On Thursday 18 May Gawura had 3 students attend the ASISSA Cross Country Carnival. Well done to Talaara, Winda and Leila who competed in their respective age groups. A very special congratulations to Talaara and Leila who have made it through to the next level which is the Combined Independent Schools (CIS) Cross Country event which will be held at Eastern Creek where the very best runners of the Independent Schools from around the state of NSW will compete.

I would like to thank all the parents who attended the Yarning Session With Parents – Tribal Warrior Cruise last Tuesday 23 May. It was wonderful to cruise around Sydney Harbour hearing and learning about the lifestyle, the Gadigal People enjoyed before colonisation and some of the impacts that occurred after European settlement. Walking on Clarke Island and viewing a Welcome Dance was especially moving. Morning Tea and refreshments were also provided. If you were unable to attend this event we will be holding other cultural and yarning sessions throughout the year and we would love for you to attend (and even present) if possible.

Last Friday 26 May was National Sorry Day and we took our Aboriginal Secondary students to the Indigenous Veterans Commemoration Service at Hyde Park. Aliyah and Cyrus in Yr 10 laid a wreath on behalf of St Andrew’s Cathedral and Gawura Schools to honour all our Indigenous veterans who have served their country during war time. The students were wonderful representatives of our school and paid a beautiful respect during this important service that went for over an hour and was attended by various Government, Catholic and Independent School’s from around the state.

Finally, just a reminder that our annual NAIDOC Week Assembly will take place in St Andrew’s Cathedral on Thursday 22 June at 9.30am with a morning tea following on straight afterwards. Please put this date in your calendars now and we hope to see you all then.

We wish you all a happy and safe fortnight ahead.

Mr John Ralph
Head of Gawura

Year 7 Information session and Middle School Tour

For current Junior School families
(Year 4, 5, and 6 students and families)

• Do you have any questions regarding Year 7 at St Andrew’s Cathedral School?
• Would you like to tour our Secondary School spaces?

If so, please join us for a special Year 7 Information session and Middle School Tour for current Junior School families on Monday 5 June, 4.30pm-5.45pm.

This student-led tour will include Middle School and Senior College campuses, Black Box Theatre, Design and Technology Centre, Study Centre, Middle School Library and Year 7 spaces followed by an information session where all your questions can be answered.

Bookings essential - use the form below to book your place
If you have any questions, please reach out to Mrs Claire Linnett our K-6 Enrolments Specialist clinnett@sacs.nsw.edu.au.


Monday 5 June, 4.30pm-5.45pm
Departs from Sydney Square

UNSW Wellbeing Study – would you like your child to participate?

The University of New South Wales is seeking to develop a reliable tool to assess the wellbeing and resilience of children (aged 5-12 years). This will help to understand what predicts children’s wellbeing and resilience throughout development. They are looking for 120 children and their parents to participate in the study. The School has no affiliation with the study. If you would like further information, click here.

How to talk to your child about tough topics

As parents and carers we face so many challenges when raising children in our technically advanced and rapidly changing society.  This can feel like ‘uncharted territory’ as we bring up children in a digital world that is incredibly different from the world we as parents grew up in. Whilst we can often know it is important to be talking to our children about these things it can feel tough talking to our kids about difficult topics such as sex, pornography and consent.

At St Andrew's Cathedral School we want to support you to have these important conversations with your children. Our upcoming parent seminar How to talk to your child about tough topics will equip parents and carers to understand the what, how and why to talk to their children about tough topics like sex, puberty, body safety, pornography and consent. Parents and carers will be challenged and empowered with practical strategies that can make a big difference in the lives of their children.

See What's on: upcoming events and activities, at the end of this newsletter, for details and to book.


Mrs​​​​ Bronwyn Wake
Junior School and Gawura Wellbeing Coordinator and Psychologist/Counsellor

Intensive tutoring opportunity at School with Lindamood Bell

Lindamood Bell is a high quality intensive reading tutoring programme which our School has partnered with to provide our families convenient access to, here onsite at St Andrew’s Cathedral School.

This intensive Learning Centre will be available during the school day to students who may benefit from an intensive instruction intervention next term (these are students who may be delayed in their reading skills). The Lindamood Learning Centre would operate during morning Literacy times in the school day and would be available to students by approval of the Coordinator of Specialised Learning Ms Cathy Dangar. Please be aware this is a private tuition company and parents would be billed separately for this programme. Note this is an optional intensive programme being offered.

If you feel your child would benefit from this intensive tutoring programme please email Mrs Cathy Dangar cdangar@sacs.nsw.edu.au, see the flyer here and also visit LindamoodBell.com/LCOC for further information.

Mrs Cathy Dangar
Specialised Learning/Analytics Coordinator

Grandparents’ Day Book Fair

We are so excited about our upcoming Grandparents’ Day. We love seeing our students proudly acting as tour guides for their grandparents as they show them their favourite spaces at School. The pride and the joy on their faces as they step their grandparents through their school day is precious. It is so good to have multiple generations of families honoured and celebrated in our school community!

During their tour, grandparents may find themselves being directed towards tables of books by their grandchild(ren). With the help of Bloomin’ Books, the library has prepared book stalls for both levels of Junior School in St Andrew' House (Level 6 and Level 7). A curated collection of our students’ best and favourite reads, as well as many of this year’s CBCA Notables and Shortlisted books, will be available for sale. Payment will be accepted by cash or card.

The library will have bookplates prepared for grandparents to add an inscription in the cover of the gifted book, so that their grandchild can remember (and treasure) it for years to come. While purchasing a book for their grandchild, grandparents could also choose to share the love and donate a book to the Junior School and Gawura Library.

Looking forward to this special community-building day!

Mrs Nicole Cotter
Coordinator of Digital and Information Literacy

Saturday Sport

Netball 
Year 6 played a well fought game against Meriden, in the end going down 13-14. Year 5 played St Catherine's School and finished, a close and well played game, down 8-10.

Rugby 
The U11 team won both games against Scots Prep School and St Pats. The U12 team went down in both games against Scots Prep School and Newington College. These were both really tight games and some mid-game injuries put us a little behind the opposition towards the end of each game.

We are still looking for more U11’s rugby players, if your child is interested in playing rugby 7’s this year, please contact the Junior School sport department jssport@sacs.nsw.edu.au.

ASISSA Cross Country Carnival

Due to be wet and cold, we all dressed in our Winter woolies for the ASISSA Cross Country Carnival on Thursday 18 May at Queens Park. However, after expecting the worst, it turned out to be dry and quite sunny and we all had an excellent time.

The line-up started with the youngest runners and then worked its way towards the oldest. So, the 8/9 years were up first, followed by the 10 years, then 11 years and finally 12-13 years. The 8-10 year-olds all ran 2kms whereas, the 11-13 year-olds ran 3kms. In most of the races we had six St Andrew's Cathedral School runners and we all cheered each other on. In between each race, Mr Denny gave us some great advice and some encouraging words which was just the boost and focus we needed before the starting horn.

Throughout the day, we racked up some impressive times, and nobody left anything on the track!

In the end, five brilliant people got into the CIS Carnival: Felicity Black, Talaara Simpson, Killian Apel, Joe Doenickie, and Leila Lesa (see their times and places above). All in all, it was a very successful day out on the track, and a great achievement for our School. Well done team!

– Rafferty McGonigle (Year 6)

K-2 Fun Run postponed

Due to time constraints and other events that are making for a busy end to this term, the K-2 Fun Run has been postponed until Term 3. This event will now be held on Thursday 20 July and information will go home to parents at the end of Term 2.

Squash news

During recent competitions both Kavin (Year 6) and Jamie (Year 5) have improved their national rankings! Keep up the awesome work boys!

Kavin Shukla: #24
Jamie Tan: #21

Mr Oliver Denny
Head of Sport Junior School

Congratulations!

Congratulations to the following students:

• Oliver Boncukcu (Year 4) who has recently completed Flute Grade 1 with Honours.
• Isaac Sole (Year 6) has been invited to sing with the Willoughby Symphony at the Concourse, Chatswood this weekend which is a wonderful honour. Well done Isaac!

We are incredibly proud of the hard work our students put into their musical learning.

A huge thank you to our K-2 Choir who performed at the Year 1/2 Coffee in the Hub last Thursday morning, and to our performers at the Year 5 Concert last Friday.

We recently held our K-2 Concert for soloists as well, and I thank Mr Milis and Ms Chen (as well as all of our tutors and ensemble leaders) for their support in these endeavours to give our students as many performance opportunities as possible. Thank you also to Ms Yerim Lee who accompanied the K-2 Concert recently.

There will be some more performance opportunities coming up for many of our students this term, including at Grandparents’ Day, the End of Term Awards Assembly, the Showcase concert and the NAIDOC Week Assembly. Further details for those involved in these events will follow. (NB: information for Showcase has been distributed)

Thank you to our parents for your support of our Music programme.
 

Mrs Kate Robertson
Head of Music Junior School

10 ways kids involve parents in sibling fighting

My children are 42 and 38. They are very different and have very different interests and friendship groups and yes, at their ages, there are still sibling disagreements… I wouldn’t say arguments or fights! As their mum I try to mediate but they are adults and I do need to let them sort it out. So rereading Michael Grose’s blog from Parenting Ideas some years ago, he offers these still valuable suggestions to help us when we are tempted to become involved, even when they are 42 and 38!!

“1. Beware the teller of tales because they can draw you into disputes you don’t need to be in. “Tell Tale children” tend to involve parents in fights and disputes when they don’t need to be. Tales also invite parents to take sides, which may mean a fight stops momentarily. However, it will begin again at another time as there may be lingering resentment about you taking sides.

2. Beware the blamers for it is never, ever their fault! Some children will blame other siblings for wrong-doing but will rarely see their side in a dispute. It usually takes two or three to tango so make sure you point out their place in the dispute.

3. Beware the tantrum-throwers as they divert attention away from themselves. Children who throw a ‘wobbly’ when a sibling even looks at them in the wrong way have discovered a great way to keep mum or dad busy with them.

4. Beware of children’s tears as they can make us feel pity, narrow our focus rather than look at the whole story. A child who comes to you with tears in her eyes and a tale of woe sure knows how to get their parents onside. Empathise but don’t sympathise. And remember that sometimes the child who cries the loudest is the child who caused the dispute in the first place.

5. Beware of children who say that they couldn’t help hitting, hurting or misbehaving. Children always have a choice. They just choose the easy way or a way that suits them a lot of the time. Sibling fighting doesn’t have to happen.

6. Beware of the child who is always, always the victim. Sometimes they revel in this role. Some children, particularly youngest kids, love to play the victim in fights and arguments with their siblings. “He always picks on me” is their catchcry. Don’t give these children too much attention and give them some options about how they can keep away from their siblings if things look likely to ‘cut up rough’.

7. Beware of the child who acts like the deputy sheriff, always giving orders and bossing others around. They can make life unpleasant at home. First born boys can sometimes act like a parent’s deputy and believe it is their job to keep peace on the ‘family range’. 

8. Beware the “donkey” who whines and whinges about his siblings -“Hee Haw always picks on me!” Give them some ideas about how to deal with their siblings and refuse to be drawn in by incessant whining.

9. Beware children who bring home poor attitudes and behaviours that they learned at school or pre school .You can tell sometimes what is happening in the schoolyard as children can bring home poor conflict resolution skills that they see in the schoolyard.

10. Beware of the home environment that uses power to resolve disputes and conflict. Children will often reflect the ways that the significant adults in their family resolve conflict so make sure you use the same methods to sort out issues and disagreements with your partner that you want your children to adopt.”

These are very valuable ideas for us all to read and think upon. I love this quote from Michael Grose!

“Most of us as parents are as predictable as washing machine cycles.”

He suggests that “kids fight and we react, tends to be the default mechanism in many families.”

Michael’s final advice is equally valuable.

So “let’s take a breath and work out whether we need to be involved rather than react. When you take an active approach to helping children resolve their fights, you are teaching them a valuable life skill as well as reducing the incidence of fighting over the long term.”

Mrs Joy Rohrlach
Year 5 Leader

Sydney Writer’s Festival

On Wednesday 24 May, selected students from Years 5 and 6 attended the Sydney Writer’s Festival: Primary School Days programme at Sydney Town Hall. The festival featured presentations and workshops from exceptional authors, including Cristy Burne (author of the Wednesday Weeks and Aussie STEM Stars series), Richard Pritchard and Jordan Gould (co-authors of the Wylah: The Koorie Warrior series), Maryam Master (author of Exit Through the Gift Shop and No Words) and A.F. Steadman (author of the Skandar series) in a celebration of storytelling across a range of genres. Below are some reflections from the students about each of the sessions.

Cristy Burne

“Cristy Burne was a jubilant, scientific writer who greatly entertained us with her session called ‘Explosive Storytelling’. Cristy included lots of funny remarks and stories, as well as exuberant and interesting experiments which kept us on the edge of our seats the whole time. She also shared some personal stories and experiences, showing us a fantastic side of her personality. By the end of this session, we were all filled with excitement and laughs. And who could forget the marshmallow machine at the end that made the crowd go wild?” – Devon Olsen (Year 6)

Richard Pritchard and Jordan Gould

“Richard Pritchard and his colleague Jordan Gould have dedicated two years in order to create the wonderful world of Wylah. If you haven’t heard of it, Wylah is an Aboriginal child tasked with saving her family from a colony of dragons. The authors are planning to write a six-book series. They are also hoping to release a trading card game to go along with their books. Richard and Jordan are nothing short of creative geniuses!” – Max Medina (Year 5)

Maryam Master

“Maryam Master was a powerful speaker who told us about her difficult past and early childhood. She shared her refugee story of fleeing Iran and moving to Australia after her family was threatened greatly. Maryam had been asked for decades about when she was going to put her own story into a book. After having so much success with her first book, ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’, she decided she was finally ready to put her emotional story into words and into a book, ‘No Words’. We can’t wait to read it!” – Clementine Collier (Year 6)

A.F. Steadman 

“Annabelle F. Steadman is a famous British author who has published two books about unusual unicorns that are the opposite of what fairy tales portray them to be. They can be ferocious, evil and destructive. Her series is based within a fictional island called Skandar, where young children are selected to train a unique type of unicorn that can be tamed by its destined rider. During her presentation, Annabelle asked the audience to decide the attributes of a unicorn that would compete in a Battle Royale, with no rules.” – Sol Crisp (Year 6)

ICAS Assessments

In Term 3, Junior School students across Years 2-6 will have the opportunity to participate in the International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) Programme. These assessments are designed two years above grade level and are therefore not recommended for every student. They require students to apply higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills.

Students placed in an accelerated class will be automatically enrolled in all six of the ICAS assessments. Parents wishing to withdraw their child’s enrolment must contact Mrs Rebecca Lord rlord@sacs.nsw.edu.au before Wednesday 31 May. Participation in the ICAS assessments for students in accelerated classes is strongly recommended.

Students in the mainstream cohort (including those in Year 2) who would like to enrol in the ICAS assessments must complete the following form before Wednesday 31 May: https://forms.office.com/r/XwuxkfHSjW. The schedule for the assessments is listed below.

Mrs Rebecca Lord
Gifted and Talented Coordinator, Junior School and Gawura

Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge results

At the beginning of the term, selected students from Years 2-6 participated in the Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge. This competition is an international initiative run by the CSIRO aimed to promote Computer Science among school students at all ages. The Bebras Challenge runs twice a year. It engages students’ computational thinking and problem solving skills in a fun, interactive environment.

Computational thinking is the process of formulating and solving problems by breaking them down into simple steps. It requires an interrelated set of skills including logical reasoning, algorithms, decomposition, abstraction and patterns. These skills are highly sought after in the digital careers of the future.

Each challenge has 15 questions with the highest possible score being 135 points. The level of difficulty of a question determines how it will be scored. Easy questions are worth six points, medium questions are worth nine points, and hard questions are worth 12 points. Any incorrect or unanswered questions are awarded zero points.

The Bebras achievement level breakdown is as follows:

• Participation: 0-59 points
• Merit: 60-86 points
• Credit: 87-101 points
• Distinction: 102-113 points
• High Distinction: 114-134 points
• Honour Roll: 135 points

Congratulations to the following students who achieved outstanding results.

• Honour Roll was awarded to Idelia Cao, Bill Pan and Harris Shi for full marks in the competition.
• High Distinction was awarded to Leon Kenny, Killian Apel, James Chandra, Bodhi Journeaux, Zachary Beck, Kai Fan, Abigail Mather, Oliver Boncukcu, Elliot Fok, James Zhu, Sophie Kent, Annabelle Tee, Eliana Wong, Joshua Ahn, Rafferty McGonigle, Douglas Madden, Meera Joshi, Tristan Lau, Koji Takamura, Amy Codrington, Eric Li and Finlay Mather.
• Special recognition to Year 2 students who participated in the Years 3 and 4 competition.
• Distinction was awarded to Cameron Harvey, Shaheli Peiris, Mairah Kharwa and Maya Usmar.

 
Honour Roll, High Distinction and Distinction certificates will be awarded in a rooftop assembly. Participation, Merit and Credit certificates will be handed out in class.
 

Mrs Emma Clemens
Gifted and Talented Coordinator, Junior School and Gawura

For Our Elders – introduce your Elder!

As part of our Gawura and Junior School NAIDOC Week celebrations, we’d like to pay homage to the Elders within our Community.

To participate within this, we request that each family sends a photo and brief blurb (a sentence or two) of an Elder within your community to gawura@sacs.nsw.edu.au. This will be displayed during the NAIDOC Morning Tea, held after our NAIDOC Week Assembly, Thursday 22 June. This is for families within Junior School, as well as Gawura. 

• An example: Aunty Mindy and Uncle Wayne are Yuwaalaraay Elders from Goodooga. Uncle Wayne owns a local trucking business servicing roads between rural communities and Aunty Mindy has worked at Goodooga Central School as a Teacher and Yuwaalaraay Language resource teacher for more than 35 years. Aunty Mindy and Uncle Wayne are Mrs Williams’ Mum and Dad and are the proud grandparents to Bokhara, Djani, Djillirra and Sonny – all students at St Andrew's Cathedral School and Gawura.

Please email your entries by Thursday 15 June.

Thank you,

Marita Cranwell
Donor Relations Manager

Sign up for the Gawura/NAIDOC working bee

Gawura is celebrating NAIDOC Week, commencing Monday 19 June. The highlight of the week is Gawura leading the Junior School Assembly, Thursday 22 June. This year’s NAIDOC theme is “For Our Elders” and Gawura has some truly wonderful plans on how to do that.

Are you able to support this celebration by volunteering to make sets, create props or sew? A working bee will take place on Saturday 3 June. If you are available, please sign up here.

June/ July School holidays

For information on all upcoming School holiday activities available at St Andrew's Cathedral School, click here.

Tea in the Hub – Chinese Community Parents

All Chinese community parents are warmly invited to join us for Tea in the Hub to meet other parents, key Junior School staff and Dr Julie McGonigle.

华人社区家长，所有年龄段  
2023年6月15日星期四，上午8点至9点
学校四楼 The Hub  
我们诚挚邀请所有 华人社区的 家长前来圣安德鲁大教堂学校参加茶话会，与其他家长、主要小学部教职员工和家长教师委员会成员相聚。
与其他家长、主要小学部工作人员和校长 Julie McGonigle 博士会面。
请在6月12日星期一之前回复是否参加。
华人社区家长，所有年龄段  

Tea in the Hub – Chinese Community Parents – all Year groups
Thursday 15 June 2023, 8am to 9am
The Hub

Please RSVP by Monday 12 June

Term 2 P&F General Meeting

All parents and carers are welcome to join the P&F Executive, a senior member of staff and other parents at a P&F General Meeting to discuss current school activities, school focuses, upcoming school events and future plans.

P&F meetings are a great way to get to know what is happening at your child’s school and to meet school staff and other parents in an informal setting. If you have any questions that you would like discussed on the night please send them ahead of the meeting to P&F@sacs.nsw.edu.au.

Tuesday 6 June, 6pm
Community Hub, Level 4, St Andrew's House

No RSVP necessary.

Join us for a special assembly and morning tea

We are excited to invite grandparents of our Junior School and Gawura families to join us Friday 9 June for a special assembly in the Cathedral as we celebrate your role as a grandparent and your importance in our greater school community. This will be followed by morning tea and an opportunity to visit your grandchild(ren) in the Junior School and Gawura.

This event is for grandparents or a special relative, godparent or auntie/uncle only. Unfortunately this is not a parent event.

The programme for the day will be:

• 9:15am-10:15am: Cathedral Service (doors open at 9am)
• 10:15am-11:00am: Morning tea in either Chapter House or the Heath Centre (hosted by the Association of Parents & Friends)
• 11:10am-11:30am: Move to Junior School/Gawura to join your grandchild(ren)
• 11:15am: Book Fairs commence
• 12pm: Event concludes

Friday 9 June, 9.15am
St Andrew's Cathedral

Please RSVP by Friday 2 June to reserve your place at this special morning. Grandparents are welcome to take their grandchild(ren) out to lunch. Returning children must be back by 2:45pm OR students can be signed out and taken home for an early departure on this day.

Volunteers needed for Grandparents' Day

Grandparents' Day is very special and we love to offer our visitors a beautiful morning tea courtesy of the P&F. 

Do you have a spare few hours to help?
We need volunteers to help set up the morning tea, serve our visitors and help to clear up afterwards. If you can help please sign up using this link.

Parents and carers online seminar

This programme aims to equip parents and carers to understand the what, how and why when it comes to talking to their children on tough topics like sex, puberty, body safety, pornography and consent. Parents and carers will be challenged and empowered so that they can make a big difference in the lives of their children.

This programme is for parents and carers only and will take place via Zoom. The link will be sent to you on the day of the programme. Please do not contact the school for this link. This is not a paid event.

Rowena Thomas teaches programmes in schools all around Australia on topics surrounding sexual health to thousands of parents, teachers, and preteens every year. Rowena understands the many complexities and challenges that come at the different stages in a child’s life when talking about tough topics like sex. She is convinced that every person - no matter who they are, where they come from, or what they believe, can have positive, ongoing family conversations around these difficult topics and her goal is to help make this happen!

Tuesday 13 June, 7pm-8pm
ONLINE (the link will be sent to you on the day)

Tickets on sale now!

Be uplifted by the infectious power of music!

Experience the power of music at the grand Sydney Town Hall on Thursday 15 June!

Be a part of our spectacular annual Showcase featuring outstanding Year 7-12 music ensembles, the captivating Junior choir, the vibrant Year 7 cohort, and our virtuosic Year 12 soloists. Get ready to immerse yourself in a joy-filled evening as we present "Choose Joy", an unforgettable concert that explores the profound ability of music to mirror, embody, nurture, and unleash pure joy.

Join us in celebrating the incredible talent of our students and be uplifted by the infectious power of music!

Thursday 15 June, 7pm
Sydney Town Hall

You are invited to celebrate NAIDOC 2023 with Gawura!

This year’s NAIDOC theme is For Our Elders. Please join us as the students from Gawura acknowledge the Elders in their lives, while showcasing their heritage, culture and knowledge. The assembly will include singing and a special dance and be followed by morning tea.

Thursday 22 June, 9.30am
St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney Square