Pastoral Care

Wellbeing Anecdotes from the Student Diary Planner

“Minds are like parachutes, they function better when open.”      (Thomas Dewar)

“Listen, it is a shortcut to success and has the same letters as silent.”

• Year 11 Cyber Safety Presentation
• Edmund Rice Beyond Borders - Argentinian Student Visit
• Student Leaders Student Leadership Camp
• Willoughby Council Exchange
• Professor Martin Seligman
• Guringai AECG

Year 11 Cyber Safety Presentation

Year 11 students attended a presentation by Senior Constable Darren Cairnes, Inner Metro Youth Liaison Officer at the form meeting this week. The focus was Cyber Safety. Staying safe online, being aware of predators, keeping a healthy online profile for university applications and potential employers, as well as promoting awareness of dangerous online behaviours. If students are being bullied online they can report this directly on the eSafety website. 

https://www.esafety.gov.au/complaints-and-reporting

https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/

Ms Donna Janes - Year 11 Coordinator

From the Assistant Principal Pastoral Care

Edmund Rice Beyond Borders - Argentinian Student Visit

Thank you to those families who have already responded positively to my last week’s call for three night Homestays for our Edmund Rice Beyond Borders visitors from Argentina. If possible I would like to lighten the load and optimise the immersion/ cultural exchange aspect for each of our visiting students, therefore several additional supporters would be greatly appreciated.

On the weekend beginning Friday 16 August, five Year 10 /11 students from Cardinal Newman College an Edmund Rice school in Argentina will visit the school and we would like to provide them with homestays to experience the culture of an Australian family. If you are willing and able to give 1-2 Year 11 Argentinian students a bed, shower and breakfast on Friday 16 – Sunday 18 August please contact Mr Sean Brannan. We will keep them busy each day with school / tourist activities.

Please contact Mr Brannan for more information sbrannan@stpiusx.nsw.edu.au

Student Leaders Student Leadership Camp

Term 3 is very much a season for change within the College Calendar. Our Year 12 students and their College Student Leadership Team turn to a primary focus in the school:  being a good student and documenting their learning.

In that context we call upon younger students to take on their tenure of leadership of the student body. Year 11 Coordinator Ms Janes and her predecessor of many HSC cycles, Mr Masters, are currently working through the process of determining the nominations, voting and recommendation of our 2019 Year 11 Student Leaders elect. The student leaders will consist of College Captain, two Vice Captains, four House Captains and three Prefects for each leadership portfolio:  Mission and Identity, Cultural, Learning and Student Wellbeing. These 19 Student Leaders elect will attend the Leadership Camp at Workul Koo (formerly Huntington House) at Terrigal where they will consider their function and priorities for their tenure as leaders of the College, as well as conduct the first session of the SPX Old Boys Association sponsored Speechcraft Presentation Course which will continue over the upcoming September Holidays and into Term 4.

In a similar vein of distributed student leadership and voice, I commend the Semester 1 House Vice Captains who have done a sterling job in representing the College at events like College Open Day, The ANZAC Dawn Service, RSL and Schools Remember, Reconciliation events and the Hyde Park Indigenous Veterans Commemoration Ceremony. They too will soon hand over their House Vice Captain Badges to the soon to be elected Semester 2 House Vice Captains who will similarly lead the College at the Year 7 2020 Orientation Day, Remembrance Day, Founders Day Festival, Buddies Bushwalk and Beachwalk, and many other school events.  

Willoughby Council Exchange

Below is an account of the Bingara, Gwydir- Willoughby Council Student Cultural Exchange written by our 2019 Year 10 student attendees James Baldock, Nick Ward and Dom Panozzo.

Bingara is a small town of 1400 people on the Gwydir River located in inner northern New South Wales. During the first week of the winter holidays we, alongside 6 other students from neighbouring Chatswood schools such as Chatswood High, Willoughby Girls and the Intensive English College visited and stayed with an exceptional group of students from the Gwydir Shire.

The student exchange between the Willoughby and Gwydir councils has been in place since 1994, and its aim is to foster bonds of friendship and to give us a greater understanding of how other youth live a different kind of life, a life in the country. In early September, we will have the privilege to show the same students around our city, Sydney, in the second leg of the exchange.

The trip was filled with foreign and exciting experiences. Certainly, a genuine favourite would have to be the horse riding. Although the feeling was a completely alien experience, trotting (and occasionally getting up to a canter) on the back of a horse was easily the best way to witness the countryside.

The exchange was built around the Bingara orange festival, the biggest event of the town’s annual calendar. It proved to be an eye-opening moment as we walked around and talked to the local townsfolk, getting an important insight to their daily lives.

The drought was a major theme in all these conversations, an underlying presence throughout the whole trip, a darkness spread throughout the countryside. Many of our new mates were budding farmers losing cattle, sheep, crops and with that their basic way of life. And the effects of the drought weren’t restricted to the farmland, either. With all their remaining financial assets focused on farming, their lives at home were quite a struggle, and consequently no drink or meal was taken for granted. Fortunately, the whole town still managed to smile and enjoy a spectacular event in honour of some beautifully succulent oranges.

For us however, the most important part of the trip was the people we enjoyed it with and the relationships we formed. Although we didn’t click right away, some of the most amusing moments were those spent on the bus or relaxing in our dorms, jamming out to tunes and trading hilarious jokes. The country kids were all very welcoming, and great people to be around, even faced with the adversity that confronted them every day.

We’d all like to thank Willoughby City Council for giving us the opportunity to experience such a great, rewarding immersion, and Mr Brannan for organising the trip with the Council. I don’t think any of us will forget the experiences we shared, the resilience we saw and the time we enjoyed together, and we’re all very keen for the return leg of the exchange in September.

Nick Ward, Dom Panozzo and James Baldock

Professor Martin Seligman

Last Tuesday presented the opportunity to attend a forum hosted by Ravenswood School for Girls featuring their Educational Psychologist in Residence:  the world renowned Educational Psychologist and founder of the movements of Positive Psychology and Positive Education, Professor Martin Seligman.

Over coming weeks I will be briefing the College Leadership Team and reporting in Woodchatta on some of the contemporary and evolving aspects of Dr Seligman’s work, as well as opportunities for St Pius to develop our practices and initiatives in this exciting field of supporting student growth, learning and wellbeing.

Guringai AECG

On Wednesday night Guringai Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG) held their meeting in the Gawura Aboriginal Learning Centre of TAFE Northern Beaches Campus Brookvale. Again there are lots of rich learning opportunities in progress, which will both enhance our Reconciliation Actions and consolidate many learning experiences for our students such as the SPX Bourke Red Dirt Expedition.  I look forward to sharing these with the College Leadership Team and wider community.

Fide et Labore

Mr Sean Brannan - Assistant Principal Pastoral Care