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Dear Parents and Caregivers,
I don’t know about you, but at the moment I am experiencing complete information overload at the moment.
Thank you to all members of our community who have responded to the circumstances of our new reality with grace and consideration for the needs and safety of others. This is truly living out our motto to make, Christ Our Way and Life.
The vast majority of our students are now accessing remote learning and despite the necessary adjustments are experiencing success and are able to maintain the connection with their teachers and peers.
Our school is now operating with a skeleton staff and all class teachers are operating remotely each day. We are very grateful to the majority of our parents and carers who are supporting the messages of NSW Health regarding the need for children to be kept at home. We understand how difficult it can be to manage working from home as well as supervising your child’s learning, however we continue to request your support to limit the risk of COVID-19 by having your child learn from home, rather than school, unless you have no other option. Please know assistance with remote learning is only a phone call or email away.
A form will be sent out via Compass tomorrow allowing parents to provide information about school attendance next week. Please ensure this important information is provided to assist us in planning for the provision of the necessary support and supervision for students who will be attending school.
In the words of our school prayer,
We ask for wisdom, guidance and courage as we continue to travel the difficult path ahead. We continue to keep all our families in our prayers.
Tina Murray
Principal
TIPS FOR PARENTS DURING REMOTE LEARNING
Helping your children balance their time spent using digital devices for learning with physical exercise and offline learning tasks is really important during this lockdown. I have included some tips to support parents with assisting their children during this time.
Managing screen time and online safety
It’s important you keep a balanced approach to home learning. Time spent using digital devices for learning should be broken up with physical exercise and offline learning tasks often.
It’s also important that during this time of remote learning we maintain safe and responsible use of information and communication technologies.
Looking after your child's wellbeing
Wellbeing comes from physical, mental and emotional health.
For children and young people, there are many things that build positive wellbeing. Wellbeing can come from:
- understanding and managing emotions
- having good relationships
- experiencing a sense of accomplishment
- taking part in healthy activities, getting lots of sleep and eating well
Build your child's wellbeing
There's many things you can do at home to help build and sustain your child’s wellbeing.
Praise, encouragement and positive attention
Praise helps your child feel good about themselves, which boosts self-esteem and confidence. It can also encourage good behaviour.
You can:
- give your child praise when they behave in ways that you want to encourage
- give your child attention. For example, play a game with them, do an activity together, send them a friendly text message, ask about their interests
- praise your teenager for their strengths
- let your child know you are proud of them.
Positive self-talk
Self-talk is the way we talk to ourselves with our inner voice. Positive self-talk is when we say positive things to ourselves. Self-talk has big impact on how we feel and what we do.
Encouraging your child to talk to themselves in a kind and positive way can help improve their wellbeing and help them manage stress.
When you hear them speaking about themselves that is not kind, you can:
- bring it to their attention
- ask them if what they are saying is true
- get them to think of a more helpful thought
- encourage your child to ‘speak’ to themselves the way they would speak to a best friend
- regularly remind your child of their strengths and accomplishments.
Maintain good relationships
A positive relationship with your child is critical to supporting wellbeing.
- Share family memories and stories together.
- Try to eat a meal together each night.
- Establish and maintain family rituals and routines.
- Social connections are vital for your child’s wellbeing. For example, helping your child stay connected to friends is important.
LILLIAN DEL GIUDICE
ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL
The Religious Literacy Assessment for Year 4 has been postponed to Term 4 due to the current restrictions.
Welcome to another week of our unusual learning schedule! Congratulations again to all those making time to read, it is relaxing as well as being an activity which is good for us! Lots of us are still using Sora to access either Ebooks or audiobooks, and some are also using the International Children’s Digital Library, where you will find books from around the world, and in many different languages:
http://en.childrenslibrary.org/
In 2020 the Children’s Book Council of Australia helped out with access to good stories with a daily story time for ten weeks. Many of those stories are still accessible at:
https://www.cbcansw.org.au/storytime
Some great authors are there reading a story for us all to enjoy. One of the many great stories was from Sue Whiting, a local author reading her story Good Question, A Tale Told Backwards. All fox wants is a tasty meal, but he keeps wandering in to the wrong stories!
Don’t forget to take a look at our Oliver Library Home page oliver.dow.catholic.edu.au/miev which has links to many interesting sites and activities. Remember also to keep a reading log of all the books you are reading, titles and authors, and we can register these later on for the Premiers' Reading Challenge. Explore your book further with some of these writing activities. Print out the sheet and colour in the icon when you complete the activity.
Daily Reading: As parents you are your child's most influential teacher with an important part to play in helping your child to learn to read. There is more to being a good reader than just being able to read the words accurately. Just as important is being able to understand what has been read. Always talk to your child about the book; about the pictures, the characters, how they think the story will end, their favourite part. You will then be able to see how well they have understood and you will help them to develop good comprehension skills. Take time not only to hear them read but to read aloud to them too – they love hearing you read to them!
“Read aloud every day because you just love being with your child, not because it's the right thing to do. This is as important for fathers as it is for mothers!.”
Mem Fox
Happy reading!
Mrs Susan Bryan
Teacher Librarian