Around the Classes

What Causes Anxiety?

After reading the CBCA shortlisted book, Girl On Wire by Lucy Estela and Elise Hurst, during Book Week, the Year 3 students decided to find out what are the main causes of anxiety. Firstly, they ask members of the family what made them feel anxious and the strategies they employ to overcome their anxiety. They shared their responses on Padlet and then used this information to create graphs to show the main reasons why people feel anxious. They found that the two main reasons were being too busy and forgetting important things. Popular strategies for overcoming the anxiety were as follows:

Go for a walk or a run
Talk about the problem
Meditation
Take deep breaths
Listen to music

Adopting a growth mindset was also an important strategy that Year 3 have been working on in their Wellbeing Journals. Class discussions have found that a fixed mindset seems to cause a lot of problems and ultimately doesn’t resolve problems. The Year 3 students can be found talking to each other about their data collection and findings in this photo.

Slam Poetry

Slam poetry is an effective way to express your feelings and thoughts on issues that you are passionate about.

Our Year 8 students have been exploring issues in our society as presented in slam poems. They then applied their knowledge of poetic devices, structure and performance to present a slam poem to the class. They chose a topic that they are passionate about and expressed their thoughts and feelings to their class in the form of a slam poem.

These poems were very emotional and students should be very proud of themselves for performing their poems to a live peer audience.

The following poem was written by Ella Mulcahy (Loreto 5)

I am a Rose

Falling

From fifty feet though the air from god knows where

Just seed. Been here before the same but somehow different

The circle of life. I land and am shut out of this world like a door slamming in my face... buried

Though you can bury your problem you cannot bury me

Born out of misery

I am a rose

and like a rose I grow

But beware I have thorns a protective layer I put up to defend myself

a mask I use to cover how I really feel

You can try peel back my petals breach my emotional layers but I won’t let you through

I am a rose

Some are fake always trying to stay the same

But I am REAL I live, I grow, I die with no purpose

But the purpose to be picked and placed put through pain for someone else’s benefit

But no stop.. STOP this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be

Set me free

But why a rose why not a bird free to fly away but why not?

But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid

But what is to be and not to be that is the question my purpose

I am a rose

Trying to grow

Let me grow

Let me grow on

Let me go on... without you

You pick me and place me tell me how I should and should not

But for I am no longer your garden rose I am a wild rose and I will grow how I please

And I please to be let free, free, free

But what is the fee what must I give to get

What will I lose to gain?

Put a tag round my neck and sell me

Because if I can’t be free what matters anyway

I am a rose

And though you cannot see I will rise

You can’t see me when I die each to you look at me

Go away

Way away from me because you don’t know me

And you don’t understand

You think I’m white or yellow but I am a red rose

I have risen from the grave you have confined me to

I am still a rose

That will never change

Even if I’m free as a bird my heart is still a rose

Thorns and all

I am free only held back by my own imagination

And this rose has risen to the tip top up up up up

But is still...

Falling