O loving Lord

You have crested mothers in love and blessed them with children.

As the work tirelessly to support their families may they be showered with your blessings.

Give mothers strength to exercise compassion as they live each day under your care.

We pray for mothers around the world who are marginalised in society and those dealing with poverty, war and suffering.

May they be granted the gifts of courage, perseverance and good health.

May they face each new day with faith and hope in your abiding love.

May all families find in the strength of your love the priceless gift of peace.

May all mothers enjoy happiness and spiritual well being to enable them to care for their families.

We ask this prayer through Christ our Lord, Amen. 

Dear friends,

Tomorrow I look forward to celebrating the wonderful gift of our Mothers at our P and F breakfast and Mother's Day Prayer Assembly lead by Year 1 Red.  This will be followed by our Mother's Day stall and I thank in advance Mark Bauer and all the P and F committee members helping with this special occasion. 

This week across all our schools in the Canberra and Goulburn Archdiocese, we are celebrating Catholic Schools Week. The themes for Catholic Schools Week 2019, ‘Engaging Faith, Minds and Community’, best describes the Catholic school experience at Holy Trinity. It illustrates our holistic approach to educating children to become adults who personify Catholic values and serve their communities. The theme highlights the faith based nature of our Catholic schools while emphasising our inclusiveness – that all are welcome. Catholic Schools are places where we strive for all to be engaged in faith, inspire the mind and build strong communities.

Faith – placing Christ at the centre.

Minds – inspiring achievement and the fulfilment of each child’s potential.

Community – to become valuable, caring members of the school and extended community.

Pope Francis at the World Youth Day 2019 final Mass, reflected on the importance of young people for society. He said their gifts are not reserved only for tomorrow. Young people, he said, “are the today for tomorrow. They are not ‘in the meantime’, but are the ‘today’, the ‘now’, of the Church and the world.” To inspire young people of today Catholic Schools are places that embrace their joyful presence and provide a community where young people can personally encounter God through the nurturing words and actions of others. As part of a Catholic community our schools are called to celebrate the gifts and diversity of all its members, inspire the minds and spirit of all those in our midst and help shape the young people to care for and serve those most in need.

It has been an absolute pleasure to take prospective families around our beautiful school and ELC on Tuesday at our first Open day and evening. Thank you to Cath Day, Scott Pearsall, Mark Bauer and our Year 6 leaders who helped with the tours and talking to these families.  It warms my hear to hear the students talk with such pride and knowledge about their school, its values,  learning and caring community. 

Congratulations to the Burnett family (Henry KG) on the arrival of baby no 3, Clancy David, last Friday!

I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow at the breakfast and/or Prayer assembly and I wish all mothers and families a wonderful, peace-filled weekend.

Philippa

Parish News

Hot Soup! The Parish Council are hosting a community gathering with hot soup and bread rolls, after Mass on Sunday 2^nd June, 9.30 at Garran. All parishioners are invited to join them. This Mass is also a Presentation Mass for Eucharist Candidates.

We welcome Catherine Grinswell-Jones who has started as Parish Secretary. Catherine is available in the office on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 9.15-3.15 and can otherwise be contacted on WodenNorth@cg.org.au

Eveland Hekima

This term we will begin our fundraising for our Global School, Eveland Hekima. We hope to raise enough money to support Eveland Hekima in building ELC toilets and buying metal frame beds to escape the termites. Next week, 5/6 will start us off with a Bake Sale of Friday 17^th May. A gold coin is all you need!

Dates for your Diary

Friday 10th May 9:30am - Mother's Day Prayer Celebration - 1R

                                       Mother's Day Breakfast from 8am

Monday 13th May 2:20pm - Class Assembly - 1G

Friday 17th May, 11am - Gold Coin for Eveland Hickma: Bake Sale 

Monday 20th May 2:20pm - Class Assembly - 3/4W

Thursday 30th May 9:30am - Whole School Mass, Feast of the Ascension

First Eucharist Dates

PRESENTATION TO PARISH AT WEEKEND MASSES:

Holy Trinity Church, Curtin    6.00pm Saturday 1st June 2019

Holy Trinity Church, Curtin    5.30pm Sunday 2nd June 2019

PRACTICE/RETREAT FOR CHILDREN:

Thursday 13th June - 9.00am–2.15pm

Children to be dropped at the Parish Centre by 9.00am. Supervision available from 8:30am

SACRAMENTAL CELEBRATION:

Saturday 15th June - 6pm

Mothers' Day Liturgy

The preschoolers will be attending the Mothers' Day liturgy tomorrow morning. Children will need to arrive promptly to school to enable us to be there at the start of the liturgy. Preschooler families are also welcome to the Mothers' Day breakfast tomorrow morning. Please RSVP via the Szapp notification.

Labelling Clothes

Please ensure all clothing that comes to school is clearly labelled including jackets, beanies and gloves. We have had many misplaced ELC jumpers and hats so could you also please check that your child is wearing their own clothes.

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.

Woolworths Earn to Learn

The ELC is collecting stickers for the Earn to Learn program. Collection boxes are in the foyer.

Last week I met with a  traffic consultant who observed our current pick up arrangements, and discussed safety concerns that are still happening. The consultant will now plan  other options, to help ease traffic congestion and to continue to ensure our students are safe.

Despite constant reminders to ensure children are arriving to school and going home safely each day, unsafe practices are still occurring both in the morning and afternoon.  In the morning, unfortunately there are still families parking their cars in the drop off zone, and thus causing congestion, as cars cannot flow through the area successfully.  If you wish to stop in the mornings, please park in allocated parks, or on Theodore st. Children are also to be dropped off around the back of the school-  many are now coming through the office area from the ring road, which is not an access point in the mornings. 

My main concerns continue in the afternoon, with many children wandering around and making individual arrangements with parents about a variety of drop off areas.  This makes is extremely difficult to ensure children are safely going to their parents and cars.  Children are not to go into a car, unless accompanied by their parent, or in the drive through area with two teachers supervising.  Our three areas to pick up from in the afternoon are:

• Line up Assembly area out the back of the school where parents wait to escort children home
• Kitchen Garden area, where children meet parents to be escorted to cars safely
• drive through area, where two teachers are on supervision, and ensure children are placed in cars safely.

Some families continue to park at the top of Theodore st or in other areas, and wait for their children to meet them.  This is not a safe option, as we cannot ensure children are getting to car safely and going home with carers.  Others are walking through the front of the school, which is also an area not supervised. If you wish to park outside of the school car park, please leave your car and walk to the drive through area to pick up your child. 

Mother’s Day Reflections

by Michael Grose

Mother’s Day is a time of recognition, celebration and reflection. With this in mind I asked the Parenting Ideas expert team members, who also happen to be awesome mums, to share their thoughts about parenting and mothering. I think you’ll love what they’ve written.

Kate Johnson
Parenting and teaching children on the autism spectrum

How many children do you have? What are their genders and ages?
I have four amazing children. Three boys aged 12, 6 and 3 and a girl aged 8.

What do you love about parenting?
I love seeing my children grow into their personalities and being part of helping them find their spark. I love the simple things, whether it is girl-time doing the shopping or chats at night on the bed with the younger ones about their day. I love seeing them push through and achieve things that they thought they couldn’t. One thing I am big on is being present and being there, whether it is at their school event days or cheering them on where possible from the sidelines. And I am a big fan of a warm hug.

Martine Oglethorpe
Technology, education and parenting

How many children do you have? What are their genders and ages?
I have five boys aged 17, 16, 14, 8 and 6 and I have a little girl who passed away at 5 months of age.

What lessons did you learn from your own mum?
My mum taught me the importance of family and of friends. To always make time for dinners, holidays and time spent with those you love. She taught me that nurturing our relationships throughout life will always give us the greatest rewards. She taught me how to entertain well, to always have extra food and drink and to always have my door open to others. She taught me the value of being generous and the importance of helping others in need. She taught me the importance of finding work that you enjoy and how this can enrich your role as a mother. And she taught me that being a mum is the most amazing gift you can be given. Sometimes it’s clouded by the most crushing of fear, but ultimately it offers us the greatest of joy.

Sharon Witt
Resilience and parenting adolescents

How many children do you have? What are their genders and ages?
I have two children. A daughter, almost 18, and a son, aged 21.

Best piece of mothering advice you’ve received?
The best piece of parenting advice I have received is to not stress too much. We are all doing the very best we can on any given day with what we have. Sometimes, we will be exhausted and if all we can manage for dinner is scrambled eggs on toast, then that’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up and certainly avoid the comparison trap. Don’t compare yourself to other parents and what they are doing. Remember, parenting is a full time gig, 24/7. Just do your best and make sure you look after yourself too.

Dr Jodi Richardson
Wellbeing and mental health

How many children do you have? What are their genders and ages?
I have two children: a 10-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl.

Best piece of mothering advice you can give others?
One of the most important ideas to teach our kids is that it’s completely natural to feel a whole range of feelings, that all feelings are okay and that all feelings are normal. It’s important for them to know that while feeling happy is wonderful, no-one feels happy all the time. Teach them to notice and name their feelings, to tolerate the discomfort of difficult feelings, to express their feelings in healthy ways and that, although some feelings feel hard to bare, they always pass. All of these lessons are priceless.

Our facial expressions, tone of voice and words all contribute to the empathy we share with our kids and are central to validating how they’re feeling. Whether we agree with them or not, our validation shows them that we get it and that we know it’s hard. Validation is a first step to helping them feel understood and able to begin winding back their emotional responses.

This is all great advice and wonderful reflections about parenting and being a mum from the Parenting Ideas team. This Mother’s Day, I invite you to reflect on what you enjoy about parenting; to think about the lessons you’ve learned from your own family of origin; to consider the great advice you’ve received along the way and to think about the learnings that you can share with others. It’s good to sit back, take stock and be grateful for what we have, what we’ve experienced and what we can share with others.

(Source: Parentingideas.com.au)

Athletics Carnival

Our annual athletics carnival is planned for Wednesday 29^th May. The day has taken on a new format where the students in age groups will move between track and field events throughout the day as rotations. For this to happen we require parents and grandparents to run the events - teachers will support rotations and record results. If you are able to help in any way throughout the day this will be greatly appreciated. Please contact Michael Feerick and advise availability for this event.

Walk Safely School Week

Holy Trinity are participating in this national initiative during Week 4, 20-24 May. We have been able to organise two days to have a walking school bus that will meet at two locations around Curtin on Wednesday 22^nd and Friday 24^th May. Thank you class coordinators for organising this. The meeting points for the walking school bus are North Curtin Playing Fields (corner of Dunstan/Throssell St) and the underpass near Curtin Primary (corner of McCormack/Carruthers St). The walking school bus will meet at 8:20am and depart at 8:30am to arrive at school before the bell. If your child wishes to be part of the walking school bus it is the parent’s responsibility to walk with their child to school. The school does not take any responsibility for students outside of the school grounds and there is no teacher on duty at school until 8:30am each day. Each day the students who walk to school will receive a raffle ticket to win new sports gear.  Winners will be drawn at the Friday morning assembly

More information about walking safe to school can be found here https://www.realinsurance.com.au/school-safety

Congratulations to our students in the Year 5 and 6 Da Vinci Decathlon teams who competed at the annual ACT competiion at Canberra Grammar School yesterday. The Da Vinci Decathlon is an academic competition designed to challenge and stimulate the minds of school students.  Students from across ACT competed in teams of eight across ten disciplines including engineering, mathematics, code breaking, art and poetry, science and english.

This was very much a team challenge and the children were expected to use their collective talents and work harmoniously whilst also thinking laterally. Thus, the competition placed a particular emphasis on higher-order thinking skills, problem solving and creativity.

The Year 5 team consisting of Harry, Lachlan, Stella, Tess, Sam M, Charliese, Felicia, and Sienna placed 1st in Art and Poetry, 2nd in Science and 3rd in English. Our Year 6 Team of Ava M, Liam, Amy, Claire, Emily, Veronika, Erin and Audrey performed admirably as well against some strong competition. 

Seeing our students shine in academic competitions like the annual da Vinci Decathlon demonstrates the depth of talent we have within the School. Both teams were an absolute credit to the School. Congratulations on an outstanding effort. 

Next week, student in Year 3 and 5 will sit the NAPLAN online tests. Students in Year 3 only will be completing a paper-based writing test. If your child has a BYOD and it meets the technical requirements, they need to ensure that they bring their device (with NAP Browser uploaded) and headphones to school FULLY CHARGED on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. 

       TERM 2, WEEK 3 - WED 15 MAY

Team Leader: Kim/Anthony Hoffmeier, Steve Pashalidis, Stephen & Nicole Carberry, Tanya Elliott