Dear Friends,

Today as I write this newsletter article, our Year 4 students and teachers, along with the Religious Education Coordinators- Kristy Everding and Brigitta Van Deas- are preparing for the Sacrament of First Eucharist with a Retreat Day at the Parish Centre and Church.  Please keep all these children and their families in your prayers and they continue in their journey faith with this significant sacramental celebration. This year, our First Eucharist celebrations will be a part of the weekend Parish Masses-  6pm at Holy Trinity Church, and 9:30am at St Peter and Paul Church. Our Parish community is thus given opportunity to celebrate together as a Christian community with these candidates and their families.  This weekend's Gospel reading reminds us of our Christian commitment begun at Baptism, that continues throughout our lives as believers and followers of Christ:

"He called the people and His disciples to Him and said, " If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it;  but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and the sake of the gospel, will save it."  (Mark 8: 33-35). 

First Eucharist Retreat Day

The Parish of the Transfiguration First Eucharist Candidates and their class mates came together today at Holy Trinity to participate in their retreat day before celebrating the sacrament this weekend. The candidates celebrated mass with Holy Trinity parishioners, acted out role plays, experienced a Lectio Divina Prayer, created artwork and discussed the meaning and significance of the Sacrament of First Eucharist with Father John.

Thank you to the Year 3/4 teachers and all their hard work and guidance in preparing the students for this sacrament. A big thank you to all the Year 4 non-candidates who have supported their class mates throughout this journey. Please keep these candidates and their families in your prayers as they become closer to celebrating this sacrament.

Parish of the Transfiguration First Eucharist Masses- THIS WEEKEND  

This weekend 33 Holy Trinity students will celebrate the Sacrament of First Eucharist. We warmly invite everyone to the Parish of the Transfiguration First Eucharist Masses held this weekend. Saturday 15 September at 6pm at Holy Trinity Church and Sunday 9:30am Saints Peter and Paul Church.  

Grandparents Day TOMORROW

Tomorrow we welcome all Grandparents and Grand-Friends to Holy Trinity.  

Grandparents Day activities will go as follows:  

School Assembly @ 9.00-9.15am

Grandparents’ Day Prayer Assembly led by Year 1 @ 9.15 – 9.45am.

Grandparents are then invited to visit classrooms @ 9.45-10.30 am.

Morning tea for the Grandparents and Grand-friends @ 10:30-11.00am.

(supplied by Kinder parents- THANK YOU)

Important Term Three Dates

Friday 14th September: Grandparents Day, 9-11am TOMORROW

Saturday 15th September: First Eucharist Mass @ Holy Trinity, 6pm

Sunday 16 September: First Eucharist Mass @ Sts Peter and Paul, 9:30am

Tuesday 25th September: 3/4 Grade Mass @ Holy Trinity Church, 9:30am 

Wednesday 26th September: Year 5 to visit Trinity Catholic School @ Harden 

The CMRC has finished up for 2018. Each child had to complete 15 age appropriate books over a set period of time. Lucky for us that Book Week also fell in this period, ensuring that many more books were read. Forms have been sent off to the Chief Minister’s office and we are waiting to see if we will be invited to the award ceremony. Fingers crossed.

As children completed the challenge and handed in their forms they received a raffle ticket. The prizes included gift vouchers from Redgum Book Club and a chocolate or two.

The 2018 CMRC Raffle winners were…

5/6                                          3/4                             ELC- Year 2

Ella S                                     Alex H                         Zac T

Sophie G                              Eleanor C                    Paige S

Ava S                                    Freya H                        Matt G

This year two awards were also given out to High Achievers,

Nate H and Orlando P.

These two boys, both in Year 1, have read over 600 books between them. An amazing achievement. 

One last thing – we are missing lots of our Holy Trinity Library Bags. We have about 15 cloth bags that we use if children forget or are new to the school. Each bag has Holy Trinity written on it. If you find one at home, please send it back ASAP.

Happy reading.

Kate  x

 Developing responsibility in kids

by Michael Grose

Many parents ask me how they can develop responsibility in their kids. The answer is simple – give responsibility to them! Let them feed the family pet, empty the dishwasher, clean up the living area at the end of the day. Most kids rise to a real challenge when it’s sincerely given, and backed by realistic expectations.

We tend to give responsibility to the kids who don’t need it – the easy kids. But we often ignore the kids in our family who really would benefit from having some trust – the difficult kids, those that require following up. Sometimes the extra parenting work they require can seem all too much.

Belong through contribution

Kids belong in two ways in families – they either belong due to their positive contribution or they belong through poor behaviour. The family pest has as much cache as the responsible child – their parents certainly know they are around!

It makes sense for parents to work hard to provide opportunities for kids to contribute to their family so they feel valued for what they bring to their family, rather than for what they take.

Here are five practical tips to promote a sense of responsibility in your kids:

1. Start from an early age. Children as young as three are keen to help and take some responsibility but we often push them away and say, ‘You can help when you’re older.’ Train your kids from a young age to make a contribution so it becomes habit-forming. Remember, not every child will help equally. If your children are school-aged and do very little to help, then start with a few jobs each day and gradually increase the number.
2. Give kids responsibility that scares or surprises you. A neighbour gets her four year old to unpack her dishwasher each morning, plates and all. Another parent I know gets her five year old to help her younger sister get her breakfast each morning. Another gives over the weekly garbage to ten year old with no reminders whatsoever. In each case, the kids rise to the challenge set by their parents. Give your child or teenager something that makes you think, ‘NO WAY’! He can’t do that! Kids will often surprise adults with what they can do.
3. Make sure the responsibility is real. Setting the table, making beds, tidying rooms are jobs that others benefit from. Giving kids jobs because you think it’s good for them just don’t cut it with kids. However giving jobs that others rely on teaches them that their help is needed.
4. If a child forgets then no one else does the task. If a child doesn’t empty the dishwasher then it still there when they come home from school. Sounds tough but that’s how the real world operates. When you empty it, it becomes your responsibility. When we’re time-strapped it’s usually easier to do kids’ jobs for them. Nothing wrong with this once in a while as we help each other out in families. However, if you are always doing a child’s job then it may as well be yours.
5. Place help and responsibility on a roster. The use of rosters has the advantage of placing responsibility on to kids and takes you out of the picture. Remind them to check the roster, not to do their jobs! It’s a subtle but important difference.

Many parents call this type of responsibility ‘jobs’ or ‘chores’. I prefer to call it ‘help’. It’s just a little rebranding, but it reflects what it’s about.

(Source: Parentingideas.com.au)

There are still concerns around parking at both school and the Church.  Unfortunately parents/ careres are parking in the drive through zone in the afternoon, which means we are unable to have children picked up in this area.  Some  are also parking on the Church grounds right outsde the Church, which is an area parents sometimes walk through to get to the Curtin shops or houses around there.  A couple of days ago, a car was moving very close to a child walking through the outside of the church. Can I please ask that parents only park in the assigned car parking spaces on the bitumen, on the side of the roads, or down the back of the presbytery. Thank you for your support in keeping our community safe. 

After spending time preparing for our second debate in the interschool debating compettion, our second debating team consisting of Molly W, Emily B, Sophie C and Katherine L went to St Francis of Assisi. The topic of the debate was “That bus travel from Monday-Friday in the ACT should be free for all school children”. The Holy Trinity team were on the negative side. They did well in the debate against  strong competition. The adjudicators commented that despite the positive team winning, the Holy Trinity team shared some convincing opinions and it was a very tough decision. It was a great experience.

       TERM 3, WEEK 9 - WED 19 SEP

Team Leader: Michael Kane, Doug Ridd, Anthony Friend, Christie Woods, Dan Mossop

Choir - Singfest

On Thursday 6 September, the Holy Trinity choir attended the ACT Catholic Schools Singfest. We had a fabulous day singing Do do do, Count on me, In Flanders fields, Shine Your Light, Poor Mouse and The Perfect Nanny (from Mary Poppins). The students performed beautifully to the huge audience from St Thomas Apostle and our family & special guests. A huge congratulations to all of our wonderful choir members!

Madame Butterfly

On Thursday and Saturday, 6 & 8 September, Olivia D from Year 6 performed with the Woden Valley Youth Choir and Opera Australia in Madame Butterfly. She was a fabulous ambassador for her school, even making the Canberra times this week. Congratulations Olivia and please keep on singing. 

If you would like to read the review yourself - https://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/act/opera-australia-s-madame-butterfly-problematic-but-a-crowd-favourite-20180907-p502cx.html

Dear Parents and Friends,

Each week we are going to have some fun problem solving questions for the students in the newsletter. We are hoping to increase the students understanding and knowledge when working with word problems/open ended questions. Feel free to support your child with the questions. Please email me your child’s answers or your child can hand me their work at school.

Kind Regards

Brendon Pye

Week 8 Problems

Lower Primary:

Nate loves to count. One day Mrs Swan put a pile of cubes on Nate’s desk. Nate began to count the cubes. He told Mrs Swan the following facts about the cubes: When I count the cubes by two I have one left over. When I count the cubes by three I have one left over. When I count by five I have none left over.

From this information can Mrs Swan work out how many cubes Nate has?

Middle Primary:

Mr Seaman has three dogs of different ages. If he adds their ages together he gets 15. If he multiplies their ages together he gets 45. How old are Mr Seaman’s dogs?

Upper Primary:

Jack says, “Did you know that today is my three sons’ birthday?” “How old are they?” asks Ollie. Jack gives him a hint. "The product of their ages is 36 and the sum of their ages is 13.” “That’s no help,” says Ollie. Jack gives him another clue. “O.K. My youngest son is very naughty.” “Nothing to it,” exclaims Ollie, and he tells Jack the correct ages of his sons.

How does Ollie figure out the correct answer and what are Jack’s sons’ ages?

Congratulation to Rachel Hofmeier who correctly solved the Upper Primary problem from Week 7- 

Week 7: Upper Primary:

Molly realises that there are nine positions in a magic square. Can she make up a magic square (vertical, horizontal and diagonal numbers add up to make the same number) using each of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 only once?

Rachel's Answer- Magic Number 15

This program will be running from 8-12 October in the school holidays.

On Thursday 6 September, Hannah and Grace M attended Government House at the investiture of their father, Mick Miller, for his Queen's Birthday award.   The girls had a great time and met some inspiring people, including Dawn Fraser.

Congratulations Mick.