From the PPA
I hope you have your costumes ready – there are only two more weeks to go till the Trivia Night for parents! If you haven’t booked your tickets, click here to purchase them now. It promises to be a fun night!
These are a couple of the prizes that have been kindly donated so far:
Private lunch with the Principal, Dr Kate Hadwen.
One lucky Secondary School Student and ten of her friends will enjoy a private lunch with Dr Hadwen during term time. This is an exclusive experience that money (normally) cannot buy.
Private Lunch with Mrs Brown, Junior School Principal
One lucky Junior School student and three of her friends will enjoy a scrumptious lunch with Mrs Brown. You‘ll enjoy lunch in Mrs Brown’s office and learn all about what Mrs Brown does every day, leading the Junior School.
Other prizes include:
- Gucci Handbag
- Three-night stay at the Avoca Beach House
- Vintage Cold Stream Hills Reserve Vertical Series Pinot Noir set of three
We depend on your donations to make this a successful evening and raise money to fund the Vicki Waters Prize, further development of two teachers/staff and the Teachers and Staff Thank You Lunch on International Teachers Day in October.
Some examples of donations are:
- Bottles of wine/bubbles (please contact malinib.srivastava@gmail.com, these cannot be dropped off at school)
- Candles
- Vouchers e.g. spa, Bunnings, fun activities etc
- Chocolates
- Stays in a holiday homes
- Experiences
- Cash (please contact malinib.srivastava@gmail.com and we can purchase on your behalf)
There are buckets allocated at each school office for you to drop the items.
In addition to all the fun of the trivia, there will be raffles and silent auctions on the night.
AND… there will be winners for best dressed and best table decorations!
Power of Kind Words
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words shall never hurt me.”
The phrase sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me, and its variants, were originally used by children to express or encourage an attitude of indifference to taunts, insults or other verbal abuse. (World Histories)
With increased access to social media platforms at a young age our children are bombarded with a wide range of emotions and words spoken across these medias. When they start to take some of this negative behaviour and words as being the norm, they then subconsciously or consciously use these types of words without thinking in their own social circles.
However, we know when a child hears negative words directed against them over and over again, they will start to believe in the negativity and often this leads to emotional feelings being hurt. We can endeavour to help them become resilient by ignoring these negative words, but it is important to replace these negative words and images with positive words and images.
It may be providing them access to movies and books with positive role modelling and words or at times removing their access to social media for some positive down time with family and friends where there is no access to IT. Of course, this is hard to do but all we can do is keep trying 😊
Being kind with our words does take effort but the more we use positive words around our children it will eventually sink in. We are all human, and so are our teachers and our children. And words do hurt even if we choose to ignore it.
There is an old saying that goes “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.” Let’s continue to teach our children that words do matter and to be that one person who speaks kind words to others even when at times the other person doesn’t deserve them.
The Great Return
We have gone into full swing in Term 2 with the final group of Year 9 girls completing their residential program and adventure. Was it an easy feat? For some it was a breeze, for others it was challenging on so many fronts; emotionally, physically, and mentally.
Was there significant or insightful change? The short answer is yes. The girls learnt so much about themselves, how to live with other students whom they don’t usually spend time with, with many learning to follow routine and day to day instructions.
Some key take aways for us is how our daughter came back appreciative of her home and comforts, how she helped another student with her laundry, her increased ability to articulate her feelings and thoughts, verbally and in writing, memorable stories about the Riverview boys on their treks. Each student will have her own journey of revelation and change, but with all its challenges, highs, and lows, would I encourage other parents to give the Residential Program and adventure a go? I would firmly say yes.
Sunny Hres
President of the PPA