Gioia House Pastoral

Welcome to the 2024 school year! It was great to meet new and existing families at our Welcome Information session and our welcome gathering last week. The Gioia House students have impressed us with how well they have settled into Gioia House, especially our new Year 5 students. 

This week we presented our first Action Girl Awards. Students are nominated to receive an Action Girl Award for displaying a positive attitude, taking responsibility and being organised each day, looking out for others and our environment.

Congratulations to the following Action Girls:

Emma Cooper
Emily Nguyen
Evangeline Notaras
Chiara Mazza
Ola Kochman
Sireen Sukkar
Lily Mikhael 
Gabriella Khalil

Gioia House Pastoral programs

Our Pastoral programs focus on student wellbeing, spiritual, social, emotional, cognitive and physical domains. Students take part in a variety of wellbeing programs and Service Learning opportunities.

Some of the Pastoral programs we offer include our Action Girl Pastoral program where we focus on building self-confidence and developing skills to deal with a variety of situations. The students have been looking into the qualities of an Action Girl, qualities such as being inclusive, respectful, honest, resilient, responsible, empathetic and compassionate.

Our Rock and Water pastoral program has been developed using Martial Arts principles where a series of exercises and games are practised to develop confidence and the ability to self-reflect. This week the Year 6 students revised the symbolism of the Rock and Water Salute and practised focusing on their breathing and holding the Golden Rooster pose to pause, focus and centre themselves.

Our Gioia House Be Active session takes place once a fortnight, where students build on their teamwork skills and connect with all the students within Gioia House. Last week we enjoyed our first Gioia House Be Active afternoon where the girls build their collaboration skills, take part in a variety of outdoor games, and continue to build relationships with all Gioia House students and teachers.

Last week the Gioia Students had a Gioia House Buddies session during Community Time to allow the students to get to know each other better. The Year 6 buddies answered the questions from the Year 5 students, and they found common interests and started to build the special bond buddies share.

Safer Internet Day

The Gioia House students took part in Safer Internet Day on Tuesday 6 February with the theme this year being Connect. Reflect. Protect. The eSafety Commissioner provided a live virtual classroom webinar to help Years 5 and 6 students identify ways to protect themselves when gaming online. Students learned about the benefits of gaming, quality gaming habits, and how to contribute to a positive gaming culture. The students took part in the live webinar and completed activities to demonstrate their understanding of ways they can be safe when playing online games. 

We hope your daughters have come home telling you about all their wonderful new experiences in Gioia House and we look forward to a wonderful year working together with you and your daughters.

Marisa Maks
Assistant Head of Gioia House