ARANMORE CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL 20 Brentham Street, Leederville WA 6007 Phone: 9444 9366 Fax: 9242 2784 Email: [email protected] Website: www.aranmorecps.wa.edu.au NEWSLETTER NO 31 24 OCTOBER 2014 School Vision Statement: The Aranmore Family, enriched by its Catholic tradition and cultural diversity, nurtures in each child a love of life, a passion for learning and the skills to make a difference. PrinciPal’s report To change the world, we must be good to those who cannot repay us. Pope Francis Dear Parents, CANONICAL VISIT: St Mary's Leederville Parish is having a Canonical visit by Bishop Don Sproxton this weekend. As part of this special visit to the parish Bishop Don visited Aranmore CPS today. He celebrated the Mission Mass with us this morning. He then came to Aranmore and spoke with the Leadership Team, the staff and visited all the classrooms. He was very impressed with our wonderful school – which has changed much since his last visit. MISSION WEEK: Missionary activity is a response to our love for others and Mission Week is an opportune time for us all to reflect upon this. Today we celebrated with a whole school mass at St Mary’s Church where we reflected upon and prayed for all those in our community who are in need both in Australia and overseas. Thank you to all families for generously donating this week through a variety of fundraising activities for the Missions, helping those who are in a less fortunate. A big thank you to P&F Committee member Alf Parolo and his band of helpers who once again organised a super sausage sizzle for the children to enjoy. The money from this sausage sizzle also goes towards mission fundraising. CURRICULUM: We celebrated National Water Week this week. Thank you to Miss McCluskey for her coordination of this and to the class teachers for the activities that they integrated in their class curriculum about water week in the School and health, water supply, waste water and water conservation. Year Six Visit to Parliament House: On Wednesday, Mrs Foster and I had the pleasure of taking ten of our Year Six students to Parliament House. We were invited by the Member for Perth, Mrs Eleni Evangel. The children were taken on a tour of Parliament House (we met the Premier and other members of Parliament. We were then treated to a three course lunch in the dining room with Mrs Evangel. Following lunch we attended the chambers (in reserved seating) to listen to Question Time – where the students observed some quite heated discussion! The children were able to answer many questions about how parliament operates and key political figures in Western Australian history. They were wonderful ambassadors for Aranmore CPS and I was extremely proud of them. P&F QUIZ NIGHT: The Quiz Night is on this Saturday 25th October. The Quiz Night will raise funds for Information Technology for the school and also go towards completing air conditioning for the Kindy and Pre-Primary classrooms. Thank you to Elle Gonzalez-Skuja and her band of helpers for all the hard work in what promises to be a fun night for all. We look forward to seeing you all on Saturday Night. Angove Street Festival: The Year 5 students will be performing the musical, ’The Dragon Returns', at 10.00am on Sunday 26th October, at this year’s Angove St Festival. They will perform on the City of Vincent Community Stage which will be at the top end of Angove St near Daphne St. There is also a stage with musical events at the Fitzgerald St end of Angove St. The Festival has entertainment, art and craft stalls, food stalls and community stalls. Further information about the Festival is available on the following website: www.angovestreetfestival.com.au We wish Mrs Twine and the Year Five students the best of luck as they showcase their talent to the community. I wish you all a wonderful weekend. Ms Adriana Coniglio Assistant Principal TEACHING CHILDREN TO BE OPTIMISTIC One of the most important skills a child can learn is how to make themselves feel better and how to make their situation better. No one can protect children from upsets and challenges and research is mounting that perhaps we shouldn’t try. Instead we should concentrate on teaching children how to cope with challenges, to make themselves feel better and to act to improve their situation. The Optimistic Child by Martin Seligman 1995, Random House Australia, offers much in this area. Seligman in this book describes how optimistic thinking can immunise children against depression and build lifelong resilience. Seligman argues it is not adversity that directly affects our feelings or behaviour but rather our thoughts. The following techniques outlined by Seligman train children to be optimistic:  Thought Catching: Teaching children to listen to their thoughts and notice how their thoughts affect how they feel and behave.  Evaluating thoughts: Teaching children not to believe the first thought that pops into their head .To look for evidence to dispute negative thoughts.  Create alternative thoughts: There are many ways to think about a situation. Children can learn to think more helpful thoughts which make them feel better and act to improve their situation.  Decatrophising: Teach children to focus on the most likely outcome not the worst outcome. Help them to identify what they can do to increase the possibility of the best outcome and minimise the chances of the worst outcome. Value of the Fortnight –Tolerance Tolerance means accepting ourselves and others as they are. This means accepting that no one is perfect and accepting that everyone makes mistakes and gets things wrong from time to time, even adults, and our friends. So if someone does something or says something to upset or offend you, try taking a step back. Don’t take it personally and don’t take it to heart. Try to be a little tolerant and accept that maybe they are having a bad day or maybe they have just messed up. Ali Fisher Social WorkerI If you know that your child/children will not be attending Aranmore Catholic Primary School in 2015, please complete this form and return to the school office ASAP Child’s name: _______________________________ Class 2014 ________ Child’s name: ______________________________ Class 2014 ________ Name of destination school: Signed: EDU ______________________ or unknown at this stage _________________________________________ (parent/guardian)E CATION NE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION NEWS The ROSARY: October is the month when we celebrate Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Please try to pray a decade of the Rosary or at least one Hail Mary each day as a family during this month. Feast of All Saints – Saturday November 1: One of the most beautiful traditions of the Catholic Faith is the celebration of the lives of the Saints. Not only do these men, women and children give us inspiration by the way they lived their faith, and often died for it, they also continue to offer us help in our daily lives. Feast of All Souls – Sunday November 2: All Souls Day is when the Church commemorates and prays for the holy souls in Purgatory, undergoing purification of their sins before entering heaven. Mission Week: Sincere thanks to all of the wonderful children and their parents for supporting Mission Week. From making donations, buying Sausage Sizzles), the Money Trail and to all sorts of fund-raising activities in classrooms as well as wearing free dress and gold coin donations, well done. More details in next week’s newsletter on how much money was raised. Many thanks also to the P&F for organizing and running the Sausage Sizzle for us, especially Alf Parolo and his band of helpers Mission Week Sausage Sizzle. A BIG thank you to the mums that helped counting, which included Valissa, Anna, Naomi, Annie, Julie, Julie, Casey, Andrea and of course the little helpers that patiently watched mum fly through the task. On the day, the children enjoyed a superb sausage in a bun beautifully cooked and prepared by dad Mike on the burners and mums Belinda, Casey, Anna, Valissa, Marie, Leanne, Anne, Megan and Meg. I wasn’t there and due to commitments, you all deserve a medal, for a well organised sizzle, which raised $511 for the Missions. Alf Parolo HATS & SUNSCREEN Please ensure your child/children are bringing their hats to school each day. The children must wear their hat anytime when they are out in the sun. If there is no hat – there is no play. Even when the children are waiting in Kiss and Ride – they must wear a hat, unless sitting in the shade areas. We also encourage children to come to school with sunscreen already applied. Suncreen is available in the classrooms for re-application during the day and we would like children to be familiarised with re-applying for sun safety. Thank you for your cooperation. ATTENDANCE DOCUMENTATION If your child / children are absent from school, The Catholic Education Office of Western Australia requires that either a phone call or email is made to the school on the morning the child is absent. If a phone call is made it must be followed up with either a written note to the Teacher or an email. The email must contain the following information;     The name of the student The class / roll group of the student The reason for the absence The full name of the parent / guardian at the end of the message (the ‘from’ email address is not sufficient as it does not necessarily have the full name of the person sending it). STUDENTS LEAVING ARANMORE AT THE END OF 2014 Should your child not be returning to Aranmore in 2015, could you please notify the school in writing as soon as possible or complete the form included in this newsletter. We have some families who are currently on the waiting list and quite keen to enrol their children. The last day of Term Four for our students is Friday, the 12th of December PASTORAL CARE Please keep Mrs Gane in your prayers as she continues to recuperate from surgery during the holidays. Mrs Gane will still be on sick leave next week and hopefully be back with us the week after next. Please keep in your prayers all those in our school community who may be suffering from ongoing illnesses or who are currently unwell. Catholic Brainstorm Challenge Day at Scitech On Wednesday, 21 October the Year Six Extension group was invited to participate in the Catholic Brainstorm Challenge Day at Scitech. There were over 150 participating students from both country and metropolitan Catholic Primary Schools. The students had to work in groups of four to complete five challenges and get points for their team. The challenges the students had to complete were: – using the exhibits on the floor – where the groups had to determine whether or not paper could be folded more than 7 times – where we watched an amazing presentation on the Solar System and how space research has impacted on our lives and then answer some questions. – the students engaged in medical research. The Crow and the Pitcher Challenge – both Aranmore CPS teams excelled at this! The students are to be commended on their behaviour and conduct – they were a credit to themselves, their families and their school. Congratulations to all the students – we are very proud of you! 2015 RETURN TO SCHOOL DATE TERM ONE FOR THE STUDENTS COMMENCES ON: Monday 2nd February 2015. Ms Coniglio, Assistant Principal SUSTANABILITY Garage Sale Trail This Saturday 25th October is the annual garage Sale Trail where hundreds of garage sales happen all at once across the country. Go to www.garagesaletrail.com.au to find where they happening in your area. Remember to reduce, reuse and recycle! National Recycle Week (10 - 16 November) At Aranmore CPS we will be using recycled materials to create art works and our Nudie Foodie day will be Thursday 13th November Waste Wise Congratulations to Aranmore CPS on becoming a fully accredited Waste Wise School. We have all worked very hard to try and keep Aranmore clean and tidy. Let’s keep up the great work! Battery Bin Don’t forget that you can bring in any of your used batteries so they can be recycled instead of going into landfill. The battery bin is now located under the Environmental pin-up board outside the music room. The Music Count Us In Project is funded by the Federal Government to help promote the importance of learning music in schools. This year’s song is called ‘Paint You a Song’ and the students will sing it with the school band accompanying them on October 30th. Students all over Australia will be singing the song in their schools on the same day. If you would like to listen to the song and have a look at the information about this project the website is www.musiccountusin.org.au Roslyn Twine This week is National Water Week! This year’s theme is ‘Water Sources: There are more than you think!’ This theme aims to encourage sound water practices and investment in all the water sources to ensure we don't exhaust our current sources in potentially challenging times ahead. In order to promote National Water Week students wore blue dress on Thursday. We saw a lot of great blue outfits! Classes also participated in water education activities. Some of these activities included researching how the Water Corporation is replenishing groundwater in Western Australia and discussing ways which we can save water around the home. Nelson from 2 Red even created his own water saving sprinkler. Thank you to everyone for supporting National Water Week. ZUMBATHON - $4,406.15 was raised by the kids at this year’s Zumbathon. Thanks and very well done to Leanne Cormack and Tara Thomas for organising and facilitating the Zumbathon. The kids had a great time and what a fabulous way to help raise necessary funds for P&F. Thanks also to parents and children for returning monies promptly. CANTEEN ROSTER Monday Oct 27 Paula B Wednesday Oct 28 Valissa Friday Oct 31 Cheryl Monday Nov 3 Erika Wednesday Nov 5 Simone Friday Nov 7 HELP