"Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.  Do not judge, and you will not be judged yourselves; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned yourselves; grant pardon and you will be pardoned.  Give and there will be gifts for you; a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap; because the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given back." (Luke 6: 34).

Dear friends,

The above verse, taken from last weekend 's Gospel  reflected for me the importance of forgiving and giving.   In our school community, I see this generosity every day, in our staff, our families, our students, and especially our volunteers. This was once again evident at our swimming carnival last Friday.  What a wonderful event for our school.  We focused again in ensuring we had all students from Kinder to Year 6 involved in water events throughout the day.  We also introduced a 25 metre  event to help develop our children's skills in swimming events and once again to give students opportunity to participate.   Thank you again to Mr Feerick, all staff involved and parents for their time helping to make this such a great day for our children.

Whilst on the topic of generously giving of your time, we have been unable to open the tuckshop this year as yet, because we have not had volunteers.  If you are able to please give some time to this, it would be much appreciated.  We also have a Movie Night coming up on Friday, which is an annual event also organised by Jennifer Graham and the P and F, that our children and families love to attend.  Please ensure you have indicated your families' attendance at this, as we need to organise catering ASAP.  At our P and F meeting last week, we also noted in the school calendar many other P and F events throughout 2019.  Please look at our calendar on our school App and website  for these special events.

Thank you for your patience with the change in drop off and pick up arrangements because of  the concreting and instillation of new seats and bubblers at the school.  We will also be having more lighting installed around the car park, courtyard , ELC area, and the bike cage area. Surveillance cameras will  be installed in a few areas too. 

Tomorrow we will be again presenting a Literacy Information session a 9:15am in the Kinder White classroom, particularly aimed for Kinder parents and those in other grades wanting a refresh about how to help support reading and literacy development at home.  Next Monday we also have our first class assembly with 2 Green at 2:20pm, followed by a presentation from the Commonwealth Bank.

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

Philippa

Have you read the Catholic Voice this week?

It features our Year 6 students and the role of Youth Ministry at Holy Trinity!

https://www.catholicvoice.org.au/rapid-growth-of-junior-youth-ministry/ 

Parish School Mass- Saturday 16^th March 6pm 

Please come and join the community for our first Parish School Mass for 2019, at 6pm followed by supper. If your family would like to do the Prayers of the Faithful or Offertory please send me an email at Emily.capper@cg.catholic.edu.au. Thank you to our Year Two families who will be supplying supper after mass. The Year Two Class Coordinators will be sending an email out with further details to the Year Two families.

Upcoming Religious Education Celebrations

Emily Capper

Religious Education Coordinator

Starting preschool

Congratulations, your child is just finishing their fourth week of preschool. We have found the pre-schoolers to have settled beautifully into their new routines and relationships. Tears have been replaced by confident smiles and easier farewells. But days at preschool (including BSC and ASC) can be very tiring. Below is a link to an article written from a child's perspective about finishing a day at school. How I feel after a day at school

Opening and Closing hours

A reminder that the ELC closes at 6pm, children are required to be collected prior to this time.

Toys at School

The preschool has plentiful resources and engaging experiences. We ask that children leave toys at home, as they can be misplaced or damaged and are distracting in the classroom. We ask parents help in supporting this (this may include a pocket and bag check prior to drop off!).

Stay and Play

playgroup for pre-preschoolers and their families. Wednesday mornings from 9am-10.30am in the ELC Playground (weather permitting). Parents, grandparents, carers and children are all very welcome. 

Language of independence building

by Michael Grose

Families always develop shared language around the values that have strong meaning for them. If independence and self-sufficiency are important then it will be reflected in your family’s proprietary language.

In fact, it’s through shared language that culture exists. If you are looking to building a culture of independence in your family (or in your classroom) then creating your proprietary language around independence is a great way to start. The following examples of independence-building language and principles behind them that will help you create your own family’s language.

 “Never regularly do for a child the things a child can do for him or herself” Goal: Independence

This is perhaps the original parenting-for-independence manifesto, and it’s a philosophy that guides many teachers and parents today. In effect, this sentence means that wherever possible we give children the skills and competencies to look after themselves physically and emotionally. It requires a great deal of patience, time and courage from parents and teachers as the sentence is easier to say than put to put into practice. But it’s a worthy guiding principle that leads to self-sufficiency in children, and ultimately redundancy as parents.

 “Is this something you can do?” Goal: Self-help

Independence takes many forms but perhaps the most common is the development of self-help skills. The confidence, pride and, for most, sheer pleasure that kids doing the simple things for themselves such a toddler tying his shoelaces or a child making his own lunch is immeasurable. Yet it is so easily denied by well-meaning parents and adults who see it as their job to do everything for children. Independence begins at home with the development of self-help skills.

 “Have you checked the help roster today?” Goal: Contribution

A great way to develop a sense of independence is to give kids opportunities to help out at home. There is no need to overburden children with jobs, but a sensible allocation of chores according to their age and study requirements is not only a great help to you, but fantastic training for them. It also builds accountability and a work ethic, both highly valued characteristics for continuing success at school and later in life.

“Which of these two would you prefer?” Goal: Decision-making

Parents as wise leaders need to call the shots on how the family life is conducted and health and welfare issues such as appropriate bed and bath times. Some things are not up for negotiation. But there are areas where parents can rightfully hand autonomy to children and say, ‘It’s your call!’ Choice of clothes, how they keep their bedroom, what they eat and who they play with are the types of decisions they can make. Naturally, this is age related and you do need to have some influence on their choices. 

“How can you make this happen?” Goal: Problem-solving

Kids get used to bringing their problems to parents to solve. If you keep solving them, they’ll keep bringing them. A problem-solving approach relies on asking good questions, which can be challenging if you are used to solving your child’s problems. The first question when a child brings you a problem should be: ‘Can you handle this on your own?’ Next should be, ‘What do you want me to do to help you solve the problem?’ These questions are not meant to deter children from coming to you; rather, to encourage and teach them to start working through their own concerns themselves.

 “We rely on you to do this?” Goal: Reliability

Reliability is closely connected to responsibility and other aspects of independence. Every child over the age of five, at the eldest, should do something that someone else relies on whether it’s looking after a pet, clearing the meal table or emptying the garbage on a regular basis. Having others rely on you has its challenges is a learning curve. They’ll inevitably forget to put the rubbish bins out on garbage night, meaning your bin will be overflowing for the next week. They’ll need to be reminded about feeding the pet or clearing the table. Kids inevitably won’t get things right, but that doesn’t mean we should stop giving them responsibilities.

 “What can you learn for next time?” Goal: Self-sufficiency

Learning from mistakes is part of the independence-building process for children. Often adult impatience or unwillingness to put up with errors prevents us from giving kids the chance to do things for themselves or take real responsibilities. If independence is to be a major part of your family’s culture then it’s imperative that we help kids learn from their mistakes whether social, behavioural or just messing up while helping out at home.

 “How do you feel about this?” Goal: Emotional intelligence

An often overlooked aspect of independence is the ability to self-manage your emotional state. Emotional self-management starts with the recognition of how you feel about a particular event or action and then labelling that feeling. If possible, prompt to identify their emotions before they act on them. You can also revisit events and ask children about the feelings that may have led to a certain behaviour such as hurting or yelling at a sibling.

 “When you muck up, you make up?” Goal: Accountability

Kids of all ages will make mistakes. In fact, mucking up is part of the learning process. But kids will just repeat their mistakes unless they experience the consequences of their decisions. The use of behavioural consequences is a way of teaching children to take greater responsibility for their lives and to learn to make smarter choices.

 “How will you fix this?” Goal: Restoring relationships

Independent kids are usually socially-smart kids who don’t operate in a bubble. They know that their behaviour impacts on others they are mindful of the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of others. They also make amends or restore relationships when their behaviour impacts negatively on others. Relationship restoration is a lifelong skill and involves the following: swallowing your pride, making up, giving something back, not holding a grudge and moving on.

 “You need to do what’s right, not what’s easy.” Goal: Integrity

A sense of integrity is important for a child’s independence because it’s the basis of reasoned and socially focused self-control and self-management. The job of parents is to move their children from ‘Me’ to ‘We’. Integrity is the great socialising agent for a child. They may get by without courage, endurance and grit but they won’t get far socially without integrity.

 “Let’s find a way to make this happen.” Goal: positive risk-taking

One of the ways to develop independence is to work with them to build their skills and abilities to safely navigate an ever-broadening environment outside of the relative safe confines of their home. Ideas include adults and kids doing things together such as catching public transport until they are ready to go it alone or with friends; and giving kids smaller freedoms that lead to bigger liberties such as allowing a young child to walk part of the way to school on their own and then extending the distance as they get more experience and feel more confident.

Independence-building is vitally important for parents. It’s the pathway to children’s competency, confidence and creativity and the short cut to resilience and real learning. We’ve gradually retreated from this approach over recent generations much to our children’s detriment. It’s time to help kids reclaim their independence. Getting our language right is a good place to start as family change always begins with shared language.

(Source: Parentingideas.com.au)

Upcoming Webinar

Through your membership with Parenting Ideas, your entire school community can attend our webinars for parents at no charge. We're pleased to let you know about our upcoming webinar.

Swimming Carnival

Congratulations to all students who took part in the various events and novelty games at last Friday’s Swimming Carnival. The winning house for the competition was the Red House. The winning house Spirit Cup was the Green house. Well done Red and Green Houses. Students who have qualified for the South Weston Carnival will receive notification next week.  Thank you again to all the parents who assisted in the running of the carnival, the day would not have been made possible without your help. Below are a few images from the day.

Catholic Schools Soccer Carnival

Holy Trinity have 4 registered teams attending the carnival on Sunday 7^th April at Calwell Playing Fields. Coaches and managers will receive their team lists before the end of the week.

Cross Country

Our annual Cross Country Carnival will be held on Friday 22^nd March at approximately 12pm. Teachers will prepare students for this event during sport lessons. A note will be sent via email over the next week providing further details.

We are keen to continue the work started last year regarding the removal of 'single-use straws and cutlery' from our school canteen.  

As the 2019 Sustainablity Leaders, we are looking to source any second hand metal forks and teaspoons only from our community. If you have any of these items in your house and are willing to donate them to our school, please leave them in the container at the front office. 

At this stage we cannot open the Tuckshop as we do not have enough volunteers to create a roster for the Term.

This year there will be no Get it Back Green forms for volunteering to help around the school.  All volunteer forms are electronic and can be found on the Szapp app.