Dear Parents and Carers

Keep the date FREE - Monday 29 July

Susan McLean – Cyber Safety Expert will be visiting St Clare's on Monday 29 July. 

Susan will be running workshops with the Year 3 – 6 students at school and will also have a Parent Session on this night at 7pm. 

This term our Year 4 students are completing a Religious Education Inquiry called “We gather together”. They are looking at how they gather - with families, with friends, at school, in the community. They will then explore meals as a way of gathering and ways other people gather for meals - Passover (Jewish tradition), Eid (Islam Tradition) and then Eucharist (Catholic Tradition).

From here, they will break open the Catholic Mass and look at all the parts of the mass with a major focus on the Eucharist. They will also discuss and explore why people might go to Mass. Students will use Scripture such as The Last Supper to understand the Mass further.

All of this is to prepare those students who are receiving the Sacrament of First Holy Communion or First Eucharist.

St Clare’s Feast Day 2024

On Monday 12 August, all students will participate in St Clare’s Feast Day activities. They will wear their Sport Uniform on this day.

If the weather is good we will gather at 9am on the Green for a short prayer service. If the weather is poor, parents/carers are welcome to join the students for prayer in the Learning group space.

Following the Prayer service students will be completing a cross-age activity between 9.30am & 10.30am.

From 11.30am we have Kaboom visiting us and they are running Olympic style novelty events - we will be having an Opening ceremony just like the real Olympics. Students will be in multi-age groups and will travel from activity to activity. This will conclude at 1.15pm.

Parents and Carers are welcome to join us for the Kaboom activities from 11.30am until 1.15pm.

Students will be in their own Learning Groups for the afternoon after lunch.

The students in Foundation to Year 2 were very excited this week to be introduced to many new books that we have recently purchased for ‘Take Home Reading’.
These books are part of our Little Learners Love Literacy Program (LLLL). ‘Little Learners Love Literacy’ focuses on synthetic phonics and supports all children to be successful readers and writers.

This term, these new books will become available for students to borrow for reading at home. We do ask that books be taken home from school in a Book Bag and that they are returned to school once read. We highly encourage these books to be shared at home with you as part of your child’s nightly reading practice. Reading at home is vital for the development of children’s literacy skills. By making reading part of your daily routine, you can help your child to build a strong foundation for academic success and a lifelong love of literacy.

If you are interested in learning more about ‘Little Learners Love Literacy’ and how to support your child’s reading development, please see the flyer attached. We will be running workshops here at school over the next few weeks. We would love to see you!

We would like to invite you to a Parent Workshop where we will explain the reading process and how to support your child in their reading development.

In this workshop we will outline the strategies we use at school to teach early readers and provide strategies that you can use at home to engage your child in reading.

These workshops will run for approximately one hour and will take place at school either in a morning or afternoon session. One session will be available during Parent Teacher Interview Night (Tuesday 23 July).

Anyone is welcome to attend but it is most suitable for families of Foundation to Year 2 students.

Please see the flyer outlining dates. Please RSVP through the following Google Form.

We look forward to seeing you at one of these sessions and answering questions that you may have about supporting your child with their literacy development.

This workshop will be run by Claudia Ferreira and Carol Browne

A SPECIAL REPORT: Celebrating NAIDOC Week

Whilst Naidoc week occurred during the school holidays, we thought we would share with you the special report via School TV.

NAIDOC week celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is celebrated by all Australians and is a great opportunity to recognise and learn more about the history and culture of indigenous communities.

NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee. Its origins can be traced back to the Aboriginal rights movement, when on Australia Day 1938, protestors marched through the streets of Sydney to highlight the status and treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Today, it is a week-long celebration held in July that consists of a range of traditional and contemporary activities.

NAIDOC Week is an important event that helps build positive relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. It enables a deeper understanding of our differences and similarities. NAIDOC week is an opportunity for all Australians to eliminate bias and discrimination by reflecting and reconciling the wrongs of the past to facilitate hope and build a fairer future. Families are encouraged to join in and support young people in learning the significance of NAIDOC Week.

This Special Report offers suggestions on how families can celebrate NAIDOC Week together.

We hope you take time to reflect on the information offered in this Special Report, and as always, we welcome your feedback.

If you do have any concerns about the wellbeing of your child, please seek medical or professional help.

Here is the link to your special report:

https://stclaresofficer.catholic.schooltv.me/wellbeing_news/special-report-celebrating-naidoc-week

The Secondhand Uniform Shop will be open on the following dates for Term 3  

Please remember sales are CASH ONLY

July
Friday 19th 8:30-9:15am
Thursday 25th 2:30-3:10pm
Wednesday 31st 8:30-9:15am

August
Monday 5th 2:30-3:10pm
Tuesday 13th 8:30-9:15am
Monday 19th 8:30-9:15am
Friday 30th 8:30-9:15am

September
Tuesday 3rd 2:30-3:10pm
Friday 6th 8:30-9:15am
Tuesday 10th 8:30-9:15am
Thursday 12th 2:30-3:10pm
Monday 16th 8:30-9:15am

Living & Learning in Pakenham have secured funding for 5 free workshops for multicultural and disadvantaged women in our community.

The workshops include –

1. Financial Safety,
2. Women’s Health,
3. Women’s Leadership & Citizenship,
4. Children’s online safety,
5. Art & Creativity

Each workshop will be guided by an experienced facilitator and places are limited.

The information for the free financial safety forum for multicultural women -

Date: Thursday, 25^th July 2024

Time: 10am – 12.30pm

Venue: Living & Learning Centre

6B Henry Street, Pakenham.

Topics to include –

• What is a financial counsellor?
• Financial stress
• Financial contracts & your rights
• Financial lenders - are they all the same?
• Can’t pay? What can happen?
• Infringements and fines 
• Beware of scams
• What is financial abuse?
• Where to get help

Presenter - Tracey Blythe – Financial Counsellor

Bio – Tracey is a financial counsellor at Rosebud and has taught financial counselling at RMIT.

Tracey recently worked at Financial Counselling Vic as the coordinator of disaster recovery working with financial Counsellors across Victoria in areas impacted by floods bushfires & storms. Tracey had also managed a health service and worked in local government health & safety.

Children are welcome.

Registration is essential.

Contact Living & Learning on 5941 2389

How to Help Kids Stay Safe Online

Adapted from:  https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/blog    Office of the eSafety Commissioner

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.