Our Lady of Grace Newsletter No images? Click here May God's blessings rest upon you today. May His peace be with you and His joy fill your heart. I pray that God's goodness and mercy shall follow you. May He carry you from glory to glory. TERM 1 WEEK 5 - 04 MARCH 2020 PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGEDear Parents This Friday’s Assembly will see us present Leadership position badges to our Head Boy and Head Girl as well as to our House Captains, Sport Captains and Ministry Leaders. Please join us for this significant event, congratulations to the students who have achieved these positions after being elected by their peers and school staff. All Year 6 students attended the Leadership Retreat earlier in the term and we will continue to work with these fine young people throughout the year as they lead and represent our student group. As we are in the liturgical season of Lent we are invited to take the time before Easter to reflect, pause, pray and redefine Christ in our lives. The Gospel from the First Sunday in Lent was the story of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. The ‘wilderness’ definition in the Gospels is a place of risk and loneliness with no connections to people or living things. What does our ‘wilderness’ look like today? Pope Francis identified the virtual world as a place of risk and loneliness with illusion of connectedness, a possible 21 century ‘wilderness’. He called for Lent to be a time where we distanced ourselves from some elements of social media that keep us from connecting face to face with the people in our community. It is too easy to comment, react and cause hurt to others when we cannot see a face or hear a voice. An idea for Lent could be to swap 5 minutes of social media for 5 minutes of prayer. We know there are positive elements of online connection and social media use. We, the school, are responsible for teaching our students Digital Citizenship as they encounter the virtual world through our teaching and learning programs. There needs to be strong protocols around the use of devices in our school and we have moved a long way to having all devices on a student management system, Jamf. The final devices will be enrolled next week with assistance from one of our IT partners. Parent workshops on Jamf will be available soon. Thank you for your support and patience. In enrolling the devices for Year 4 – 6 it has become very apparent the different knowledge and skillset of parents and students in providing supervised access to devices and to apps. We are all learning and open communication about areas we need to discuss is a positive way to close this gap. We have issues with some students with their own Apple ID (not those who are part of a family license), as well as students with Instagram, tiktok and other social media profiles. These are very popular apps at the moment and in order for students to have these apps they have signed up and agreed that they are 13 years of age. There is no protection for them from the perspective of Apple or Facebook platforms for any harm done if they have agreed to these conditions of use. Of course every child is only going to use these apps for fun and not intentionally for harm, what needs to be considered is that not only does your child have access to the outside world but through these apps the world has access to your child. The apps used at school are those that the IT committee deemed were applicable to our students needs. They are tools for creation and collaboration and will be used under the supervision of teachers. CEWA 365 and Seesaw (the paid version) have data protection protocols that have been negotiated with CEWA, our filters are significant, monitored and adjusted as needed. Yesterday all staff spent the day with expert colleagues developing our skillset in contemporary classrooms and deepening our understanding of the West Australian Curriculum, Information Communication Technology General Capability. A part of the day was spent finalizing the OLG ICT Use Policy and Agreement and class protocols. These documents will be written in child friendly language and sent home for you to read and sign next week. We want to partner with our parents in the management of these devices and the impact on students. Please remember the devices may be kept at school during the week or even over the weekend, they will be kept securely and available for classwork during the day. This is your choice as parents as, unless needed for a special project, the devices are not necessary for homework completion. Thank you for your continued support with our changes to the previous BYOD program and our efforts to develop good digital citizens of the future. Mrs Lloyd and Mrs Hardwicke will be holding Parent Forums on the apps we are using in the classroom after Assembly in Week 7, 8 and 9. These forums will last for around 45 minutes in The Hive, devices will be provided. RSVP to vicki.ryan@cewa.edu.au. Catholic Education WA along with independent and state government school systems have been working with the WA Government Health Department on response to and advice for schools around the Corona Virus or Covid19. These updates have been provided to staff and to parents through our website. We follow WA Health Department protocols for any infectious diseases and this includes communicating or notifying parents. The recommendation for assisting with lessening the spread of this virus is age old advice and good common sense. We need to wash our hands regularly, particularly after using the toilet or before eating, we need to sneeze into our elbows. We have purchased new soap dispensers for all toilets and students will be taken through the routine of washing hands with soap, for 20 seconds or 2 rounds of “Happy Birthday”. It would be very helpful if you were to go through this routine with your child/children at home to reinforce the wash hands after the toilet and before eating. I am looking forward to the Junior Swimming Carnival today. Thank you to the many parent volunteers and Mr Brown for his organization of the morning. We are holding a Junior and a Senior Swimming Carnival this year at two different locations. Parent feedback will be sought around this change as we move to meeting the needs of all students in a triple stream school. Thank you to the staff, students and parents who were flexible in our delayed swimming trials last Friday. Well done Mr Brown and students in getting all races completed in the time available. God Bless, Gabrielle Doyle Merit Award Winners Congratulations to those who received a merit award at last week's assembly. For those who are interested and may have forgotten to submit the library volunteer roster form – it’s not too late!!! Can you please simply email Trish Sherlock trish.sherlock@cewa.edu.au your name, best contact number and the days/times you are available and Trish will be in touch. We look forward to seeing you in The Hive. Uniform Shop PLEASE NOTE - The Uniform Shop will be open on Thursday, 9 April from 8.15-9.15am (last day of Term 1). It will not be open during the school holidays. Please find attached the 2020 canteen menu and Term 1 Roster. Ordering is available via https://quickcliq.com.au/ We acknowledge the original custodians of this land, the Nyungar people, and show our respect for their ancestors and traditions. Our Lady of Grace School |