Wellbeing 

As we enter the second part of winter, we have a mixture of cold days and winter sun, and we celebrate the Olympics that ensures that we if we love sport then we are a little more sleep deprived at this time...

Marian Celebration Day – A celebration of who we are and what is important

On Friday 26th July, we celebrated our hybrid of Reflection and Brigidine Celebration Day as a school community. 

The day started with a wonderful assembly lead by our Liturgy and House Captains that linked to our theme for the year of HOPE. 

We were then fortunate to have Alyssa Huynh – an author and part of our graduating class of 2012 who gave the community an insight into her novel and her focus on racism and how we treat each other as human beings. 

We then had activities at each year level. At Year 7 each student made a butterfly of HOPE, our Year 8 cohort made HOPE bracelets. Year 9’s had a range of activities but included making HOPE bags and our senior students did further work with Ally about expanding on the key aspects of her presentation.

Finally, we arrived at the middle part of the day that included a range of rides, the photo booth and DJ and a large selection of food options.

The day ended with the school community creating a human image of HOPE on the school oval that we hope will be part of the school magazine at the end of the year.

We need to acknowledge all of the students and staff that brought items of food, toiletries and many more various things to donate to the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre and those members of our wider community that at this time may need a little extra help.

Parent Workshop Evening

An invitation to all of our families has been sent to invite everyone to an evening that we are hosting with Caroline Chisholm Catholic College around developing understanding resilience.

This evening is being presented by experienced Psychologist – Maria Ruberto and will be held at the Quin Auditorium on Tuesday 13th August from 7.00 to 9.00 pm.

This evening is free but it does require that families purchase the $10.00 workbook that accompanies the presentation from Maria.

We believe that the opportunity our families will have to explore the principles of resilience, understand practical advice on how children develop this skill and how they can reset and deal with anxiety was an opportunity too good to refuse.

We look forward in the next edition of the Marian to give an insight into the workshop and key learnings from the evening.

PULSE – A wellbeing program for all

Over the course of this year, we have introduced a wellbeing program called PULSE. This is a 60-second check in each week so that we have the capacity to monitor each member of our community and identify any concerns that they may raise in relation to their wellbeing.

It also has a GRATITUDE component as well were student have the capacity to identify in either another student or staff that they would like to thank for qualities such as Humour, Kindness etc.

This has been a very positive of the program for the school and the community averages between 150 and 200 GRATITUDES each week. 

It is very pleasing that students are recognising qualities in others that make our community better.

Now we need to remind our community of aspects that make our community a better place….

Uniform Reminders

A reminder to all students that aspects of grooming such as false nails, false eyelashes and piercings are not part of our uniform and students will be asked to correct these concerns or will be removed from classes until the issue is corrected.

Attendance

An important reminder to all of our families of the importance of explaining student absences if students are absent due to illness etc.

It is an expectation that parents explain student absences and we have a dedicated phone line to allow parents to leave messages in relation to this even before the school day begins.

Parent parking when collecting or dropping off students

We have had a number of parents over the last couple of weeks that have received parking tickets from the council for using the bus bays at the front of the school to pick up, drop off or wait for students to leave school either during the day or at the end of the day.  A reminder to parents that we have carparks both on Glengala road and at the back of St Paul’s church when waiting for students. 

Finally, at the end of this week it is hard to believe that we will be entering the month of August, which means that all horses have a birthday and we are all on the downward part of winter. The reality is that longer days and more sun always helps our wellbeing….