Bin Chicken books.
  Years 3/4 will work with their Underdog series.
  Year 5/6 will look at graphic novels and what goes on behind the scenes when writing a book.
• Please check out Kate and Jol’s website….http://katejoltemple.com/
• At the bottom of ‘Library News’ I have attached the flyer to pre order and have books signed by Kate and Jol before they arrive.

But wait there is more…

• Story Box Library https://storyboxlibrary.com.au/ is an online resource that Holy Trinity subscribes to. It is a wonderful resource that families can access at home. This year Story Box Library has put together a selection of books that are on the 2023 Book Week Shortlist. If you get a moment over the weekend, please let your children watch a few of the shortlisted books. 

Password: HolyTrintyReaders

User ID: HTreads

Last but not least…

• During Book Week several classes will be involved in some fabulous live online presentations from some wonderful authors, illustrators and creatives.

Happy Days,

Kate M  #welovebookweek