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Dear Parents of Mary Immaculate,
In this week’s newsletter I include information on Social Networking from the Parent’s Guide to Online Safety, produced by the Office of the e-Safety Commissioner.
- Good habits start young
Parents and carers play an important role in helping children to develop digital intelligence — the social, emotional and practical skills needed to successfully navigate the digital world.
It is never too early to instil good habits, and as your child gets older it is useful to keep reminding them of these basic digital intelligence principles: respect, empathy, critical thinking, responsible behaviour and resilience. These are also principles you can emphasise with your child when things go wrong.
How to build digital intelligence
Promote respectful communication
- Encourage your child to use the same positive manners and behaviour they would use offline, understanding that others may have different cultures, backgrounds or points of view. If it is not OK to say or do something face to face, it is not OK online.
- Remind them to avoid responding to negative messages and to tell you or another trusted adult if they receive them. Tell them it is OK to report others who are not being nice.
Encourage empathy
- Help your child to imagine being in someone else’s shoes, so they can relate to diverse opinions and understand what might make people behave in different ways.
Teach them to question
- Encourage your child to think critically about what they see online. Teach them to ask questions so they can identify content or messages that may be misleading or exploitative.
- Talk to them about ‘fake news’, or false information that is designed to look like a trustworthy news report, and how quickly it can spread on social media. Teach them to fact check news sources and do their own independent searches on issues, so they can see the variety of opinions on a particular issue and make up their own mind.
- Remind them to be careful when making new friends online as people may not be who they say they are. We are increasingly seeing ‘Finstas’ (fake Instagram accounts) and other impersonation accounts. So it is important to question whether what they are seeing online from their friends is real or not. If it seems out of character, it could be from a fake account.
- Alert your child to the dangers of meeting someone in person that they have been talking to online. Advise them to never arrange to meet an online friend unless a trusted adult is with them and it is during the day in a public space.
Encourage safe and responsible behaviour
- Work on achieving a healthy balance in your child’s online and offline activities and set boundaries for digital device use in your home.
- Remind your child of the importance of safeguarding personal information that can be used to identify or locate them.
- Explain why they should be suspicious of unsolicited messages and emails, and avoid clicking on pop-up ads on websites. Some pop-ups that seem safe can lead to inappropriate sites or ask for personal or financial information.
- Help them configure the strongest privacy settings on all the social media apps and sites they use. It is best that only their circle of friends can view their information, tag them in a photo or share posts. And get them to check their settings regularly as updates can sometimes change them back to the default.
- Ensure your child uses strong passwords on devices and accounts, and explain the importance of not sharing passwords, even with friends.
Help them build resilience
- Keep your cool if your child experiences a negative experience online. Remember, the choices they make as they navigate difficult situations can help them learn.
- Remind your child that they can screen who they accept as online ‘friends’.
- Make sure they know how to block and report users or pages on the sites they use.
- If they have a negative online experience, find out how they are feeling about it, offer support and encourage them to keep things in perspective at the same time.
- Build your child’s confidence and encourage positive ways of thinking — looking on the bright side, thinking rationally, understanding that difficult times are a part of life but there is help and support available.
MORNING KISS AND RIDE ZONE
The Morning Kiss and Ride Zone is the area directly out the front of the School Office on Emerald Drive. It enables you to drop your child off SAFELY and QUICKLY.
To ensure the effectiveness of this area the following procedures need to be followed:
- Cars will proceed to the first 3 spaces of the Kiss and Ride Zone.
- Only the first 3 cars will drop off children. All other cars will need to line up and wait until they reach this area to drop off their children.
- Adults need to remain in the car at all times. This means that children will need to have their school bags with them in the car, so that they are able to exit the car from the left hand side, onto the footpath.
- Cars will exit the Kiss and Ride Zone in the order that they entered. Do not leave earlier than the car in front and overtake them.
- If the Kiss and Ride Zone is full or you wish to get out of the car, please park in an area away from the Kiss and Ride Zone.
- Do not park or drop off in the Bus Zone.
- Do not double park.
- Do not make u-turns, they are dangerous and put everyone at risk.
The safety of all our children is of the greatest importance at all times, so we ask for your patience and respect of others. We thank you for your co-operation in this matter.
PARENTS & FRIENDS DISCO - Last Friday evening’s Parents and Friends Disco was a wonderful event for those children who attended. Special thanks to Corey and Kylie H, Lorraine B, Gloria G, Xanthee D, Cassandra G, Kayla A, Barbara T, Tonya G, Teneille C, Lisa P, Michael E, Michelle G, Tanja S, Monika D, Jacqueline K, Lee S, Genevieve B, Jamie R and shona J for their assistance with the event and thanks also, to the many parents who assisted on the night. The children enjoyed the opportunity to dress up and have fun dancing with their friends.
KINDERGARTEN 2020 TRANSITION - This week we welcome our 2020 Kindergarten students as they begin their 3 week Transition to School Program. This program is designed to help the children and parents become familiar with the Mary Immaculate School setting. It also gives the teachers an opportunity to learn more about the needs of the children beginning Kindergarten next year. I thank Mrs Biviano, Mrs Brandes, Mrs Nash and Mrs Petruzzelli for their assistance with this program.
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Date |
Staff Members |
Professional Development |
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19November |
Mrs Bryant |
Librarians Network |
Mrs Lillian Del Giudice
Acting Principal
Congratulations to the following children who have been awarded Morning Tea with the Principal:
Kayla N K Green, Ethan M 1 goold and Emily C 3 Green
Happy Birthday to the following children who will be celebrating a birthday this week:
Kyce D, Isabella E, George D, Millie S, Zoe G, Flynn C, Rebecca B, Brody C, Loeonard C and Tamia T
What’s on…
Upcoming Events:
- Friday 6 December Feast of the Immaculate Conception / Christmas Concert.
- Monday 16 December Year 6 Graduation Liturgy.
- Wednesday 18 December End of Year Mass
WORLD MISSION MONTH - To the wonderful families of Mary Immaculate Parish Primary School - Thank you for your overwhelming generosity for our fundraiser for the Missions. $802.00 was raised at our Mission Day. This is an outstanding effort!! The money has been sent to support The Catholic Mission Appeal in Ghana. Thank you once again!
REFLECTION - This week our Year 5 students have reflected on the seriousness and impact of the fires ravaging our country.
Religious Education Co-ordinator
On Sunday 8 December we celebrate the Feast Day of Mary Immaculate. I believe our School and Parish Name Day Feast to be a most significant event in the year. Due to the feast day falling on a Saturday, our Mary Immaculate School Community will be celebrating Mass on Friday 6 December at 10.45am. Our Parents and Friends Association will provide a sausage sizzle lunch after Mass. After lunch the children will be presenting Christmas songs. All parents and friends are most welcome to join in this significant school celebration. To assist with catering, parents are reminded to complete the RSVP, which was sent home last week. We are in need of some parental assistance on the day. If you are able to assist with the BBQ could you please contact the school office.
Congratulations to 5 Gold, 5 Green and 6 Gold on earning Gold stars last week, hopefully we will have more this 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 – we still have over 300 outstanding loans from students. There are only a few more weeks for borrowing before we start to collect all books back for a stocktake of the Collection. Please search your rooms, book shelves etc to see where any books are hiding! Please search too for the Library Loan Bags – our supplies are depleted because we have lent out so many!!
Thank you.
Chess: Our Chess Tournament is nearing the end for 2019, we are down to the final four players to determine our champions. There have been some outstanding matches, congratulations to all participants. Winners should be announced next week.
Scholastic Book Club Issue 8 – The brochures have gone home this week for our final order for 2019. It will be a good opportunity for some Christmas shopping – books are a great gift. Just a reminder that all ordering is to be done online via the LOOP: Linked Ordering and Online Payment. No orders and money will be accepted at School. We thank you for your support of this program. Orders will close Monday 25 November. Thank you.
Poetry – On our Oliver home page, oliver.dow.catholic.edu.au/miev, we have links to some interesting Poetry websites. Poems are meant to be read aloud and shared, so remember to have a look at home and see if you can find some poetry books to share, even though we have now finished our work on Poetry. Year 3 have had a look at Limericks:
There was a young schoolboy of Rye,
Who was baked by mistake in a pie.
To his mother’s disgust
He emerged through the crust,
And exclaimed, with a yawn, "Where am I?"
Anonymous
Happy reading!
Mrs Sue Bryant
Teacher Librarian
On Thursday 7 November, the Mary Immaculate Community participated in the Outdoor Classroom Day. The Outdoor Classroom Day involved teachers and students participating in learning outside of the classroom. Research has proven that when teachers take learning outdoors it has some powerful impacts: Children’s behaviour improves, whole classes are excited to learn, and individuals who feel inhibited by the curriculum often thrive in an outdoor environment. The Outdoor Classroom Day allows students and teachers to have the opportunity to experience a different type of learning experience. Some of the teaching and learning activities that took place at Mary Immaculate included designing scaled gardens and sketching plants and flowers, outdoor dancing, looking for medicinal plants, being seed scientists and finding insects in our school gardens. The students and teachers thoroughly enjoyed being outside and learning in a different environment. Thank you to everyone for participating in this fun teaching and learning activity.
Mrs Boss – Wollongong Environment Network Contact MIEV
Nude Food is simply food that is not wrapped in foil, plastic or commercial packaging. For several years now the MIEV School Community has been participating in Nude Food events. Most recently we have endeavoured to encourage the students and teachers to bring nude food lunches every fortnight. The reason we have participated in Nude Food Days is to reduce the rubbish we produce as a school and make the students more aware of their impact on the environment. To further this cause, as a school we will be continuing our tradition of having regular Nude Food Days and increasing the frequency to every Wednesday, starting this Wednesday 13 November. You will see some new advertising posters around the school to remind you of the upcoming Nude Food Days!
Thank you for your support of this important MIEV initiative.
Mrs Boss – Wollongong Environment Network Contact MIEV
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
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TERM FOUR |
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Friday 6 December |
Feast Day Mass / Christmas Concert |
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