Congratulations to our 4/5/6 students this week for kicking off their ‘Litter free Lunch box’ Campaign with a flying start. It has been wonderful to see such community support behind their initiative and I believe this will become something we all can be very proud of. I’m not sure how it may already be affecting your practices at home but I know for me in my own place, it has required some different thinking around purchases and organisation which has not been difficult. It is funny how we can get caught up in practices designed to simplify our lives but create so many more issues especially in terms of our health and our environment.

A number of our senior class students are also to be commended for their participation in Mulkadee this week. Approximately 1000 students from Catholic Schools across our Townsville Diocese, (including Halifax to Mt Isa to Proserpine) have joined together for intensive workshops in Choir, Band, Guitar, Drama and Dance to create a showcase performance on Friday evening. I thoroughly enjoy this each year but am particularly looking forward to this one as it is slightly different being an actual show instead of just a series of performances around a theme. I would also like to thank Mr Christie for his organisation for this event and for his contribution to supporting Drama students at Mulkadee; I know he is very well respected for his talents.

Next week, we celebrate Catholic Education Week with a number of activities but mostly importantly with our Feast Day on Monday 30 July. We will have Mass at 9.15am and we’d love to see as many families participate as possible as it is our inaugural year and it is an opportunity to understand more about our Patron Saint- St Benedict. We will conclude the day with St Benny’s Got Talent at 2.00pm. We look forward to seeing families come along.

On a final note, I wanted to share an article from Morris Gleitzman (one of my favourite children’s authors) with you sent to me by Mrs Whalley, our Librarian. It highlights some interesting points on how important reading is in our society especially for young people and not using the usual arguments.The link below is the article, flick down to the heading ‘Transformative Power of Stories’ - if you have the time!  So interesting to think how reading can play a part on children's future mental health.

The crux of the article is that in modern day media we see only fragments and usually negative pieces of information.  We rarely see the end result good or bad - not a great thing for kids needing resilience. With good stories we travel with the character, hit the problem and then grapple, fail, endure, think about how to get through whatever it is -  thus teaching the kids ways of dealing with 'life' in general. I thought it was a good point that many of us have not really thought about but it makes a lot of sense.

https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-105/stories-make-us-in-conversation-with-morris-gleitzman/

Interestingly, I also came across this image in the same week and it reminded me of what important role models we are and that we should model what you believe. I know I certainly don’t read as much as I used to or as much as I want to but will endeavour to make that a personal goal this year.

I hope you all have a fabulous week.    

Cheers

Penny