WHAT ARE WE LEARNING?

One of the parts of my role that brings me the greatest joy is visiting student’s classrooms and seeing what they are learning about during their Religion Lessons. It is truly amazing the wonderful activities students are participating in during all their learning but specifically in Religion.

I recently had the opportunity to visit 2 Black and Mrs Greaves and they have been learning about “The Story of the Catholic Community”. In this unit of work two things our year 2 students are learning to do are “demonstrate an understanding of what it means to belong to a Christian community” and “pose and respond to questions about belonging and community”. Year 2 Black discussed and brainstormed what it meant to be part of a Catholic School Community. They then completed an activity explain why they were thankful to be part of a Catholic School Community. Below are some of their responses:

SACRAMENT OF CONFIRMATION

Students from Saint Benedict's Catholic Primary School Edgeworth will join other students from the Sugarloaf Parish Community to receive their sacrament of Confirmation. The ceremony will be held at Holy Cross Church Glendale next Wednesday 13th June at 6:00pm. Everyone is welcome to attend this joyous celebration. We ask that you continue to pray for these children and their families. 

Yours in Faith,

Miss Michelle Collins

(Religious Education Co-ordinator)

Spelling Bee Finals

Last we held our St. Benedict’s Spelling Bee finals. It was a great celebration of our  super spelling strategies who showed courage and great artilcuation of their words! All the students presented a fabulous display of skills as well as great confidence, persistence and resilience. We are very proud of all class finalists.

St. Benedict’s Spelling Bee Winners

Early Stage 1- Pranavi Jeva

Stage 1- Arham Bhutta

Stage 2- Dylan Tinawin

Stage 3- Scarlett Rose

Our Stage champions will now compete in the Regional Finals which will be held at St. Joseph’s, Kilaben Bay on Friday 14th June. Well done everyone! Good luck at the Regional Maths Bee!

Native Garden Food

Mrs Johnson has been working alongside some of our students in labelling their plants in our bush tucker garden. The students used some scrap timber, painted their signs and labelled them with what food is growing in their garden.

The garden is a project that Mrs Johnson and the students have been working on since last year and it is continually growing and evolving. They now have 4 different varieties of plants they are growing: thyme, lillypilly, ginger and midyim berry.

Admin/ Finance Officer Suzi Di-Nardo Monday to Friday

Admin - Tiare Collins-Grayson Monday, Thursday Friday

Kinder 2025 Enrolments have now closed.

As per the enrolment timeline intial letters of enrolment will be sent to parent on the 14th June. Acceptance of these offers need to be accepted by the 1st July and secured with your enrolment deposit.

School Fees

This week is final part of our 3 part series  to unpack the bullying protections we have in place at our school. The purpose of this series of articles is to clearly set out the procedures regarding any alleged bullying behaviours. It is actually one of our biggest documents, so I want to unpack it over a number of weeks. ( I will also move all three weeks of articles into a Special Edition newsletter for future Reference, should it ever be needed).  

• Week 4 Newsletter - Purpose of  Documentation, Recognising and Defining Bullying, Types of Bullying. Promoting Bullying Awareness 
• Week 5 Newsletter - Investigating, Recording (tracking) and Confirming Bullying Behaviours. Including occasions when Bullying is not confirmed and why. 
• Week 6 Newsletter - Responding to bullying, Consequences and actions, Supporting Anti Bullying strategies.
  

School Repsonses to Bullying once confrimed.

• All disciplinary measures and responses are undertaken in consultation with the parents of those children receiving such measures.
• Responses to confirmed bullying behaviour are based on the Restorative Justice Principles and are outlined in a section below.
• Tracking of repeated patterns will place students on higher tiers of behavioural intervention as prescribed by the Positive Behaviours for Learning Framework. This may include a individual behaviour support plan
• It is important to note that once a behaviour pattern has been confirmed as bullying, only a general outline of disciplinary measures can be outlined to other parents. For privacy reasons, much of the specific details as to the support provided and consequences impacting on the perpetrator cannot be disclosed to any other parties.

Counselling Support for all involved. 

Counselling services provided by the school’s counsellor along with social skills programs implemented by the Learning Support Teacher  and Pastoral Care Worker will be offered to all children who are identified as harmed or harmful in a bullying incident.

Although it is more than reaonable to proivde counsellingsupport for thos impacted by bullying behaviours it may seem less so to provide the same to thesoe perpertrating thos behaviours However, it is critical to the process that the school provide supprots for the child demonatrating the bullying behavcious. Please know, that conseqeunces are still in place but if we are to find a way to stop bullying behaviours at their source, we must seek to supprot the studnet to understand why they particpated iint hose behaviours that are harmful to others. 

There’s no simple explanation for bullying

Bullying emerges from a complex interaction of social, personal and psychological circumstances. Underdeveloped  emotional skills may also lead to bullying behaviour. Children and young people who have poor self-regulation and anger management skills are more likely to engage in bullying behaviour compared to those with better-developed skills.

Children and young people who engage in bullying behaviour may feel disdain for their targets, find bullying others to be enjoyable, feel strong and in control when bullying others, and/or believe that bullying others will help make them popular. Bullying behaviour can also occur because of distrust, fear, misunderstandings and lack of knowledge or jealousy. 

Ensuring clear, consitent consequecnes and response to incidnets of bullying. 

In order to be proactive in restoring positive behaviours and in reducing the likelihood of repeated action, it is essential to have clear consequences built around the notion of restorative justice. 

Firstly, any child found to have been involved in a confirmed incidence of bullying will meet with staff regarding their role in the incident. It is important the child understand why any bullying behaviour is undesirable and every effort should be made to help the child overcome the problem.

Currently the school discipline response to an incident (injustice) is based on the premises inherent in the Restorative Justice model that includes:

1. Awareness of the impact of incident on multiple people
2. Awareness of the impact on their interpersonal relationships
3. Acknowledgement of their own feelings and motivations at the time of the incident
4. Acknowledgement that equity needs to be restored and to ‘right the wrongs’
5. Future intentions are planned for, clarified and enacted.

Children workshop these principles through the completion of stage appropriate worksheets and discussions while spending time removed from the playground (Reflection Room) or on repeated incidents if may result in the removal from normal school routines.

Ongoing Promotion and Awareness of the Schools Anti Bullying Procedures and Supports. 

Ongoing monitoring of incidences of bullying will be maintained and remain open for the full period of enrolment at St Benedict's Edgeworth.

The school's Anti Bullying porcedures are communicated to regularly to the parent comunity (hence this recent series of aritcles in the newsletter) and these are often unpacked at age appropriate levels to the students in the classroom. 

Additionally, our more proactive programs of Positive Behaviours for Learning and the Whole School Wellbeing Framework focuses on the explicit teaching, modelling and rewarding of those behaviours that promote positive communities and also building skills of ‘resilience’ in all students.

These programs are designed to promote in children the skills to deal with incidences that may involve bullying in a more proactive and assertive manner. Having said that, it must always be understood that the school is well placed to deal with those incidents that are of concern beyond those initial strategies. 

AFL Gala Day - Paul Kelly Cup 

St. Benedict’s fielded two Stage 3 teams in the AFL Paul Kelly Cup which was played last Thursday at Warners Bay.

Both our Boys and Girls teams recorded two wins and two loses from their pool games against schools from around our region. This was an outstanding effort as most of our children had never played AFL before the competition. Our teams displayed impressive teamwork, sportsmanship and skill development throughout the day. Well done to all participants for, ‘having a go’ and representing St Benedict’s with pride.

Thank you to the many parents and grandparents who supported the teams and for Mr Moore and Mr Morris for training the teams leading up to the day.

Congratulations to the following students who were recognised for their efforts in Learning, Improvement and Kindness to Others last week. 

The school assists local organsiation to promtote their child related services, events and activities. The school is not directly linked to these events but we are happy to support the greater edgeworth and Cameron Park community. 

New_SSK_Poster_1_.jpg

New_SSK_Poster_1 jpg 671.58 KB