Dear families,

Here we are again in a snap lockdown. I know that for many of you, this means missing out on special occasions or plans.  It’s never a good time for these things. I do hope that amidst it all, for many of us, it may be a mini-reset. I pray we are back together soon. 

  The students in Years Prep - 2 who required one were sent home a device yesterday. All students in Years 3-6 took home their own device also. For this snap lockdown we will not be hosting live meetings or groups. Teachers have prepared learning activities for the children for Monday-Thursday. During this time the teachers will be reachable via email or Seesaw during regular school hours. The teachers will be sending a daily morning message to students, so please don’t hesitate to contact your child’s teacher over this stage if you’d like to help or further information about any of the prepared activities. Over this period, the teachers will prepare the transition to full remote learning should the lockdown continue beyond Friday.

At this week’s assembly we welcomed Justine Brogna and Wendy from Walk a Mile in My Shoes who presented a cheque for $2,000 to St Mary’s. Justine raises money each year by walking to raise awareness for parents with mental health problems. Justine and Wendy were joined by FaPMI (Families with a Parent with a Mental Illness) Coordinator Amanda Creswick who donated many books around the topic for our school library. Marg Masseni has a list of books for both parents and children to access. Please contact Marg if you’d like more information.

Justine’s generous donation will be put towards the establishment of a sensory garden to help the students in our community to have a special place to help them when they feel anxious or need a quiet place to visit. This year’s fundraisers will all contribute to the sensory garden project. Once we are ready to begin planning, we will work with the families whose children will benefit from this garden to contribute their ideas towards its construction. 

While on the topic of fundraising, please see our Operoo note from earlier this week to see if you are able to contribute time or donations towards our Bunnings stall in the coming weeks. Let’s hope restrictions are lifted enough that this can continue.

This week, we received news regarding the Sargood Street one-way traffic proposal. You can read more about the decision here.

Please stay safe and look after each other.

Regards
Sonia

---

In an article at the end of Term 1, I wrote to you about the approach we use at St. Mary’s when helping the children solve the problems and issues they have with others in the yard and in the classroom. 

This restorative approach helps children build capacity to self regulate their emotions, to take ownership of their actions and repair the harm that they have done to others.  

When relationships are adversely affected by someone’s behaviour, they need to be repaired so that harmony is restored.  Restorative or Relational Practices concentrate on repairing the harm caused and on restoring the relationship rather than focussing on the incident that caused the harm.

In this way incidents of misbehaviour provide a learning opportunity for all involved rather than punishments just being handed out. Social responsibility is fostered and the perspectives of others are taken into account when dealing with misbehaviour.

This term we have been working on making and accepting apologies, reinforcing the message that “At St. Mary’s an apology means a change in behaviour.”, that saying sorry is not sufficient if they just go back to their old ways.  

For some children though changing behaviour is easier than for others, for a wide variety of reasons. 

When learning a new concept in maths, some get it straight away and repetition is not needed for the concept to be ingrained.  Others need to work with the concept for longer and need lots of practice to get it right.  As teachers and parents we need patience and empathy in order to work effectively with all children but especially those children who take a little longer than others to get it right. 

I read a quote by well known child psychologist Dr Louise Porter, some time ago and it has always stuck with me. I hope that you read it and get something valuable from it too.

“When children learn to walk or talk we don’t expect perfection straight up. We expect them to make mistakes, and with much encouragement and practise, we expect they will gradually improve. So why don’t we allow children the same errors when it comes to learning how to behave?

If we punish children when they cannot manage their emotions, we are punishing them for being children. Instead, adults must teach children to act thoughtfully, not punish them when they don’t.

Behavioural mistakes are inevitable, just as falling over is inevitable when a toddler is learning to walk. And just as we would not dream of punishing falls or regarding them as naughty, but instead as part and parcel of the process of learning a new skill, so a behavioural mistake should be regarded as proof that the child needs more practice.”  Dr Louise Porter

Marg Masseni
Wellbeing Leader
Deputy Principal

---

Hi, I am Maree Ryan and I have been an LSO at St.Mary's for 16 years.  I have worked with children from each year level but have been mainly with the senior grades the past few years.  I love seeing children giving things a go and it's great watching their happiness in their success.  
 I have seen many children go through our school and I feel very lucky that I count many of the staff, both past and present as good friends.  

I was a stay at home mum for many years and before that I worked at MSJ for a few years.  I am married to John and have 6 adult children, we are nearly 'empty nesters' so our home has become very quiet lately.  In my spare time I love to read, garden, go on road trips, ride my bike and I always have music playing!  

---

Congratulations to our Principals Award's winners for Week Six, Term Two.  They are:-

PREP HT:

Patrick Nisbet for always putting his best effort into everything he does.

PREP S:

Claudia Shewan for working so hard on her letters, sounds and on her heart words. 

YEAR 1/2B:

Leonardo Mancini for working hard in maths tasks.

YEAR 1/2G:

Alyssa Carter for her effort and persistence with addition problems. 

YEAR 1/2N:

Jude Harcombe for his hard work and persistence at school.

YEAR 3/4A:

Isabella Falzon for her outstanding effort with her information report about Lions.

YEAR 3/4B:

Krystal Kardas for demonstrating bravery when Wild Action Zoo came to school.

YEAR 3/4S:

Gracie Bitaks for her great contributions to class discussions. 

YEAR 4/5L:

Kamryn Peet for wonderful enthusiasm and participation during our ACMI excursion.

YEAR 5/6C:

Jade McGill for your great excursion reflection to ACMI.

YEAR 5/6F:

Isabelle Maguiat for great enthusiasm, participation and thoughtful reflection on the ACMI excursion.

YEAR 5/6KC:

Lorenzo Jimena for his great ‘outside the box’ thinking in Maths.

---

On Wednesday, nine of our students competed at the Hobsons Bay Divisional Cross Country final at Presidents Park Werribee. All of the students did a great job in making it through to the finals. A huge credit and congratulations to all students for their hard work!
Special mention to Luca Devetak who came 4th in his race and Xavier Rietveld who came 5th in his. Both boys have made it through to the Western Region Finals. Congratulations and Good Luck. 

     

---

Click on the links below to find out more about news from around our community.  This week there is a newsletter from the Williamstown Community & Education Centre...there's lots of great information about programs there are running.
Church Bulletin

Emmanuel College News

Williamstown Community and Education Centre

---