School Chaplain 

From the Chaplain 

As we head into week two of this lockdown, I hope that you are finding time to nurture yourself as you manage the (more familiar) challenges of supporting your children's learning from home.  I’m sure you are becoming experts as you navigate the Google Classroom and continue to encourage your children to maintain their motivation and enthusiasm. 

Don’t know about you, but each lockdown I receive emails from various organizations, sharing strategies and handy hints to help me cope with the limitations during lockdown.

So, in light of this, I promise to share only ONE strategy.  The idea came from one of our amazing staff members who now has even a bigger smile after undertaking this task. It involved de-cluttering and sorting out, in this case, clothes and shoes –including the whole family’s sock collection!! (Why is it that one sock always disappears, never to be seen again?) That’s a whole other discussion.

Her strategy, should you choose to play along, involved removing the items from the cupboard, taking everything off the clothes hangers; relocating them to another room; categorising them into piles, for example, keep, throw out, donate; then hanging them up and placing neatly back into cupboards and drawers again.  I need to disclose that this process took nearly twelve hours, and she took many photos and videos for tangible proof.

Although highly motivated by this staff member’s efforts, I was only able to clean out and categorize my scarf drawer, but it’s a start, and I found scarves that I had forgotten I owned!

Sam and his little brother (my puppets) and I had the pleasure of joining a Webex with Grade 4SH this morning, and everyone looked very happy and engaged. We did some mindful breathing and an imaginative visit to a peaceful forest and waterfall, to clear our minds before a day of learning.

We spoke about the joy of having brothers and sisters.  In line with this theme, I have chosen from the parenting easy guides, this week: “Sibling Rivalry”.  You will find the link below.

https://parenting.sa.gov.au/easy-guides/sibling-rivalry-parent-easy-guide

Go gently and take care, especially during these times of having to give up so much, and cope with many different situations and expectations.

If you would like to catch up on the telephone, or in person for a coffee, I am available at school each Thursday and Friday.

Marg.  (Chaplain)