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Dear Parents and Carers
We are so greatful for the amazing events we have celebrated as a school community over the last few weeks and will continue to do over the remainder of the term. Following a few years of not being able to come together as an entire school community it has been well appreciated. Thank you to all our students, parents, family, friends and staff for joining in and being part of our St Clare's Community.
With just over 3 weeks remaining until the end of the term we contiue to have a number of events occuring. Please ensure you mark your calendar to help keep a track. The end of the term will be celebrated with a Footy Colour Day, where students can wear their "footy colours" and our Parents and Friends Group will be running a Hot Dog Day. More details regarding orders and helpers for the Hot Dog Day will be provided in the coming days.
Dates to Remember
Religion
Congratulations to the 34 students in Year 6 who received the Sacrament of Confirmation on Saturday 19 August 2023. A special thank you also to the students who formed the choir for the 3pm Mass - your voices were wonderful!
Reconciliation
A reminder that Reconciliation will occur for baptised Catholic students in Year 3 in Term 4.
Protective Behaviours
Each term we focus on our School Wide expectations, particularly Respect and Safety.
This term, across the school, we are focussing on:
- Who are our safe people (Safety Network)
- Safe/unsafe feelings and actions
- Early warning signs – responses (feelings and physical) when we feel unsafe
- We have a right to body autonomy (body bubble/space)
- We can identify public and private body parts and name these
- When touch might be necessary (safe people hugging us or giving us a kiss, doctors, nurses, Allied Health professionals)
- The difference between secrets and surprises
If you wish to discuss this further or would like any clarification please contact Gab Verstraete (Child Safety Officer) gverstraete@stclaresofficer.catholic.edu.au
School Fees
Term 3 fess are now well overdue. We would greatly appreciate any families with amounts still outstanding for Term 3 arrange payment as soon as possible.
If circumstances have changes and your family now has a Pension or Health Care Card, please let the office know as this will impact your school fee balance.
For those famililes who may be experiencing financial difficulties, please email finance@stclaresofficer.catholic.edu.au to arrange a confidential discussion.
PAM Access
All parents and families must access PAM. This portal is vital for providing the school with current Medical Information and is how parents provide permission form school excursions and events.
Link to PAM portal
If you need any assistance with accessing the portal please contact the office
In this edition of SchoolTV - MINDFULNESS
Over the last decade, mindfulness has been slowly rising in popularity with many individuals practising it on a regular basis. Evidence based research has found that there are many benefits to mindfulness which has prompted schools across the nation to implement this practice into their daily routines.
Mindfulness can be described as attention training for your brain, enabling you to focus on something without judgement and to stimulate curiosity. Mindfulness can be practised in a number of ways and is something that can be done by everyone - no matter what your age! It has been practised by many cultures around the world, but it is not exclusively affiliated to any particular philosophy or religion.
Mindfulness helps improve memory, engagement and performance. Its positive effect on the brain can improve immunity, mental wellbeing, learning ability, emotional health and even, time management. It is especially important in this era of information overload as our attention is constantly being pulled in many directions making us more distracted.
In this edition of SchoolTV, parents can learn the best way to introduce this mindfulness to their children, implementing into their daily lives to have an overall positive impact on family relationships.
We hope you take time to reflect on the information offered in this edition of SchoolTV and we always welcome your feedback. If you have any concerns about your child, please contact the school counsellor for further information or seek medical or professional help.
Here is the link to the Mindfulness edition of SchoolTV
https://stclaresofficer.catholic.schooltv.me/newsletter/mindfulness
How to Help Kids Stay Safe Online
Adapted from: https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/blog Office of the eSafety Commissioner
- Start the chat
It’s not possible to be at your child’s side every second of the day, so it’s important to talk with them about online safety issues to help develop their critical thinking and ability to make good choices. It’s also good to let them know they can come to you for help if they have any concerns. You may feel they know more about the latest technology than you do, but you have more life experience to guide them.
- With primary school aged children use online devices in the open living spaces at home to make parent supervision part of the expectation for your child.
- Take the opportunity to set some boundaries around when and where they can use devices like tablets, smart TVs and gaming consoles, to help limit potential tech tantrums — you could even fill in an Early Years Family Tech Agreement
- Screen free time before bed is important for good sleep. Consider charging devices in a central location at a regular time each night to allow an hour screen free before bed.
- While you are all at home more, it’s a great time to co-view and co-play with your kids, so you can understand what they are doing and experiencing online.
- Learn about the games, apps, social media and platforms they are using at The eSafety Guide, including how to protect their information and report inappropriate content or conduct.
- Use parental controls and safe search options
Parental controls can help block your child from accessing specific websites, apps or functions. They can also monitor your child’s use of connected devices and set time limits. But beware! You cannot always rely on them — they should be used in combination with other online safety strategies.
- Parental controls are available on most tablets, smartphones, computers, TVs and gaming consoles.
- You can also download family safety controls or buy robust filters out of the box.
- You can set up child-friendly search engines, or select safe search settings on digital devices, to help prevent your child from stumbling across inappropriate sites and content.
- Check smart toy settings
It’s surprising how many toys or devices can connect online these days, from drones and smart teddies to tablets and wearables. While they can be both entertaining and educational, they can reveal your child’s personal details and location — and allow other people to contact them without you knowing. You can help keep them stay safe by:
- setting strong passwords
- turning off location settings
- limiting the amount of personal information shared.
The eSafety Gift Guide has advice on what to check for and how to stay safe.
- Look out for unwanted contact and grooming
Unwanted contact is any communication that makes your child feel uncomfortable or unsafe, even if they initially welcomed the contact. It can come from a stranger, an online ‘friend’ or even someone they actually know. At worst, it can involve ‘grooming’ — building a relationship with the child in order to sexually abuse them.
You can help by:
- making sure their accounts are private — including chat functions on games
- encouraging them to delete requests from strangers and any contacts they don’t know in person
- checking in with your child as they use online devices in the open living spaces at home
- reporting and blocking anyone suspicious on a website or service
- remembering that if suspicious online contacts become aggressive or threatening you should contact your local police.
- Know the signs of cyberbullying
Kids who are bored by long periods at home can pick at each other, and that happens online too. So it’s important to keep an eye out for cyberbullying. It can include mean posts, comments and messages, as well as being left out of online group activities like gaming.
- Remember, when they are away from school, kids have less access to their usual support systems, including friends, teachers and counsellors.
- eSafety research shows that girls are more likely to be affected than boys and the person doing the bullying is generally someone they know from school.
- Watch out for signs such as your child appearing upset after using their mobile, tablet or computer, being unusually secretive about their online activities or becoming withdrawn.
- Cyberbullying can make social isolation worse and the longer it continues, the more stressed kids can become, impacting on their emotional and physical wellbeing.
What to do if your child is being cyberbullied
As parents, our first instinct may be to ban our children from social media, disable the wi-fi or turn off the data access. But this can actually compound the problem, making your child feel as if they’re being punished and heightening their sense of social exclusion.
There are four simple steps that can help minimise the harm:
- report the cyberbullying to the social media service where it is occurring
- collect evidence of the cyberbullying material
- if the material is still public 48 hours later, make a report to eSafety — we work with social media platforms to have the harmful content removed.
block the offending user.