5 June 2020 - Newsletter (Vol 37 No 9)

Pentecost

Last weekend the Church celebrated the feast of Pentecost, a time when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, a time when Jesus’ words from the cross were fulfilled;

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  John 14:16–18

The Holy Spirit gave the apostles gifts and skills necessary to fulfil the great commissioning role they were to undertake, to go forth and spread the Good News. It is also considered to be the birth of the Church, Peter the first Pope preaches for the first time and converts many non-believers.

Two thousand years later we as Catholic educators are commissioned with the same task. In our College we are called to ‘enable students to achieve the fullness of life’. Living a Christian life today and making others aware of our beliefs and values takes courage and strength. It almost always is counter cultural and often we are made to feel like our beliefs and values are irrelevant.

Looking at what has been happening around the world in the last week, we need more people to espouse these values and beliefs and to take a stand against anything that devalues the dignity of the human being and the dignity of human life in all its forms and appearances. We can’t sit by and watch things happen, we need to be people of courage and just like those apostles at Pentecost, trust that God holds each of us in the palm of his hand.

COVID-19 AND SCHOOL FEES – HELP IS AVAILABLE!!

PARENT SURVEY – Learning from home

Please refer to emails sent out on Wednesday this week. Your opinion is valuable and will help form what we do next. Please click on the link below to take the survey: Parent Feedback Survey - Learning from home

Michael Carniato
Principal

It seems like it has taken no time at all to get back to what we do best and that is to learn as a community in the school setting. However, this may not be the case for all students. Michael Grosse from Parenting Ideas offers some great insights into how you can help your child deal with the return to regular life at the College. While some of the points covered may best suit a primary student, there are some excellent thoughts on how children can reengage with their peers and cope with the workload from the past and be able to move to the future.

Please take the time to read through this article. Returning to School Anxiety Free

The next Parenting Ideas webinar “Understanding Techno Tantrums” will screen on Wednesday 17 June at 8:00 pm. I would encourage as many parents as possible to avail themselves of this free webinar by attending the Parenting Ideas website, searching for webinars and adding the voucher token (TECHNO) once you proceed to the checkout. The previous webinar was well worth watching and I am expecting this one to be the same. Below is an outline of the content that will be covered:

In this digital era, chances are we’ve all experienced our children throwing a techno-tantrum. Techno-tantrums are completely normal and often a result of the neurobiological changes that occur when kids use technology. But this doesn’t mean that we have to simply accept that they’re part of our modern parenting reality.
In this webinar  Dr Kristy Goodwin helps parents and carers understand why children and teens emotionally combust when they digitally-disconnect, and how to establish new, healthy technology habits. 

Last Sunday we celebrated the feast of Pentecost. It is a celebration of God’s hand guiding the Christian community through the trials and decisions that are presented to it. Ironically it also coincided with churches becoming open to small numbers of worshippers being present in churches in Australia.

From that first Pentecost until now, it has always been the belief of the Church that the Holy Spirit directs and guides us collectively and individually. God is not a distant being and the ascended Jesus has not abandoned us.

Until next time remember:

We have the Spirit of God living and working in our lives and in our Church.

Reports & Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences so far:

This term’s Year 12 Parent, Teacher & Student Conferences required several changes due to the COVID-19 social distancing restrictions and the restrictions on allowing large numbers of parents on site. 

As a result the College adopted a process of allowing parents to gain feedback on their son/daughter's report. The College encouraged parents to engage directly with Year 12 Classroom Teachers through a variety of media, including ZOOM, Q&A emails or scheduled telephone calls. 

Our Learning & Teaching Team would now like to gain some valuable feedback from Year 12 parents as to how effective this process was and to consider any improvements.

I would appreciate any Year 12 parent who can spare a few minutes to fill out the following survey, so the College can collate this information should we need to continue this type of PTS Conference in Term 3.

Year12 Parent Teacher Student Feedback

Assessment changes in Years 7-11 2020

Last week, the College sent a letter home to all parents of students in Years 7-11 regarding assessments for the remainder of the 2020 academic year. Following this, students were addressed at various Year Assemblies by members of the College Executive, so as to explain the move to multiple opportunities to demonstrate learning. I would encourage all families to discuss this and ask questions of relevant staff where needed.  

Returning to lessons:

This newsletter sees a return to face to face teaching for all students since the beginning of Week 5. I would like to remind all students of the need to consolidate their learning whilst undergoing ‘remote learning’ and to now engage with face to face lessons.

The College still has certain restrictions on activities such as no off-site excursions/sporting events, College Assemblies delivered via the PA system, social distancing in thoroughfares and general behaviours that will minimise health risks associated with COVID-19.

Most important to this list of restrictions is that if any student displays signs of illness, they must remain away from school and contact our Administration Staff to record the absence.   

National Reconciliation Week 2020

This week also concludes some significant indigenous events such as National Sorry Day, National Reconciliation Week and Mabo Day from Tuesday 26th May until Wednesday 3rd June. As a College, we seek to educate in the Catholic faith, a school community that recognises this time through class prayer and guiding our students to appreciate the richness of the culture of our nation’s first peoples. 

Classes over the last week have learned through a variety of subjects the importance of reconciliation and the significance of the word ‘sorry’ to ATSI peoples as a means of sympathy, empathy and importance of reconciling our nation’s past. 

Study Skills

Further information on how to ‘manage’ stressful times can be found via our subscription. Year 12 students will workshop this notion during this week’s Super Wednesday and the above may be of parental support post PTS Conferences and in preparation for continued HSC assessments. 

Visit Study Skills Handbook to learn more about how you can make your life easier by being a more effective and efficient learner:

Username: stjohnpaul
Password: 89success

In addition, our subscription to Elevate Education may assist in this area.

This online platform contains resources and useful study tips that all SJPC students will find effective. We encourage them to access this Student Portal and try some of the strategies. Students have the password to this site. The password can also be found on the Curriculum Noticeboard.

James Furey
Assistant Principal
Learning and Teaching

Over the past few months, students have taken their Japanese studies to new heights incorporating household items into their learning.

Year 8s were set a task to create hiragana characters (basic Japanese script) with whatever items they could find at home. Their creativity knew no bounds and characters were made out of spaghetti, tea towels, string, chocolates, TV remotes, jewellery, shells and much more.

Meanwhile, Year 9 students labelled items around the house in hiragana and katakana (script for foreign words) and participated in online treasure hunts during their Zoom lessons, which required team work and decoding skills. The Year 10 students were sent on a treasure hunt, looking for items at home using a list written in katakana and also to see if they could find items at home that looked like the kanji (picture characters) they have been studying.

Kirsten Binnie
Leader of Learning - Languages

Sharing culture through storytelling

This term our Year 9 Japanese class is investigating how diverse cultures and histories are communicated through storytelling. They are exploring a range of traditional Japanese folktales as well as local indigenous dreamtime stories - looking for similarities and differences and identifying the lessons within them. This unit has been designed to provide our students with opportunities to develop understanding of and respect for different cultures and languages, including that of our traditional owners of Country. 

To launch our unit, we were lucky enough to have Aunty Vicki Filewood join us to share some local Gumbaynggirr Dreamtime stories that have special significance to her and her elders. We learned how  dreamtime stories often explain how the country, animals and people came to be as they are - the stories tell of how the land was made first and the language was given to the land. It was after that, that the people arrived on the land. We learned that each nation has their own special words for ‘God’ ‘Mother’ and ‘Son’ and were intrigued by the parallels between our Christian beliefs around creation and the local Gumbaynggirr creation story.

We heard about how the sea is the totem of the Gumbaynggirr nation and the deep connection the people of this nation have with the sea and the land, and their sense of responsibility for looking after their environment which stems from this spiritual connection. 

Aunty Vicki shared a special story about the dolphin dreaming and her memories of going fishing with her family. She remembers her grandmother singing to the dolphins, who they believe are their ancestors who choose to live at sea, and the dolphins herding the fish into their nets.

We learned how stories such as ‘How the Koala lost its tail’ provided valuable life lessons in character values about finding ways to be resourceful, sharing good fortune, and being fair with others.

Students will continue to explore dreamtime stories and learn about the Japanese art of manga drawing throughout this unit. It is our hope that our students will be able to share their knowledge of local dreamtime stories with visiting Japanese students in the future through their own manga, which will be dreamtime stories translated into Japanese.

Leanne Gennat
Leader of Pedagogy/Japanese Teacher

Representative Sport

So far, all representative sport for the month of June are still cancelled. Please continue to check the Lismore Diocese sport website and the CSNSW sport website for changes.

College Athletics

At this stage, we are still in a holding pattern for the College Athletics Carnival and the Diocese Athletics Carnival as no grounds are open yet and we have not been given the go-ahead from the CSO to host a carnival in Term 2. As soon as information is forthcoming we will share it with you.

Please remember to regularly check the Diocesan and CCC website for updates on all sporting fixtures.

Year 9 and 10 Term 3 Sport

At the end of last week, new notes for Term 3 went home based on students allocations from Term 2. As the dates have changed, a new note is necessary. Students need to return their signed notes and make payment by Friday 12 June. If payment is an issue, please contact Traci Jones, Business Manager, directly. Those who have already paid have it recorded against their names. Regardless, all permission notes must be in by Friday 12 June otherwise students will be moved into a on-campus sport such as Fitness.

A reminder that all Year 9 and 10 students will remain on campus for the rest of term for sport.

Olympic Change-Maker Award

The well respected Pierre de Coubertin Award has been replaced by the ‘Olympic Change-Maker Award’. Due to the changed nature of the criteria of this award, students in Year 10, 11 or 12 who wish to be considered for it are required to self-nominate to Mrs McAra by the end of Term 2. You will be required to inform Mrs McAra if you would like to be considered for the award and then will be shortlisted. One student will then be put forward from our College for the Award and will be required to complete the 150 word essay or video.

Details for this are as follow:

Nomination Guidelines

Eligibility

The student must demonstrate attributes consistent with the Olympic spirit (friendship, sportsmanship and striving for excellence) both on and off the playing field. The student must be:

• actively demonstrating leadership in their sport through their school or local community;

and/or

• using sport as a vehicle to improve health and well-being and drive social change in their school or local community.

Nominations

You are able to nominate for this award by either or both:

1. Writing 150 words or less

and/or

1. Composing a 1 minute (or less) video

Nominations will be assessed based on the students’ ability to demonstrate:

• Leadership
• Social Impact
• Innovation

The successful student will be invited to attend a Virtual Forum to be held in September 2020. The forum will provide Change-Makers the unique opportunity to connect with like-minded young people, learn from Olympians and experience the Olympic spirit first-hand. 

PLEASE NOTE: due to many sports (and thus coaching and leadership opportunities) stopping this year due to COVID-19 restrictions, feel free to draw on your experiences from 2019 or 2018.

Further details are available at: Australian Olympic Change Maker

Danielle McAra
Leader of Learning - Sport

Year 9 Isolation challenge - Lily's inspiration!

While most extra-curricular activities have been postponed or cancelled, our Public Speaking students have remained in competition mode.

The national Legacy Junior Public Speaking Award will run in a modified format for 2020 with students submitting a video of their prepared speech on any topic to the judging panel, and any student who progresses to the State level will also submit a video of their impromptu speech.

The Public Speaking students have remained on task during the lockdown with regular Zoom meetings and were keen to meet together as a team for the first time in Week 5.

The onsite meetings will help students in the final stages of their speech crafting as the Year 7 - 9 students prepare to compete against each other in Week 9 for the honour of representing the school. 

The team has been building momentum since they started meeting early in Term 1 when they were fortunate to have Mr Jeremy Nash speak to them about Public Speaking strategies and techniques. A former English and Drama teacher, Mr Nash is an expert in this field and he relishes any opportunity to advance student enthusiasm and understanding.

Jeremy Nash with the Public Speaking students

Linda Gleeson and Maree McKelvie
Teachers - English

Tournament of  Minds has built a reputation for risk-taking and bold decision making and nowhere is it more evident than in the competition’s solution to the Covid-19 lockdown.

The international competition is open to school students right across the Asia Pacific region and the organising body has searched for a fair and equitable new competition format that will be available to all students no matter their country’s state of isolation.

The St John Paul College team has also been preparing during the lockdown period for all possible isolation scenarios.

The students have been attending regular Zoom meetings and have also attended school on their non-participation days to gain skills to meet the demands of the new competition format and be better skilled across a variety of KLAs.

The students have had additional Zoom meetings with Michael Booth from TAS who taught them new media applications and Renee Berrisford from Art who taught them mask making. Now the students are back on campus they will meet with Mark Hoare from Music who will teach them how to incorporate music for mood and story development and Melissa Cotton from Drama for individual performance techniques.

The students would like to thank those teachers for their extra time and care they have given them during this lockdown period.

Connor Gleeson and Matthew Harrison were taught to use a Drone for filming.

Linda Gleeson
TOM Facilitator

Nationally Consistent Collection of Data - School Students with Disability