Term 4 Key Dates

Our Operation Christmas Child (OCC) boxes will be collected on Monday. Tomorrow is the last chance to send in an item for these boxes. Items can include small toys, hair accessories, a hairbrush, toothbrush, skipping rope, marbles, pencils, notepads, textas, handkerchiefs etc.

If you have been unable to purchase a small item a donation to assist with the $10 postage per box would be appreciated.

Thank you for your generous donations so far!

Raiders 'Aspire' Program 

The final school fees for 2020 have been sent out via email on Tuesday afternoon and in hardcopy via your children on Wednesday. Please check to ensure you have received yours.

We would like to ensure that all families have a $0 balance by the end of 2020, so if you need information on how to achieve this, please see Belinda. Please remember we rely on these fees being paid to cover our basic utilities costs such as electricity and gas.

JUSTICE and SERVICE

Our Catholic school community is called to take up Jesus’ mission to reach out to the less fortunate in our world: the poor, hungry, homeless and sick. On Monday our Year 5 students led us in reflecting on how we can take up this mission through our school values of SERVICE and JUSTICE.

CATHOLIC MISSION

The Lord has told us what is good.

What he requires of us is this:

to do what is just, to show mercy,

and to live humbly with our God. (Micah 6:8)

Pope Francis says:

 “Never think that you have nothing to offer, or that nobody needs you. Many people need you. Think about it! Each of you, think in your heart: many people need me.”

PRAYER –You can join us in praying for the poor and marginalised.

DONATIONS – each classroom has a box for money donations for the poor. Please help us with this if you are able.

WHITE ELEPHANT–Please send any unwanted items (but in reasonable condition) into school. Items may be left on the stage in the School Hall. (Items may include things like: toys, kitchenware, clothes/drawing/sketching materials, books, jewellery etc.)

ODD SOCKS – please send in your odd/old socks for our special mission activity.

SAMARITAN’S PURSE – Many thanks to all those who supported this appeal. The boxes are sure to put a smile on many a disadvantaged child.

Raising Whole Humans By Linda Stade

Humankind has achieved amazing things. We have travelled in space, overcome disease, developed mind-blowing technology, and created societies where we work together for the greater good. However, there is a basic flaw often undermining all our hard work. We believe we are supposed to always be happy.

Of all the feelings that make up the complex beast that is a human, we are most committed to happiness. The problems with this mindset are numerous but let’s start with three:

1. Happiness is transient so we could spend our whole lives searching
2. We start to believe there is a problem if we aren’t happy
3. We mislead our children into believing they too should always be happy and so if they’re not they perceive it as a failure.

Being a whole human is about being happy, sad, frustrated, joyful, angry, disappointed, peaceful, grateful, overwhelmed, and every other feeling we are born to experience. As parents and educators, it is our job to help our kids acknowledge, accept and regulate all emotions so they are able to travel kindly and gently through life.

It’s a big responsibility!

Guide rather than guard

Kristina Morgan is a clinical psychologist at Lourdes Hill College. She watches some parents expend an enormous amount of energy in protecting their children from so-called negative emotions. The result is kids grow up with a lack of skills for negotiating their emotional landscape. “You develop perspective and skills by having experiences and trying to manage them. Too many parents take away those opportunities. Kids only know they can, when they do.”

I love this statement. It shows the power of guiding your child instead of guarding them against uncomfortable feelings. Kristina says it is important that we let our kids experience discomfort. Not only does it give them opportunities for growth, but it says, “I believe in you and your ability to learn. You may not get it right straight away, but you’ll take a step in the right direction.”

The key here is accepting that emotional growth is like any other learning…it’s incremental. It happens slowly and skills are built one upon the other.

How can parents help with incremental emotional growth?

1. Sit with discomfort…yours and your child’s

Emotions aren’t good or bad, they are comfortable or uncomfortable. Emotions are physical experiences. For example, anxiety is a high-energy uncomfortable feeling. The heat it generates, the rise in pulse and adrenaline all enable us to take physical action if required, but it feels awful.

When we are able to recognise and sit with the emotion it will pass through us and end. No feeling lasts forever. If we deny the feeling or push it down, it will fight to be recognised. The old psychologist saying is, “You’ve got to feel it to heal it”.

As parents and teachers, we also have to sit with the discomfort of seeing a child we love and want to protect feeling bad. It’s not easy! We can support them, but we can’t take these perfectly human experiences away from them. These are important growth moments.

2. Connect

Tune in to your child. While you can’t take feelings away, you can be supportive. You can acknowledge that this feeling is uncomfortable or ‘yucky’ and that we all feel like this sometimes. It’s human and they are not alone.

3. Give them broad emotional language

For all the language we give children, most have a surprisingly small emotional vocabulary. Give kids words to describe feelings from a young age. Don’t be worried about big words. If a five-year-old can name 18 different types of dinosaur, they can use words like ‘frustration’ and ‘furious’. Research tells us that the broader a child’s emotional vocabulary, the greater their chance of understanding their own emotions.

4. Deconstruct the experience

Kristina says, “Break down feelings into the physical experiences and the thoughts. What do you feel and where in your body do you feel it? What are you thinking that might make you feel this way? When kids can deconstruct, on even the simplest level, they can start to regulate emotions.”

5. Accept and allow feelings

We need to cultivate from a young age the understanding that we are a safe space for our kids. They should be able to share their vulnerable feelings without the fear of us telling them to ‘pull yourself together’ or ‘don’t be silly’. All feelings are valid.

6. Calm

Even though all feelings are valid, all behaviours are not. Kristina advises that we coach kids to express emotion but never damage themselves or others in the process. This can be difficult for a child in the grip of strong, uncomfortable emotion. They need us to be calm, empathise, and diffuse, not throw in more grenades. Don’t buy into the emotion, diffuse it.

7. Problem solve

Problem-solving requires a cool head. It may take hours or days for your child to reach a point where they can talk to you logically about the next steps. That’s okay. Try not to give them solutions, help them to problem-solve themselves. Even if they only get a little way towards solving their own problem, it’s a start.

It is likely your child will need a lot of encouragement, as they may already be feeling disempowered. They will also be wary of sounding silly. This is your chance to build them up and show your faith in them. Don’t be afraid to give examples from your own experiences. It will help your child to know you’re a work in progress too.

Final thought…

At the end of the day, remember being a young person is hard. Being the parent of a young person is hard too, so take it easy on yourself. Aim for increments in emotional learning. It’s a long journey and at times you will feel happy, sad, frustrated, joyful, angry, disappointed, peaceful, grateful, overwhelmed, and every other feeling you were born to experience.

Taken from - https://www.inspiringgirls.info/post/raising-whole-humans

Friday Sport

Commencing tomorrow, and running for a 6-week block, we have been lucky to secure the Goulburn Martial Arts Academy to run a Judo/ Taekwando/ Mini Ninjas program for our Friday sport sessions. This has been made possible through a a Sporting Schools grant, allowing us to bring in qualified coaches to run this program.

If you have questions relating to this program please email me at rachael.croker@cg.catholic.edu.au

Athletics Carnival

We have had discussions about holding a potential Athletics Carnival towards the end of the Term. The format would be slightly different from our normal carnival routine, with there being no individual or house points allocated, and the focus being on modified athletics activities.

Further details regarding this will come as they are finalised.

Football Posts

We are in search of some large football posts like the ones we currently have on the bottom playground to create a second field for our students to use. Do you, or do you know of someone, who may have posts that are no longer being used or suggestions of who may be able to perhaps build some for us? Please get in touch with Belinda in the Office if you can assist.

Book Club

Book Club is due today.

Orders can be placed via Loop or returning the sheet and payment page to school

St Mary's Cookbook- LAST CALL FOR RECIPES                  

LAST CALL FOR RECIPES PLEASE. We need these by Friday 23 October please.

If you, or anyone you know, are willing to share your favourite recipe(s) please email them to Belinda Tarlinton at Office.Stmarysc@cg.catholic.edu.au

In order to have an idea of how many we will need to get printed, please complete this quick survey.

https://smpscrookwell.schoolzineplus.com/survey/19

Coordinator's Daria Lawson, Tash McCormack & Donna McGeechan

Sheep Muster

The P&F have decided this year to hold a Sheep Muster. This gives our farming families, that do not already run St Mary's cattle, the opportunity to donate a sheep. This could be a sound lamb, old ewe, wether or ram. The stock can be collected or dropped to the Crookwell showground on Tuesday 10 November for sale at SELX (donated by Daniel Tarlinton Elders) on Wednesday 11 November.

If you would like to donate a sheep to support our great school please contact Catherine Culley on 0458 367 251.

    

Tuckshop Term 4 Roster

There have been a few changes already, so please check below to see if your date doesn't work.

TUCKSHOP_TERM_4_2020_as_at_14_October_2020.pdf

If your name is not there and you can please help, please complete the form- Tuckshop Helpers.

Helping in the tuckshop is not scary at all and you won't be left alone without any training or assistance. If you would like to have a look at how it works before actually having a go, please contact Daria.

Year 4 – Toby Charnock and Saxon Greenwood

Year 5 - Reece Allport and Phoebe Selmes

Year 6 - Hayley Francis and Marnie McCormack

School Spirit Awards

The following students have received School Spirit Awards for demonstrating our value of Service. This week they have shown care for our school environment.

Reece Allport, Rosa Blowes, Sophie Croker, Quade Haynes, Imogen Hewitt, Lachlan Kilborn, Regan Picker, Nathaniel Waters and Ethan Whittle.

Some of our Year 3 students have been building a real-life Minecraft world and we think they have done a pretty good job!

For Parish and Sacramental matters please forward your enquiries to Parish Secretary, Janet Haynes or Pastoral Associate Sr Rosemary via email or call into the Parish Office at the Old Convent Building on Tuesdays or Thursdays.

Email: Crookwell@cg.org.au

Website: http://cg.org.au/crookwell/Home.aspx 

Phone: 48321 633 

Address: 55 Wade Street (the Old Convent Building)