Term 1, Week 11 2023

Dear Families,

Happy Easter! What a special and joyous time the Easter Season is. It is the time that we remember that Christ has risen and has promised great things for us. All of us need a sense of hope, for ourselves and for our children. Even when things get tough, we can still hold on to the hope that things will improve and get better. I am often amazed at how happy and positive even some of the poorest people can be. It kind of indicates that money and material things don’t necessarily bring happiness and can in fact bring sadness and disappointment. I encourage you to always opt for the positive and look for the good in people.

It is an exciting time for our State with the AFL Gather Round in town for this weekend. All nine AFL games are happening in Adelaide. Sadly though, we have heard of a number of racial comments this week towards AFL Players. These comments have been online and from unknown sources. While this is unacceptable behaviour, it is what people are able to do through the various social media platforms. Of great concern to me is what it means for our children. If adults are still doing this, then it is only logical that our children will still do this too. The difference is that, one would hope, adults will have an understanding of what they are doing and what the ramifications might be. Children on the other hand don’t have the full understanding of the impact of their online comments.

Hence social media platforms like Snapchat, Tik Tok, FaceBook, YouTube, Fortnite, etc all have an Age Rating of at least 12+. Some are 13+, 15+ or even 18+. It astounds me therefore that we have children in our school using these platforms and possibly without any, or at least, minimal parental supervision. Your children are likely to be more tech savvy than their parents and will ‘hide’ things from you quite easily. It is essential, if you are allowing your children to use these apps that you have full access and know what your children are doing and writing, even in the chat rooms where they can set up various group chats. Over the past few weeks we have had some children participating in online chat rooms, making disparaging comments towards others. The problem for the school is that this happens at home and then we as the school have to deal with the fall out. Children cannot access these apps through our school network. Please think carefully before you allow your children to use any of these apps. I urge you to check out the information in the attached letter about Cyber Safety and the following links:

1. eSafety Commission
2. eSafety Commission parent webinars
3. Carly Ryan parent link

Before you grant permission to use a specific app ...  check the Carly Ryan site for information about that app and how you might make it safer for your child. At the end of the day we want your child to be safe.

Being a ‘Mercy’ school, we promote our Mercy Values of Compassion, Courage, Hospitality, Justice, Respect and Service at every opportunity. These are great values for our children and families to have and to hold on to. In terms of Cyber Safety I encourage you to talk with your children about Respect, Justice and Compassion in particular, when online, and Courage to speak out when they perceive people doing the wrong thing to others.

We wish Jasmine (Year 3) all the best for her Baptism on 22 April. We hope it is a very special day for you, your family and our community.

As per the letter sent home earlier this week, I will be taking Long Service Leave for all of Term 2. Luke Ferguson will be Acting Head of School in my absence and I congratulate him and wish him well for his appointment. I have the utmost confidence that our school is in capable and safe hands. Besides Luke we also welcome Tash Pengilly, who will join our team of Co-Educators providing curriculum support to our students and Doris John, who joins our OSHC Team. I ask that you make Luke, Tash and Doris feel welcome when you come across them.

I thank you all for the contribution you and your children have made to our school community throughout Term 1 and I look forward to seeing you all when I return in Term 3.

Happy Holidays!

Shaping our Future Together

Peter Mercer

Head of Campus

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou

LITURGICAL CALENDAR INFORMATION

EASTER SEASON

Easter celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus, the central feast of Christianity. 

Easter is not just one day. It is a whole season of 50 days of joyful celebration, which will last until Pentecost. We take even longer to celebrate Easter than we took during Lent to prepare for it. In these early days of the Easter Season, our readings will tell us how different people reacted to the wonderful news of the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of our faith. Jesus is truly risen and is with us still.

God of Easter Joy,

We remember Jesus’ suffering and death and now we celebrate the joy of the Resurrection. We pray that we might rejoice and live out the new life that Jesus offers us.

May we go forward with hearts renewed, always trusting, and believing in the love God has for each one of us.

Amen

Included in this newsletter are images and art works that that reflect our Holy Week celebrations.

ELIZABETH CATHOLIC PARISH SACRAMENTAL PROGRAM

For those families whose child(ren) are involved in the 2023 Sacramental Program, please be refer to the table below for Term 2 dates:

..... learning about the lifecycles of living things. As a class, we have looked at the different stages within the life of plants, frogs, butterflies and sunflowers. As part of our Assessment, students had to do some research about a living thing of their choice and then create a poster. Below is a picture of Harry with his amazing poster about Spiders.