Interschool Athletics Team

Last Friday our St Benedict’s Interschool Athletics Team was presented to the school at assembly. Our team performed brilliantly and many comments were made about their wonderful sportsmanship.

Thank you to Kandis Houston and all the St Benedict’s staff and parents who attended and supported our athletes on the day. Special thanks to Brittany Tamou for her assistance with the training in the lead up to this event.

Supervision at drop off in the morning and pick up in the afternoon reminders

Parents, carers and family members are reminded that supervision at St Benedict’s commences at 8:00am in the school hall. The Mary Mackillop Outside Hours Care are licensed to use the school hall up until 8:00am.

As communicated at the start of the school year, the students are supervised from 2:50pm until 3:20pm. Parents, carers and family members are asked to please arrange for their children to be collected by 3:20pm.

Anti-bullying week

This week St Benedict's students were taught about forms of bullying and how to speak up when this occurs. There are many forms of bullying, but I would like to revisit an article that was published in 2023 by staff of our Townsville Catholic Education Student Protection Team, It is still very relevant today and for parents and carers of primary school children, this is an aspect of modern life that is a challenge for children, young people and their parents.

The Hidden Bullying Epidemic

The significance of social media in the lives of children continues to grow as does their complete dependence on that constant online connection. As a result, there are now real concerns about the number of young people (as young as eight in most cases) that sleep with devices in their room and under their pillow. They are responding to messages at all hours of the night and early in the morning from “friends” all over the world that they are connected to. 

Group chats occupy a large chunk of the time that people spend online.  Whilst they can be an excellent way for many people to participate in an online conversation together, they can also be a place where drama, nasty behaviours, exclusion, and bullying can thrive. There are instances where young people have engaged in nasty behaviour about another person in a group chat and then deliberately invited that person into the chat to see those comments. The deliberate nature of this abuse makes it cyber bullying. Re-adding someone once they have left a chat can also be bullying or harassment in some cases. 

The most commonly used group chat apps are WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, Discord, Messenger, and Facebook Messenger, although all online games also have built in chat functions.

Schools have a duty of care to minimise the risk of bullying and other dangers to a child, but this is so challenging to do when the behaviour is occurring on a device at home, usually being used with no supervision or monitoring in children’s bedrooms.

So, what can you do to support your children and their mental health in relation to social media? 

Implementing Healthy Boundaries

Healthy boundaries surrounding technology should be implemented from a young age- including phones and devices being kept out of the bedroom. Young people need good uninterrupted sleep. They need a break from their 24/7 connection to technology and from communication in group chats which can get toxic. Phones and devices should always be kept out of the bedroom to enable this disconnect.

Young people also need to be supported to develop the skills to put boundaries around their friendships. We don’t have to be accessible all of the time just because technology allows that. Young people need to know that their friends will understand that their refusal to engage at every moment of the day and night has nothing to do with the state of their relationship, but rather the management of their time, their devices and their life priorities. 

Knowing when to leave  

Young people also need to be supported to develop the skills to know how to leave a group chat that is not helpful, or which is harmful in any way, including being taught the actual words they could use should they need to leave. Being in charge of their online interactions and knowing how to leave a conversation that makes them uncomfortable online or off is a vital life skill. 

Younger children should be taught to come up with statements that may help like “sorry guys, this is getting pretty nasty, I’m outta here”. Not only does this remove them from the chat, but it also points out to the other people in the chat that the behaviours may be getting out of hand.

Young people need to realise that they may be “guilty by association”, even if they aren’t saying the nasty stuff; they may be considered a bystander if they do not report it and speak up about what is happening in a group chat. 

If your child is getting constantly re-added to a group chat that they have left, that can be considered harassment. If your child is re-adding people that have left the group chat remind them that they need consent. They need to ask the permission of the person first “do you want to be re-added to the group chat” for example. 

Parenting in this space is very difficult at times, we understand that. But please set boundaries and rules from a very young age. Schools have a duty of care to minimise the risk of bullying and other dangers to a child, but it is challenging for them to do this when the device is at home, under your roof and often in your child’s bedroom. Let’s work together to make our young people’s online experiences as positive as they can be.  

Feast of the Assumption - Friday 15th August

Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption, a special day in our Church when we remember that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was taken into heaven, body and soul., at the end of her life. This reminds us of Mary’s deep faith and God’s promise of eternal life for all who follow Him. As a Holy Day, we gather in prayer to honour Mary and ask her to guide us closer to Jesus.

God in All of Life

Patrick Dempsey

pdempsey2@stbenedicts.catholic.edu.au

We’ve reached the half-way point of what has certainly been a busy term at St Benedict’s!

Today’s assembly was led by the Year 3 Galahs on the theme of ‘The Transfiguration of Christ’.  They spoke about how Jesus went to the top of the mountain, a place associated with the presence of God.  They spoke about how, like Jesus, we can find God in many places if we can sit quietly and listen and open our hearts and minds.  I reflected this point with our students on our schools motto, ‘God in all of Life’, and how we can see God in everything - each other, the environment and the world around us.  

Last week the 6 Taipans presented on the Feast of St Mary MacKillop - our first and only Australian saint.  Mary MacKillop showed great trust and confidence in the goodness of God, and her motto, “Never see a need without doing something about it”, is something that has inspired the creation of many catholic schools around Australia and New Zealand.     

We’ve reached the half-way point of what has certainly been a busy term at St Benedict’s!

Today’s assembly was led by the Year 3 Galahs on the theme of ‘The Transfiguration of Christ’.  They spoke about how Jesus went to the top of the mountain, a place associated with the presence of God.  They spoke about how, like Jesus, we can find God in many places if we can sit quietly and listen and open our hearts and minds.  I reflected this point with our students on our schools motto, ‘God in all of Life’, and how we can see God in everything - each other, the environment and the world around us.  

Last week the 6 Taipans presented on the Feast of St Mary MacKillop - our first and only Australian saint.  Mary MacKillop showed great trust and confidence in the goodness of God, and her motto, “Never see a need without doing something about it”, is something that has inspired the creation of many catholic schools around Australia and New Zealand.     

Pax,

Nick

Pax,

Nick

National Week of Action Against Bullying 

Bullying is defined as the ongoing and deliberate behaviours of an individual or group towards another where there is an imbalance of power between the people/groups.  This week our students have engaged with a variety of learning activities aimed at highlighting strategies to stand up to and stop bullying.  Classes have watched the Kids Helpline Largest Anti-Bullying Lesson, worked through the Bullying - No Way! messages and engaged in a whole school activity to create a chain of actions that we can use at our school to stand up to and stop bullying. We are proud of the supportive environment that is St Benedict’s Catholic SChool.  If you would like more resources to support conversations at home - another critical element in saying No Way! to bullying, - you can access the Bullying No Way website (link here) or our Addressing Student Bullying Policy on our school website (link here).

Townsville Catholic Schools Spelling Bee

Congratulations to the eight incredible students who represented St Benedict's at the Townsville Catholic Schools Spelling Bee for the very first time yesterday! It was a tough competition, and all our students performed exceptionally well.

A special thank you to Marian Catholic School for hosting such a wonderful and well-organised event. We are so proud of everyone's effort and commitment. A huge congratulations to our year 3 student, Sedona, who took home 1st place! Other students were close by with Mia in year 6 making it into the top 2, and Hudson, of Year 4, into the top 4! What a fantastic achievement for our school's debut!