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Please go to our school calendar on the website or SZapp for more details.
Today was our Feast of the Sacred Heart Day!
It was a day of celebrating who we are as a community and how we live our mission to 'be on Earth the heart of God'.
Our Parish Priests are of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Order (MSC) and 'heart spirituality' underpins their charism. One well known MSC priest, James Maher, once wrote:
A Spirituality of the Heart is a way of living – a way of being in the world…a journey to be travelled (with others),…an energy that sustains and moves us, a dance in which we are participating… a way of being in the world, in relationship to self, others and God; a way of coming to rest within ourselves, at our deepest centre.”
These words describe perfectly my own educational mission. Not only do we empower every student by providing them with the best possible educational opportunities within our capacity, we also walk with them through this formative part of life, helping to mould and shape them with values and ideas that enable them to understand deeply their own value, the value of others and the value of all creation. In short, we build upon the wonderful work of parents and families to remind them that they can walk through the world with love. This is how we 'be on Earth the heart of God'.
Thank you to our REC, Mrs Stephanie Stewart, for all of her hard work in preparing for this day. We celebrated Mass, raised funds for St George's in Kenya, enjoyed fun activities between classes. It was a wonderful day.
Visit by Mr Peter Cain
Peter Cain MLA, a Liberal elected member for our electorate, visited our school yesterday to learn about our school and to find out if we need any assistance at all. He met with Samson and Hudson, our school captains, along with myself and Katie Matthews, Community Council Chairperson.
Mr Cain is a great supporter of non-government schools and providing parents with the opportunity to choose the school that best serves their family and children. He is keen to support all people within his electorate and we appreciate the time he took to connect with us. We will always welcome all elected members to our school community.
School Reports and Parent Teacher Interviews
Just a reminder that Semester One Student Reports come home on Wednesday. As mentioned in previous Newsletters, we are transitioning to new reporting software across our system and our school reports don't allow for comments this semester. We will hold Parent-Teacher Interviews in Week 10. The booking system for these will open this coming Tuesday.
I hope you all enjoy a lovely long weekend.
Matthew Garton
Principal
Enrolments for 2022
We are still accepting enrolments for 2022.
If you have a child currently in pre-school and will be enrolling them for Kindergarten then please do so as soon as possible. Please go to our school website to lead you through how to do this or contact Leanne at the Front Office with any questions.
Youth Mental Health
On Monday and Tuesday, Serae Love (Year 6 Teacher), Stewart Mcdonald (Student Welfare Officer) and myself attended the Youth Mental Health First Aid course. This was a very worthwhile professional learning. Just like first aid, this course gave us a structure to effectively and efficiently support students with mental health crises, illnesses and disorders.
A mental disorder or mental illness is a diagnosable illness that affects a person's thinking, emotional states and behaviour. It can disrupt a person’s ability to participate effectively in school/work, carry out other daily activities and engage in satisfying relationships. Some people have one episode of mental illness in their lifetime, while other people have multiple across their lifetime, with periods of wellness in between. A small minority of people have ongoing mental health issues.
One in five people in Australia have had/have a common mental illness and about one in seven children and adolescents, aged 4-17 have recently experienced a mental disorder in Australia.
Children can be faced with a number of experiences in their childhood and adolescence that can lead to mental health related issues. Some of these experiences include: relationship problems, eating and body-image issues, bullying, cyberbullying, abuse, neglect, feeling sad, depressed, worried or anxious for a period of 2 weeks or longer, self-harm and/or suicide.
Early intervention for children and adolescents displaying mental health problems is essential, as early intervention prevents problems from becoming more serious and reduce the likelihood of secondary effects. It is important that young people are supported by their family, friends, and teachers during this time. There are many types of treatment and support that can help children with mental illness.
Taking an active interest in your child, encouraging them to talk about what is happening in their life and being aware of changes in their behaviour are all simple steps you can take to monitor your child's mental health.
The Youth Mental Health Aid process is a simple structure that supports adults to talk to their children if they have concerns about their child's mental health. The first step is to approach the child, assess what is going on and assist with any crisis. Listening and communicating non-judgmentally is essential to support the child in feeling heard. Once a young person with a mental health problem feels heard, they may be more likely to accept support. The last step is to encourage the young person to get the appropriate professional help or implement other strategies, like self-help strategies.
It is important as the adult to seek support from your doctor or other health or mental health professional if you are concerned. The below are some organisations that support youth with mental health problems:
Kids Help Line - 1800 55 1800. This is a telephone, web-based and email counselling service that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for young people aged up to 25 years.
Beyond Blue - This website has screening questionnaires for depression and anxiety. It also has information about depression and anxiety disorders and professionals who can help.
Parenting Strategies - This website hosts guidelines which consist of strategies that parents can undertake to help prevent depression and anxiety problems in adolescence.
Headspace - The National Youth Mental Health Foundation has a website which includes information for a range of audiences. eHeadspace is their e-counselling service which is run for young people aged 12-25.
YouthInMind Australia - This website provides a Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire which gives feedback on the presence of emotional, conduct, hyperactivity and peer problems. Children aged 11-17 can complete this survey independently or parents can assist a young person to complete it.
ReachOut - This website provides information about mental health problems and physical and mental wellbeing. ReachOut has fact sheets, interactive games, training programs, activities and forums where young people can ask for help and offer each other advice.
BRAVE - BRAVE is an interactive, online and evidence-based cognitive behavioural therapy program for the prevention of anxiety in children and teenagers.
SANE Australia - 1800 18 7263. Is for people living with a mental illness and their carers.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or would like any further resources around youth mental health.
Rebekah Brown
Assistant Principal and Inclusion Coordinator
We celebrated the Feast of the Sacred Heart today. Your can see more about it on Facebook. Our main events were our School Mass in the hall with Father Michael and the fundraising with coin lines for St George's Academy in Kenya.
Thank you everyone for all of the wonderful support for our fundraiser today. We raised $2188.50. This means that St George's can now rebuild the boys bathrooms and build 50 new desks for students. They have a lot of new students there and so the additional money will go towards supporting all their new equipment and the additional COVID safe practices they need to maintain a healthy school environment.
God bless,
Stephanie Stewart
Religious Education Coordinator
To celebrate this event, students have been learning about the importance of oceans and the different living things that are found in oceans. We have been
discussing the impact that plastic has to these animals, ocean environments and how we can make a difference.
WRITERS WANTED!!!
We are looking for students who are interested in writing a creative story about the journey of waste here at St John’s as it travels through the waterways and
makes its way to the oceans along with the impact this has. We are looking for a creative narrative to publish that will go with a mural artwork for the school to
raise awareness about plastic in our waterways. If your child is interested in writing a story about this they can come and see either Mrs Lock or Mrs Neiberding for further details or provide them with a copy of their story.
We need your bottle lids!
If you have any plastic bottle top lids from milk bottles, water bottles, soft drink bottles and even long life milk containers we would really appreciate them
being donated to use as part of our mural to raise awareness about plastic and our waterways. You can drop off clean bottle top lids at the front office.
Let's keep making St John's a great place to learn!
Mrs Allison Lock, Years 3-6 Sustainability Teacher
Mrs Rebecca Neiberding, Years K-2 Sustainability Teacher
Happy birthday to Jackson M, Allira R, Alyssa S, James M, Sophia N, Elsie I, Rubi S, Tyler R, Renae O, Jackson D and Cooper N who all celebrated their birthday this week.
Please note that we ask students to not bring home made cupcakes to share with the class for their birthdays. This is a precautionary measure for health and hygiene. The Canteen offers a number of options to share with the class. Purchases can be made through the QKR app.
Engaging fathers in student learning and school life
The impact of involved fathers or father figures on the life of a child has been well established over the last two decades. Significant studies in the UK, USA and Australia have found that involved fathers positively impact the cognitive, social and physical wellbeing of a child from infancy to adolescence, with lasting influence into adult lives.
Similarly, a father’s involvement in a child’s learning and the life of the school has long-term effects. Research commissioned by Australia’s The Fathering Project has found the following benefits to fathers’ positive involvement in student learning:
- Children do better in school when their father is involved in their school, regardless of whether their father lives with them or lives apart
- Students whose fathers or father-figures participate in school activities enjoy school more, are less likely to have behavioural issues and are likely to stay at school longer
- Students stay at school longer so retention rates improve
- Once engaged, the proportion of fathers or father figures who are highly involved in school or class activities doesn’t decline over time
- Mothers are more likely to remain involved if a father is engaged at school
Despite the obvious benefits of getting dads engaged in school and class activities schools still struggle to engage fathers. Evidence suggests that the current generation of men want to be hands-on rather than distant dads typified by fathers of past generations. The timing is right as many men are working from home removing distance as a barrier for engagement. The challenge remains for schools and teachers to crack the code to meaningfully engage fathers in their child’s learning and school life.
Engaging fathers is not an impossible task. In my work with schools and parents over three decades it’s apparent that schools who successfully engage fathers tap into the following strategies:
Targeted involvement
Conduct an event or activity aimed at ‘parents’ and you are most likely going to get a great deal of involvement from mothers. Studies have shown that women take on the primary parenting role in most families so a school activity, social media page or information night aimed at ‘parents ‘will generally see high take up rates from mothers compared to fathers.
Schools and teachers who successfully engage men conduct and target events specifically for fathers. They make a special effort to invite fathers to events and activities and they make special efforts to involve fathers on social media by doing such things as creating a father’s group with content relevant to dads.
Purposeful involvement
Fathers will generally become involved in the life of a class or school if they can fully understand the purpose of their involvement. It’s my experience that men are generally motivated to become involved when a mixture of the following four factors is present:
1. Being a better dad
Information and events that help men better understand what it means to be a good father are highly motivational for dads. Men generally respond positively to practical fathering strategies that focus on communication, relationship-building, the establishment of family values, understanding children’s developmental stages and promotion of their children’s wellbeing.
2. Supporting their child through problems and difficulties
Most fathers have an innate desire to skill their children up to resolve their own problems and issues. This biological drive to teach needs to be supplemented by a crash course in current issues and dilemmas if it’s to be fully utilised. Provide information and programs for fathers focusing on current issues such as helping kids overcome bullying, smart use of digital devices and researched-based approaches to drug and alcohol use.
3. Supporting learning inside and outside of school
Dads want to help their kids learn but many become stuck on the ‘homework roundabout’, which can lead to frustration and arguments. Show dads how they can support their child or young person as learners both inside school and also in everyday life by focusing on how broad-based educational concepts such as play-based learning, growth mindsets and lifelong learning relate to their children’s lives.
4. Making a contribution
Some men want to go beyond assisting their children and want to make a meaningful contribution to the ongoing life of their child’s class or school. In the past a father’s involvement was usually restricted to helping at working bees or joining their child’s school council. While these are still viable options, they are not the only ways that men can contribute to school and classroom life. With more men working from home, the barrier of distance has been reduced and fathers may have more ability to assist schools in practical ways such as helping with excursions, hearing children read and assisting with elective programs.
Collegiate involvement
Men are not natural networkers so a school’s effort to bring them together for purposeful involvement outlined above will reap many benefits. Most men prefer to learn in a collegiate atmosphere so look for ways to bring fathers together for special father’s nights, fathering programs, men’s only events and through focused social media content.
The importance of a strong school-family partnership is now well established, yet it’s mothers who tend to be the main links between schools and families. Research shows that by specifically targeting fathers, schools and classrooms will see specific benefits for students and schools as a whole. These benefits include better outcomes for students (including higher grades and better retention rates), improved school culture and long lasting family-school connections. With motivation high and more men working from home the timing is now right for schools to make the effort required to successfully target and engage fathers in the educational journeys of students and the life of the school.
Michael Grose
Michael Grose, founder of Parenting Ideas, is one of Australia’s leading parenting educators. He’s an award-winning speaker and the author of 12 books for parents including Spoonfed Generation, and the bestselling Why First Borns Rule the World and Last Borns Want to Change It. Michael is a former teacher with 15 years experience, and has 30 years experience in parenting education. He also holds a Master of Educational Studies from Monash University specialising in parenting education.
