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Building Community 

“It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
Address at World Youth Day, Rome, August 19th, 2000

St John Paul II was a Pope who exemplified reaching out and building connections with communities across the world. He travelled across six continents and created World Youth Day to promote a sense of belonging and connection for young people. The last few weeks John Paul College students have also been reaching out and making connections with members of our community.
Our students have assisted at Athletics carnivals for both Mother Teresa two weeks ago and Holy Spirit today. Yesterday our Year 10 students helped run science and problem solving activities for the Thinkfest Challenge for students at Holy Spirit.
We were also very privileged to host a welcome lunch in our Restaurant for our Buddhist neighbours who included two Buddhist nuns as well as the members of the Buddhist community. Our lunch was cooked by the Year 9 and 10 Food Technology students in their unit of work, Food For Everyone. The students produced amazing food and I would like to thank Mrs Vicki Williams, Annie Daley for their preparation and work with the students to produce the beautiful meal which we shared. There is more information about this event in an article below. 

 

Keys to Happiness.

Research also tells us that one of the many keys to personal happiness is reaching out and helping others. As you can see, many of the key elements to finding happiness are reflected in the activities that our students have undertaken this week. 


OUTSIDE: OUR DAILY ACTIVITIES
1. GIVING

Do things for others
Caring about others is fundamental to our happiness. Helping other people is not only good for them and a great thing to do, it also makes us happier and healthier too. Giving also creates stronger connections between people and helps to build a happier society for everyone. And it's not all about money - we can also give our time, ideas and energy. So if you want to feel good, do good!

2. RELATING

Connect with people
Relationships are the most important overall contributor to happiness. People with strong and broad social relationships are happier, healthier and live longer. Close relationships with family and friends provide love, meaning, support and increase our feelings of self worth. Broader networks bring a sense of belonging. So taking action to strengthen our relationships and create new connections is essential for happiness.

3. EXERCISING

Take care of your body
Our body and our mind are connected. Being active makes us happier as well as being good for our physical health. It instantly improves our mood and can even lift us out of a depression. We don't all need to run marathons - there are simple things we can all do to be more active each day. We can also boost our well-being by unplugging from technology, getting outside and making sure we get enough sleep!

4. AWARENESS

Live life mindfully
Ever felt there must be more to life? Well good news, there is! And it's right here in front of us. We just need to stop and take notice. Learning to be more mindful and aware can do wonders for our well-being in all areas of life - like our walk to work, the way we eat or our relationships. It helps us get in tune with our feelings and stops us dwelling on the past or worrying about the future - so we get more out of the day-to-day.

5. TRYING OUT

Keep learning new things
Learning affects our well-being in lots of positive ways. It exposes us to new ideas and helps us stay curious and engaged. It also gives us a sense of accomplishment and helps boost our self-confidence and resilience. There are many ways to learn new things - not just through formal qualifications. We can share a skill with friends, join a club, learn to sing, play a new sport and so much more.
 
INSIDE: OUR ATTITUDE TO LIFE
6. DIRECTION

Have goals to look forward to
Feeling good about the future is important for our happiness. We all need goals to motivate us and these need to be challenging enough to excite us, but also achievable. If we try to attempt the impossible this brings unnecessary stress. Choosing ambitious but realistic goals gives our lives direction and brings a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction when we achieve them. 

7. RESILIENCE

Find ways to bounce back
All of us have times of stress, loss, failure or trauma in our lives. But how we respond to these has a big impact on our well-being. We often cannot choose what happens to us, but we can choose our own attitude to what happens. In practice it's not always easy, but one of the most exciting findings from recent research is that resilience, like many other life skills, can be learned. 

8. EMOTIONS

Look for what's good
Positive emotions - like joy, gratitude, contentment, inspiration, and pride - are not just great at the time. Recent research shows that regularly experiencing them creates an 'upward spiral', helping to build our resources. So although we need to be realistic about life's ups and downs, it helps to focus on the good aspects of any situation - the glass half full rather than the glass half empty. 

9. ACCEPTANCE

Be comfortable with who you are
No-one's perfect. But so often we compare our insides to other people's outsides. Dwelling on our flaws - what we're not rather than what we've got - makes it much harder to be happy. Learning to accept ourselves, warts and all, and being kinder to ourselves when things go wrong, increases our enjoyment of life, our resilience and our well-being. It also helps us accept others as they are. 

10. MEANING

Be part of something bigger
People who have meaning and purpose in their lives are happier, feel more in control and get more out of what they do. They also experience less stress, anxiety and depression. But where do we find 'meaning and purpose'? It might be our religious faith, being a parent or doing a job that makes a difference. The answers vary for each of us but they all involve being connected to something bigger than ourselves.


Taken from http://www.actionforhappiness.org/10-keys-to-happier-living

 

I wish all our families a lovely weekend

Catherine Rey 

 

Futsal success!

Year 7/8  & 9/10 Boys Futsal

On Thursday 26 May the Year 7/8 and 9/10 school futsal teams embarked on the long journey down to Tuggeranong for the Southside Schools Futsal Competition. Both teams performed admirably across their respective age groups and showed true JPC spirit with the way they conducted themselves on and off the field. There were some incredible goals scored from the boys in both teams some of which can be seen on the latest Facebook feed.

The Year 7/8 team…
consisted of Jakov Matic , Zac O’Brien, Aiden Miliceivic, Pedro Karantis, Jacob Booker, Samuel Hewitt, Nicholas Katsoulis and Marko Rathouski. The boys won their games 13-0 (vs Wanniassa), 8 – 0 (vs Calwell), 6 – 2 (vs Trinity) and 2 -2 (vs Orana) before defeating Telopea 4-3 in the Grand Final. The boys will go on to represent JPC at the ACT school finals day in two weeks time. Thank you to the parents who came along to support the boys on the day.

Team Coach - Mr Robertson

“My favourite moment of the day was the final. We won in the end after being 3-1 down with just 5 minutes to go. It was great to have a day just playing futsal. It was a good experience to play against other schools and to see how good our school is compared to others. All of the lads have all played together for a long time so we all know each other really well. The lads are looking forward to going to the finals day and hopefully we can perform just as well again and maybe even become the best school team in the whole of the ACT.”

Jakov Matic – Year 7

 

The Year 9/10 team…
won their first two games before going down in a tight encounter by 3-2. A victory in their penultimate game was enough to keep their hopes of a place in the final alive. A last second goal in the final game meant that the team were agonizingly eliminated on goal difference. The Year 9/10 team included Anthony Despotoski, Hamed Jamedullah, Liam Smith, Malcolm Marta, Vincent Costa, Angel Ante Juric, Patrick Score, Nathaniel Taylor, Jason El-Khoury, Joel Bartlett and Domenic Torcasio.

Team Coach - Mr Stakelum

Whole School Photo

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Friday 17 June.

Visit From the Buddhist Community

On Wednesday both Food Technology classes had the honour of hosting a luncheon for the visiting Chinese Buddhist nuns and other members of the Chinese Buddhist community.  A unit of work was designed around this event called ‘Food for Everyone’ which gave the students the understanding that sometimes we need to modify food to meet specific dietary needs. The Chinese Buddhist nuns do not eat onion or garlic and are vegetarian.  The students made a delicious array of dishes which fitted the brief including:  Spring Rolls, Korma, Stir fries, Salads, Noodles, Soup, Curry Puffs  and Dumplings.  Having a real experience for the students provided a chance for the learning to make more sense because they could make connections with their learning and the outside world.

Our blossoming relationship with the nuns who live at the temple, along with those affiliated to the community, has allowed us to explore exciting new developments in student learning. Our guests were treated to a buffet lunch in our new restaurant prepared and served by students from the Year 9 & 10 Food Technology classes. This authentic restaurant experience presented our students with an opportunity to develop a wide range of fundamental life and work skills in areas such as hospitality, problem solving and communication.

After the meal our guests were taken on a tour of the College by students that study Chinese at the College. Our students did a wonderful job preparing and practicing their Chinese scripts. It was wonderful to meet our neighbours from the Buddhist temple and they were overwhelmed by the kindness and friendly demeanor of students at the College. Our guests were enthusiastic about the prospect of continuing to develop this wonderful new partnership. We hope in the coming months we can continue to explore further learning opportunities in a number of areas such a Civics and Citizenship, Sustainability, Religion, History, Technology and many more.

Congratulations to all the students involved and a special mention to Mrs Vicki Williams, Mrs Annie Daley and Mrs Jie Lei for their incredible work in turning a mere concept into tangible reality. 

Student Quotes

It was a different type of environment preparing the food under a bit more pressure, it was a lot of fun. - Thomas Mugridge          

It was the next level up from our food technology lessons. We had to be extra aware of our hygiene and our preparation skills to make the food look aesthetically pleasing - Lachlan Glover

It was a n insightful experience to get a look in to what a hospitality career might be like in terms of the the pressure and environment. - Rios Valenzuela

We learnt about their culture and being careful with what we’re actually preparing. Making sure that we don’t include any ingredients that they’re not allowed to eat such as egg, garlic, meat and onion and yet still making sure there was enough protein in the meals. Preparing the food in a tight time frame, making sure it was properly cook and still warm was tough but fun. - Asheigh Bradley & Haylee Stacey


Iain Robertson & Vicki Williams

JPC Students help out at Holy Spirit Athletics Carnival 

On Friday 27 May 35 students from across all of the year groups volunteered to support at the Holy Spirit Athletics Carnival. Despite the cold and windy conditions our students applied themselves wonderfully throughout the day assisting staff members in various capacities across a number of athletic events. Some of the roles included officiating, timing, recording, leading novelty events, measuring jumps/throws and motivating younger students. Our students returned from the event with some wonderful feedback about the experience. This was a great opportunity for students to develop their leadership skills whilst working with younger children. Congratulations to all students involved in the day.

 

 

I enjoyed the day particularly helping younger kids and showing them how to share and be kind to each other. It was fun mucking around with the really little kids.
Amy Duncan (Year 9)

I liked learning leadership skills like helping the young kids with what to do and where to go. For example, when one kid didn’t want to run I ran with him it motivated him to get across the finish line. Breeana Black (Year 9)

I like showing the kids how to use teamwork and communication. Me and Luka helped some kids sort out some issues when they were falling out. I liked having fun with the younger kids because they’re so active and they have lots of energy.

Matthew Kelleher (Year 9)

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