Virtue of the Fortnight : Resilience
We have been focussing once again this fortnight with our students on developing their resilience. Resilience is however a continual effort in our school and research repeatedly tells us that it is important to work explicitly with our students on developing this quality in order for them to enjoy good mental health into their adult lives. In her new book “Ten-Ager” which outlines some of the social pressures which are facing our 10 year old girls, which in the past they would have only had to deal with at in their teenage years, Madonna King talks about the need to help our young people, and especially our young girls, develop resilience in their relationships. We will be working with our students this week on a common problem that we often see occur in middle and upper primary age girls, which King calls “Drama Cyclones” and she describes them like this:
“So it goes like this: you’re at school and somebody ticks you off. Let’s say they’ve been a bit of a jerk to you in the hallway or at the bag rack. If you then go into class and say to your friends, “XX is being a cow,” you’re actually creating a drama cyclone – you’re turning it into a thing. And that’s what you don’t want. So your choices really are to let it go and accept that that person was in a bad mood just now, or you take the person aside and talk to them about it [or tell a teacher]…what often happens however is that the girl wronged will more often than not turn her friends against the bag-rack perpetrator, and what might have been bad or annoying behaviour, or even an accident, quickly turns into a diabolical incident that draws girls into taking sides, and sniggering, and converting others to ‘their side’. It becomes a drama cyclone. “
Talking to our students, and in particular our girls, who we see this behaviour in sometimes as young as 7, and in naming behaviours like “Drama Cyclones” and other ‘queen bee’ type behaviours, helps our students be aware of their behaviour and look at more resilient ways of getting along, which is vital in a small school such as ours when there are so few students to choose from when making friends.
Goodbye to Father Robi and Miss Jessica
We were very sad last week to farewell Father Robi who has now flown back to India. Father Robi has been a much loved part of the Holy Rosary community, and worked very hard in our community and also in surrounding towns like Fitzroy, and we are very sad to see him go.
We are also sad to announce that Miss Jessica will not be returning from long service leave next term and has resigned her position at Holy Rosary. Miss Jessica has also been a much loved staff member since 2018 and a valued part of our community and will be missed by many here, as we will also miss her beautiful daughters Yolanda and Sheridan. We wish Miss Jessica and the girls all the best in their new home and schools in Perth.
Miss Andrea will be continuing with the Year 2/3 class until the end of Term 2, and we will be advertising soon to recruit a replacement teacher for the Year 2/3 class who will commence in Term 3, with face to face interviews taking place in Perth during the Easter school holidays.
Winun Ngari Early Years Playground assistance
We have been very lucky to receive assistance from Winun Ngari with starting to upgrade our Early Years outdoor play areas, and they met this week with Sue from Engawa architects who have done the concept designs for the school. The first part of our upgrade will be creating a bike path and bike storage outside the PP/1 classroom, and this will be completed during the Easter holiday break, and ready for Term 2! We can’t wait to see our Early years kids developing the muscle strength, bilateral coordination, posture stability and confidence that pedalling and bike riding is so good for in the early years. Our bike path will have different textures and even an ‘off road’ section for some extra challenges! Thank you to Sonia and Cole from Winun Ngari who are taking the time to coordinate this exciting project for our school and to the volunteers who will complete this work for us!
Holy Rosary Going Solar!!
We are very excited to announce that in a couple of weeks Holy Rosary will be solar powered, thanks to Remote Solar Solutions. Our current electricity bill is around $50 000 per year, and apart from reducing the impact on the environment of coal fired power, the solar panels will reduce our bill by around 40% per year, and will pay for themselves in less than 2 years. These savings will go directly back to resources for our students, so we are very excited about going solar this year! Big thank you to Duane, Lisa and Jack from Remote Solar who have coordinated this project for our school.
Faction Swimming Carnival :
Well done to all our students who participated in our 2021 swimming carnival yesterday, so much of our 4 Rs were on display the entire day! Congratulations to our medal winners and of course to Palotti house who managed to take the shield back from Johns for the first time since 2016! 💚💚💚 Big thank your to all our staff and parents, Winun Ngari Aboriginal Corporation, to the Derby Memorial Pool staff and of course to Mr Kayde who puts so much time and effort into coordinating our sports days which always bring so much joy to our kids and school community.
P & F Pool Party and Welcome to New Families
This Friday evening 12th March from 5pm to 7pm the P & F are holding a Pool Party & Free BBQ to welcome new families and to get together as a community. There will be inflatable toys in the pool for the kids and free hot dogs available for the evening! Please pop down to say hi and get to know our new Holy Rosary families! Thank you to Leah, Lisa, Kellie, Diana, Deedee and Chloe for your organisation of this event and commitment to building the Holy Rosary community spirit!!
