Deputy Principal Junior Years - Term 1 Week 10

Here we are at the end of what has been a very busy term. What an amazing start to the academic year! Sincere thanks for the support you have shown throughout the term. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Since our last newsletter, we have been very busy in the Junior Years, particularly in the Junior Years Library.  A special thank you to Mrs Reid and the library staff for hosting World Read Aloud Day in the Junior Years.  It is always a delight to see our students so eager to read to an audience. The enthusiasm for books and reading aloud was inspiring. The best way to start each school day is always with a book!!!

Special thanks also to Mrs Reid for reading Harry Potter aloud each morning in the Junior Years library. Have you been in to see the Harry Potter display? Next time you are in the College grounds pop in! You will be amazed at Mrs Caligaris’ talent. You can even wear the sorting hat and find out which House you belong to!

Our younger students were reminded about personal safety when the Bravehearts Education Team visited St Andrew’s Catholic College. Ditto’s Keep Safe Adventure Show education program aims to teach essential personal safety messages to children across Australia. The program also provided each student with an activity book to take home and share with parents and carers. This book offers a selection of activities and games designed to communicate the core messages of the Bravehearts education program.

Thank you for supporting the Movie Night held by the P & F recently. We hosted a large crowd of Junior Years families in O Block. It was terrific to see our families come together to share a pizza dinner and a movie. A very special thank you to the P&F volunteers for organising the event, and also for donating the DVD to the Junior Library. The Secret Life of Pets was a winner! I look forward to seeing our families gather for other events arranged by the P&F throughout the year.

Thank you so much for the support shown in our Crazy Hair Day. Along with the Middle and Senior Years, and their Be Brave and Shave activities, we managed to raise an incredible amount of money for the Leukaemia Foundation. Over 450 Junior Years students coloured their hair! This is a fantastic effort. Thank you for your generosity.

Last week the Prep classes participated in a Prince, Princess and Pirate Day. The students have been learning about the letters of the alphabet, and last week had a particular focus on the letter “P”. It is very exciting to see the joy in our Prep students faces as they learn each and every day of school. The pizza was yummy too…

Last week we held our Parent Teacher Interviews. Each family was invited to meet with their children’s teachers to discuss their progress in Term 1. I hope your meetings were informative, and that you and your children were able to set some learning goals for Term 2. Next term you will receive a written report of your child’s academic, social and emotional progress. Please take the time to discuss your child’s learning so far this year, and speak to them about how they plan to improve their outcomes for next term.

At St Andrew’s Catholic College we believe that with hard work, practice, and perseverance, you can improve your academic performance, or indeed, any other skill. This is called having a growth mindset.

People with a fixed mindset believe that our intelligence and talents are predisposed, believing you are either born with it or not. Thanks to the fantastic work of Carol Dweck, we now know that not only is the growth mindset beneficial, but essential for our kids! Students with a growth mindset consistently achieve better results than students with a fixed mindset.

HERE IS HOW YOU CAN HELP FOSTER A GROWTH MINDSET IN YOUR CHILDREN:

1. Pay attention and verbally praise kids for hard work, persistence, rising to a challenge or learning from a mistake. Do not praise children for being “smart”, “brilliant” or “gifted”. Instead, focus your attention on the effort given to a task. Like us, children love to have their efforts recognised!
2. Be a growth mindset role model. Make sure you’re sending the right message – maybe you might even consider take on something new! Show your children that it takes work to master a new skill. Ensure your students finish any sentence about something they are currently unable to do with the word “yet”! “I can’t do my long division sums…yet!”
3. Encourage your child to forget about taking the easy course. Little learning happens if the route is easy. Instead, encourage your child to embrace challenges. Challenges “grow the brain”, and work the muscle, even if we don’t get the right answer!
4.  Remember growth mindset isn’t just learning at school. Growth mindset can be applied to all areas of life Having trouble learning any new skill? Then ask an expert about the next step you need to take for improvement.
5.  Discourage comparison with peers. Children may be envious of students they perceive to be more successful. Talk to your child about what he or she can learn from others. While skills may come more easily to some children, most often there’s a lot of practice, persistence, and hard work which leads to success.

I hope you will find this information useful in your discussions with your children at the end of the term.

As the term draws to a close, this will be the last week of fundraising for Caritas. If you still have a Project Compassion box in your home, please send your donations to school this week. We are hoping to bank the last of our donations, and send the cheque to Caritas as soon as possible. We thank you for supporting this whole College focus on Lenten almsgiving.

We have two major sporting events to finish the term, with the Year 4 and 5 Swimming Carnival last Monday, and our Junior Years Cross Country Carnival on this Thursday. I hope you were able to join us for these exciting events. I look forward to sharing some photos of these exciting events in our next newsletter.

Next term, our Year 3 and Year 5 students will sit the annual NAPLAN tests. This year the tests are held on 9 - 11 May. It will be imperative that we families try to limit student absences at these particular times. More information will be provided to families of the Year 3 and Year 5 students closer to these dates.

Congratulations to Chisholm House for winning the House Cup for Weeks 5, 6 and 9 of Term 1. Keep up the good work, MacKillop! Congratulations to Chisholm who knocked MacKillop of the top of the table for Week 8.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish each and every family a safe, happy and relaxing holiday. May the blessings of Easter fill your hearts with peace, joy and love. Happy Easter!

Thank you for your continued support.