Dear Friends,

On Monday we shared a lovely assembly with 1 Green, who began with the prayer above.  They also presented their learnings from two Units of Inquiry: 

In 1G we began our year by investigating Who We Are. We have learned
that Actions can Influence Outcomes, and that our choices can play a big
part in creating a healthy and happy life. We have tried to be KNOWLEDGEABLE, BALANCED and PRINCIPLED. This means we have been open to learning, taking care of ourselves, and taking responsibility for our actions and their consequences.

Recently we have been inquiring into how we as humans can care for the
plants and animals we share the world with. We have been discovering what living things need to survive and thrive in their environment. Throughout this unit of inquiry, we are working on being PRINCIPLED, CARING, and INQUIRERS. This means that we are trying to make good choices, put others before ourselves, and ask lots of questions to deepen our understanding. We know that all living things are a part of creation and that God created living things for this world. Our role is to look after the living things that God created so that they can survive.

Fathers Day

Thank you to all our families who were able to come and share with us last Friday our Father's Day breakfast, and the beatiful prayer celebration, led by our Kindergarten classes.  Thank you to our Kinder teachers, and all our parents who helped with the breakfast and the  gift stall. 

Please click here for the Father's Day video that was shared by Kindergarten: 

Year 6 Leadership Update

As we journey through this school year, it's with immense pride that we shine a spotlight on our Year 6 leaders. Their sense of agency and initiative have continually elevated our school's atmosphere, reflecting the values of Faith, Hope and Love we hold dear. What follows are updates directly from our student leaders, detailing the various initiatives they've spearheaded.

Random Acts of Kindness

We've come up with a “Kindness raffle” to celebrate small acts of kindness around Holy Trinity. Think of things like holding the door open for a classmate or helping someone on the playground. All Holy Trinity staff will get tickets to hand out during the week when they see students doing nice things. Then, these tickets go into a box, and at week's end, one of our Year 6 leaders will draw three tickets. The lucky students will get a certificate and a kindness sticker. We hope this will encourage more random acts of kindness.

Amplifying Student Voice

As Year 6 leaders, we realized that the voices of younger learners needed a platform too. So, we've started running class meetings every two weeks with the classes from Year 2 - 5. Over the coming weeks, each of our meetings will focus on a different topic. We're discussing things like Kindness, Sustainability, Inclusion, and Gratitude. By doing this, we're hoping that every grade feels like they can have a say and make our school even better!

Getting Active - Teachers Vs Students

Sport has many great rivalries. Think Queensland vs. NSW or Swifts vs. Thunderbirds, yet the greatest of all these rivalries is the age-old battle: Teachers vs. Students. We've thought of a fun netball game between staff and students. We have the equipment, but there's a challenge: the physical differences between staff and students. So, we're thinking of ways to make the game fun, fair and safe for everyone.

Fostering International Mindedness

At Holy Trinity, we appreciate our cultural diversity. We've been thinking about how our school can show off its international-mindedness. One idea is to update the flags in the foyer. We've sent surveys to classes to see where everyone is from, and we're purchasing flags to represent our entire school's cultural diversity. Hopefully, they'll be up for everyone to see by the end of the year.

Act it Out!

We are two Year 6 students who love drama. At first, we thought about starting a club. But after some thought, we've come up with drama brain break kits. These kits, which we'll give to each class, have fun games and videos explaining drama techniques. We think everyone should have a chance to enjoy drama, and we hope these kits will be ready by Week 3 of Term 4.

The Bike Shed

Our bike shed team has been trying to fix up the bike storage area. We've hit a few bumps, like tight (self-imposed) deadlines and limited resources. Plus, there's talk about getting rid of the bike shed completely! But we're hopeful it will get a makeover, not the boot.

Year 3 - 6 Sport

Some of us Year 6 students, with Mr. Davis's help, have been thinking of ways to get our younger students even more active during lunch and recess. We've started some lunchtime sports clubs to help them move and have fun. We have focussed on Soccer at the moment but will look at exploring other sports in the not-too-distant future.

Reading through our students' writing, it is both heartening and commendable to witness the accomplishments of our Year 6 leaders. Their dedication, combined with the support of our broader school community, has been exemplary. As we look forward to Term 4, we eagerly await to see what our Year 6 Learners might do next!

(From our Year 6 leaders! )

Welcome to Maggie! 

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.

Maggie has begun puppy school and continues with her immunisations.  We are slowly introducing Maggie with a few incidental pats and walking her around our school environment. We are also creating a social story for each classroom, specifying the do's and don'ts when Maggie will eventually visit classrooms or work with small groups early next term. 

Lots of things continue to happen over the next two weeks, especially with Grandparents Day and our school disco. Please also see below in our P and F article for more information about the disco!. The invitation for our grandparents day morning have been sent out via Compass and is also in an article below. 

Congratulations to the Marais family (Cooper,  Kinder) on the birth of Caleb, such wonderful news!

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

Philippa

Sacrament of First Eucharist

First Eucharist Retreat

Tomorrow, Friday the 8th September, all Year 4 students at Holy Trinity and Sts Peter and Paul, will partake in our First Eucharist retreat day and are welcome to wear free dress. 

Reminder - Sacrament of First Eucharist - 16 & 17 September

Socktober

Here in Australia, October marks World Mission Month, a celebration of the global work of the Church and the dedication of missionaries, both religious and lay, as they reach out and support children and communities in need around the world.

Here at Holy Trinity, we will be celebrating Mission Month in September! On Friday 22nd Sptember (last day of Term 3) students are invited to wear CRAZY SOCKS for a gold coin donation. 

Students will be learning more about mission month over the next couple of weeks. 

Emily Capper

Religious Education Coordinator

Cool Kids Program

In Term Four Holy Trinity will be running the “Cool Kids” support program for students from Year 2 - Year 6. The Cool Kids Program is a world renowned cognitive behavioural therapy program developed to teach children and parents skills that address anxiety.

The program helps children to recognise emotions such as fear, stress and anxiety. It helps them to challenge beliefs associated with feeling nervous, and encourages them to gradually engage in fearful activities in more positive ways. There is an additional component for parents that informs them of these principles and also teaches alternate ways of interacting with your child.

The program will run for 9 weeks (1-hour session per week) and will take place during school time. There will be around 6-8 students in a group.

If you think your child would benefit from this program, please email me,  philippa.brearley@cg.catholic.edu.au by next Wednesday. We have also asked teachers to nominate students in their class, who they they think would benefit from the  program. 

We will be hosting a Parent Information Evening in Week 10 for all parents. We will send the MS Teams link for this information session closer to the date, for the participants' parents/carers. 

Thank you to the Year 6 students for the fun theme! 

Indigenous Literacy Day

Thank you for the generous donation of both books and coins for our Book Swap this week.  We have raised over $500 for remote first nation coommunities to help in purschasing literacy resources.

It also was a wonderful opportunity to enjoy beautiful books and celebrate reading in our own communities. It is not too late to donate. Use the QR code to take you to our fundraising page.

THE ABORIGINAL CATHOLIC MINISTRY OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF CANBERRA and GOULBURN

Would like to invite you, your family and friends to Mass at St Benedicts's Church Narrabundah on Sunday 17 September at 2pm

Shared afternoon tea to follow in the Parish Centre

RSVP -10 September Sally FitzGerald- ph 0422 066 080 salfitz50@live.com

The GIANTS AFLW side are taking on 2022 premiers Melbourne this Sunday from 5.05pm at Manuka Oval.

As a special thank you to our students who particiapted in the Giantd Sceince Week actiities, , GIANTS AFLW would like to offer our community the opportunity to redeem complimentary general admission tickets to the game.

You can redeem up to 4 complimentary tickets per person using the code WGIANTS2023 at this link: GWS GIANTS v Melbourne tickets | Manuka Oval | Ticketek Australia

We would love to see as many people there as possible on Sunday evening to support our AFLW team and hope to see plenty of people from our school at Manuka Oval on Sunday!