Santa Sophia Catholic College Newsletter

Welcome back to Term Two and what is set to be another fun-filled and engaging term of learning! We were very excited to welcome all of our students back to school on Monday the 25th May.

We have missed all of them very much and are exceptionally proud of all the efforts made by our teaching, student and parent community in continuing learning in a remote setting.

We would like to thank you all for the wonderful support that all of our students received. As we begin again with our inquiry face-to-face teaching, we take with us all that we have already learnt and plan for a bright term of learning and exploring. 

We have asked our students what they are looking forward to the most?

Is it break time, when they can play with their friends in the playground?

Is it Investigations, where they can ask questions and explore ideas through play?

Is it singing with their teachers?

Is it prayer circle?

We are enjoying being together as a learning community again! As we all move back to face-to-face learning, may we remember all of the new skills we have learnt. Maybe your child learnt to ride a bike? Maybe they learnt something new when using Seesaw? Maybe they enjoyed spending time with their family?

Whilst continuing our learning remotely, we were able to launch into our Investigations units for the term.

In Kindergarten, we have already started inquiring into ‘How do we share our family stories?’

The children created their own family trees at home - they look fantastic!

In Year One, the students have loved looking at all of the family items from the ‘past’ in their Investigations pod - what could all these items be?

The challenges of remote learning almost turned into small blessings, allowing us to integrate family learning with both of our history units. Lots of exciting learning happening this term.

Mr Pastoors

We’re probably all over the Covid-19 pandemic and I’m not certain whether I dare to mention it. I’m sure I am not the only one at Santa Sophia Catholic College who cannot wait to return to Mass. I am extremely grateful that I had the opportunity to do this last weekend at Mary Immaculate Parish in Quakers Hill. 

I would like to use this space to share our deepest gratitude towards Fr Warren for his work and service in establishing Santa Sophia Catholic College and ministering to this community. His input has been invaluable and we wish him well at his new parish in Tasmania 

We also thank Fr Gayan and Fr Oliver for their input in our school’s mission, their service has been invaluable.

We will continue to pray for them and their current or new respective parishes.

I am also very excited to meet our new Parish Priest at Our Lady of the Angels, Fr Carlos and look forward to introducing him to the staff and students as soon as possible.

Fr Carlos Walker is from the Institute of the Incarnate Word, which was founded in Argentina. Fr Carlos served as a parish priest for six years in the St Mary of the Cross MacKillop Parish in the upper Blue Mountains. 

This term we’ve celebrated the centenary of St Pope John Paul the 2nd’s birth, the Ascension of Jesus and we’re preparing for Pentecost, the birth of the Church.

It will be interesting to see what this new year will bring for our Parish and school and I pray that in these unprecedented times that we can all continue to put our faith, hope and love in Jesus and His Catholic Church.

New ProACTive Group:

The school counsellor (Zoe Sweeney) and the Wellbeing Leader (Anoushka Houseman) are about to commence facilitating an anxiety group called ProACTive for adolescents.

This program was developed by the Children's Hospital Westmead and based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. All students and parents will be provided with a manual to support their learning.

We will have 8 weekly sessions commencing at the beginning of July with a break during school holidays. Formal anxiety questionnaires will be conducted before and after the group for each student to assess their progress. This will be fed back to parents at the end of the program. We expect to run this program again as the need arises.

On Tuesday 26 May we held our Term 2 Parent Education Network Event. This was run via Facebook LIVE due to Covid-19. Our Wellbeing Leader Anoushka Houseman, who is also a Clinical Psychologist, presented on the topic of 'How to Manage your child's anxiety'.

She explained what anxiety is and some of the causes. She also presented on strategies parents can use to help their child along with how to tell when anxiety is becoming an issue where they need to seek more professional help. 

Parents can watch the replay on our youtube channel HERE.

You can view the accompanying slides for this presentation HERE.

As part of our membership with Parenting Ideas we are delighted to offer you this webinar for FREE using the details below:

WEDNESDAY 17th JUNE, 8PM - 9PM 

• The science behind why kids and teens have techno tantrums and find it challenging to switch off screens

• How to establish and enforce firm guidelines and boundaries

• How to be the pilot of the digital plane

• Researched based, realistic strategies to help develop healthy digital behaviours so that screen time doesn’t end in ‘scream time

To redeem your webinar click this link: 

https://www.parentingideas.com.au/parent-resources/parent-webinars/webinar-understanding-techno-tantrums

•Click ‘Add to cart’

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• Enter the voucher code TECHNO and click ‘Apply’

• Enter your school’s name to verify your eligibility. The $37 discount will then be applied.

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• Click ‘Place Order’ This offer is valid until Thursday 17 September 2020. If you’re unable to make the broadcast time, just register anyway and you will get access to the recording.