Dear Parents,

As mentioned last week, our Staff Spirituality Day looked at the influence of media on our younger generation. To encourage safety online and also a healthy online/offline balance the Australian Government has a website for parents and educators to access https://www.esafety.gov.au/ . Please bookmark this site for your easy reference if you like. There are some great tips and information that make this site a valuable resource for all adults and students as we engage in the online environment. We’ll showcase some points in our newsletter over the next term.

This week The Resilience Projects kicks off for each of our classes. This program has been developed over the last decade and developed by a young Australian educator, Hugh Van Cuylenburg.  It is a dedicated whole school approach to the benefits of resilience that builds meaningful daily practice in understanding gratitude, empathy and mindfulness. Although you may be thinking it sounds simply like a ‘feel good’ programme I want to emphasise that it offers a solid framework for developing a growth mindset for our students. If you have the opportunity to visit The Resilience Project website or want to download the audiobook it will give you a good insight into the programme we are unpacking here over the next semester and into 2021.

We received news last week that our application for a Commonwealth Bank Bushfire recovery Grant has been successful to a total of $50,000. Needless to say we are pretty pleased with ourselves and also very grateful. The grant will go towards the refurbishment of the ‘Top Room’ currently used as the uniform shop and Music/Teacher Resource room. The old building has been part of St Mary’s for some time and deserves some attention. With an upgrade it is planned that the room will be more of a multi-purpose room that can be accessed by parent groups and the parish as well, but will continue to be our Uniform Shop and Music/Teacher Resource room.

Have a lovely week everyone.

Jannine