Dear Parents,

As parents, it is important that we help our children to define boundaries. It’s a balancing act that requires knowing when to let children take risks in safe environments, as against taking risks in situations where they would endanger themselves or others.

Taking risks allows children to understand the concept of trial and error. Success will certainly build self-confidence within our children and, inevitably, failure will not only make them acknowledge their boundaries, but will provide them with opportunities to cope with the negative emotions that accompany failure. Self-confident children have the inner fortitude to try new things, even if there is a possibility of failure. So, if we can control our urge to step in and provide solutions, we may witness our children engage in creative thinking; also, we might witness our children explore their own abilities and rejoice in their own accomplishments.

Positive risk-taking behaviour can be most beneficial to our children and the more practice they have with identifying risks and acting accordingly, the better prepared they will be to handle potentially dangerous situations and to solve problems in the future. Of course, our children need to know how to differentiate between good, healthy risks, such as bush walking and bad destructive risks, such as sitting endlessly with computer games and being a possible candidate for childhood obesity.

Risk-taking allows our children to try new physical activities, test the limits of their physical, intellectual and emotional development and gain mastery over their bodies. Risk-taking prepares our children for interaction with the real world beyond what might be our over-protective homes. If our children are not exposed to risk-taking, they could become fearful and timid children who lack confidence and decision- making skills. 

KINDER TRANSITION - Next Monday we begin the Kindergarten 2020 Transition Program. Quite a few children have already participated in the Playgroup Program, which commenced at the beginning of the term. The structured Transition Program is designed to help the children and parents become more familiar with the Mary Immaculate School setting and for our staff to get to know the children in order to be best prepared for the commencement of their formal education. The children will continue their transition over the next three weeks.

STATE PARLIAMENT - Last Wednesday, 30 October, Mrs Mortimer accompanied our School Leaders to State Parliament. Greg Warren, MP, greeted students from Schools in the Campbelltown area to show them how he represents his constituents. Our student leaders were most interested in how the process of state government functions in comparison to their trip to Canberra. Lunch was spent enjoying the passing parade of tourists in Hyde Park. We were also lucky enough to have a quick visit to St Mary’s Cathedral admiring the artworks and sculptures.

SCHOOL CHAPLAIN - We welcome Alana Sullivan, who has been appointed as School Chaplain for the remainder of the school year. She will be working at Mary Immaculate on Mondays and Thursdays.

Have a great week and let Christ be our way and life.

Mrs Lillian Del Giudice

Acting Principal

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING - At Mary Immaculate the Staff have an ongoing commitment to Professional Learning. The Staff benefit from attending inservices, in curriculum areas, that assists them in providing quality learning opportunities for the Students in their class. The following Staff have or will attend Professional Learning and hence will be away from School.

Date	Staff Members	Professional Development
7November	Mrs Simpson	Religious Education Co-ordinators Network
12 November	Mr Warren	Aboriginal School Contact Network

SPRING FAIR

The winners of the Spring Fair Major Raffle are:

1st prize Kayla Ahearn 

2nd prize Pameti Family 

3rd prize David and Michelle Gibson 

The winner of the Money Tree was Leah Brandes.

WINNERS OF CLASS ARTWORK AUCTION

Kindergarten - B Twentyman, D Horvat and L Gibson

Year 1 - C Velante and E Humphries

Year 2 - E Humphries, B Vidovic and D Thomas

Year 3 - K Anderson, L Scales and K Pearson

Year 4 - S Coulson

Year 5 - L Vicario

Year 6 - P Tran and K Cordoba

 

 

 

 

 

REMINDER TO RETURN YOUR DISCO PERMISSION NOTE.  IF YOU ARE ABLE TO VOLUNTEER IT WOULD BE VERY APPRECIATED.

DATE:  FRIDAY 8 NOVEMBER 2019

TIME:  INFANTS K - 2:  5:00 PM TO 6:30 PM

          PRIMARY 3 - 6: 7:00 PM TO 8:30 PM

Congratulations to the following children who have won Morning Tea with the Principal:

Isabelle V 5 Gold, Ryder S 4 Green, Gabriella G 1 Gold and Elizabeth L K Green

Happy Birthday to the following children who will be celebrating a birthday this week:

Alicia P, Matthew C, Sienna D, Ayvah H, Travis W, Lachlan B, Adrian C, Nishant C, Nicole M and Isabelle S

What’s on…

Mrs Kirsty Simpson

Religious Education Co-ordinator

Dear Mary Immaculate Families, 

SHOWING SUPPORT FOR OUR FARMERS

A family in our School Community is supporting an initiative where they have organised a trip to Tamworth via Dubbo and the small town of Gollan to take some supplies to make Christmas a little easier for 200 struggling farming families. There are 2 key organisations being supported – one in Gollan and one in Tamworth - which operate “pantries” where those in need can access essential items. This project is supporting a small geographical area so the donations have a real and measurable impact on the families accessing the supplies.

As a way of supporting this initiative we ask if you would kindly donate items listed below. Any item will be gratefully accepted – including pantry items (bottled water, cereals, spreads, tea/coffee, canned and dried foods, alfoil etc), toiletries (toothpaste, shaving items), Christmas items (food treats, gifts) and gluten-free products.

If you would like to donate, please send item to the school office by Monday 25 November. As a school, we will place all items in a variety of baskets to present to the Coulson Family before they leave for their trip on Friday 29 November.

Yours sincerely

Mr Warren

Congratulations to KBlue and 6Gold, the classes to earn a gold star last week. Again, well done to all the students who remembered to return their books and bring their Library bags. Let’s try again this week – there are still nearly 400 outstanding loans from students. We also ask that you please look at home for some of our Library Loan bags – we usually have a good supply on hand for those students who may forget their Library bags, but none have been returned, especially our purple ones. Please see if they are tucked away at home. Thank you.

Chess Tournament: : The first six rounds are complete, and we are in to the Finals. The top 16 students in Stage 3 are playing off to see who will be our 2019 MIEV Chess Champions. There have been some amazing matches, we have some very clever strategists!

Poetry – On our Oliver home page, oliver.dow.catholic.edu.au/miev, we have links to some interesting Poetry websites. This week some of the classes have been looking at the use of rhyme in poems, and how it often helps to create a rhythm. Years 5 and 6 are studying poetry techniques, such as similes, metaphors and personification, Year 4 are looking at ballads and Year 3 students have been having fun with limericks. Poems are meant to be read aloud and shared, so have a look at home and see if you can find some poetry books to share.

Little Boy Blue - A Traditional English Nursery Rhyme

Happy reading!

Mrs Sue Bryant

Teacher Librarian

WAYS TO COMMUNICATE

Communication is a key skill for life, children's development in building healthy confident communication starts at home and school by observing how people around them interact. They listen to the words used; tone in delivery and body language displayed. Children can of course mix up methods of communication; the way they deliver a message may not always be how it is received and vise versa. A great way to help children develop confident communication skills for life is to teach them about three different types of communication – passive, aggressive and assertive.

Passive communication often involves a lack of eye contact, avoiding talking about ones own feelings and needs. It may involve agreeing to what others want all the time or trying to please others around them. Children may shy away and look at the ground or shuffle when using this style of communication. Often this type of communicators tries to avoid problems.

Aggressive communication can be seen as forceful, angry and blaming. Children may act rude or bossy. On the playground this may look like children telling others what they can do or can't do. Children using this style of communication often point fingers and can have intimidating body language. Aggressive communication can feel confrontational.

Assertive communication involves the use of eye contact, using respect to express feelings and needs of all involved. It uses problem solving skills rather than giving in or conflict to address issues. Children who are assertive stand tall without intimidating, they have open body language.  Assertive communication uses, I feel statements to help explore feelings and events.  To help your child develop assertive respectful communication, teach them to use statements that name feelings and events eg: "I feel sad (feeling) when you said I could not play with your (event)". Teach them to reflect on how they speak now and gently guide them if their tone is harsh or timid. Allow children to explore feelings and to examine the feelings of others. Help them put things in perspective, before they react or respond by looking for worst case scenarios.  Teach them to ask clarifying question eg: "It sounds like you are mad when you tell me not to play with you , is there a problem?" this allows people to clarify and reflect on what and how they say things. Model this type of communication at home. A child who can confidently express how they feel is able to face many of life's challenges with resilience.