Friends Resilience: This term we are introducing a new program to all students at McAuley. The FRIENDS programs are a suite of Australian-developed, cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) based programs designed to build life-long resilience in individuals, families, schools and communities. The social and emotional skills promoted in the FRIENDS program have been endorsed by the World Health Organisation as the best practice for the prevention and treatment of anxiety and depression. This program requires teachers to be trained before administering the program, and is expected to run over two terms. We now have several staff who are trained in offering this program, which will run in our Health and Wellbeing lessons while classroom teachers are on Release from Face to Face teaching. There will be parent sessions to explain the process and see how “Friends” can support your child to build their own ability to identify green (positive) and red (negative) thoughts and to choose between ‘thumbs up’ and ‘thumbs down’ decisions. We encourage you as parents to discuss the sessions with your children and support them as they learn how to choose positive personal choices. We look forward to working with you to support our students and help them to build resilience and understand how to take charge of their decisions to support their personal growth.

Aboriginal Education Officer: We are delighted to welcome Maddy Griffiths-Leonard to our staff this term. Maddy will be working throughout the school with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students to support them in building understanding of our wonderful Aboriginal cultural heritage. Maddy has spoken to all our Indigenous students about their goals and is actively supporting them as they work towards achieving these goals. Throughout this year we have a number of different activities planned to depth all students’ knowledge and understanding of our land’s traditional culture and we look forward to inviting you to share these experiences with us when they arrive. On 31st May our Indigenous students will be traveling to Coura Preschool to join with other schools in a ‘Playground Choir’. This is not so much a performance as an opportunity to come together and enjoy a chance to sing as a community. Permission notes with further information will soon be sent on Compass for this event.

Kindergarten Applications for 2025: Our applications for Kinder enrolments for 2025 are now available and we are still offering tours to any families who would like to see our wonderful facilities. These tours operate on Tuesday at 10am and again on Thursday afternoon at 4pm. If you know of someone who is considering sending their children to McAuley, especially in Kinder 2025, please let them know enrolment applications are now available both online and at the Office. Further enrolment information is available on our school website or call the school on 6361 3344.

Peer Support: Recently our Year 6 students underwent training on how to be a Peer Support Leader, and this week we began our first meeting. This is a huge commitment by all staff and students, particularly our Year 6. A huge thank you to them for their time and support. Students will meet each Thursday afternoon in mixed grade groups and be led through a set program to support students in their personal growth. Throughout the sessions the Year 6 Leaders will help the students to:

· Build teamwork, work together and cooperate with each other.

· Be patient, tolerant and respectful of each other

· Actively listen to each other and wait their turn when we wish to speak.

· Learn about empathy.

· Reinforce how to be resilient and stand up for ourselves and others.

We look forward to hearing all the great things that come from these sessions,,

James Sheahan Early Childhood Students: Yesterday was our last visit from the James Sheahan students who are studying early Childhood. It has been so lovely having them come into our Infants classes while they observe and help our little people. Hopefully we will have inspired some to become teachers of the future!

Please don’t forget our PUPIL FREE DAY THIS FRIDAY 17th May!!

Have a wonderful week,

God Bless,

Robyn Petty

Catherine McAuley Newsletter

Term 2, Week 3 · 15 May 2024

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