Term 4 can sometimes feel like the ultimate countdown – how many days until my last exam? How many more assessment tasks until I can check out what’s new on Netflix? How much more marking do I have to do? How many sleeps until holidays??! But it is important to remember that Term 4 accounts for a quarter of our learning time in the school year, and so the urge to race to the finish line and not savour the opportunities for growth that the journey presents is a trap to be wary of.

A very special component of Term 4 at JPC is the opportunity for our students in Years 9 and 11 to take part in processes of discernment, nomination, and election to our student leadership teams. This year marks a very significant stage in the development of the College, as we look to elect our inaugural Year 12 leaders for 2018.  Student voice is a crucial component of student-centered learning. The Australian Research Alliance Centre highlights the need for student participation in all levels of society in its 2014 report, The Nest action agenda: Improving the wellbeing of Australia’s children and youth while growing our GDP by over 7%. The report notes, “Participation (in society) is a fundamental right in itself and evidence suggests young people’s participation may also have a range of important benefits for the individual, for organisations and for the broader community. Benefits for the individual young person include increased confidence and self-esteem, an increased capacity to protect themselves and challenge violence and abuse, and learning the skills of responsible and active citizenship. Benefits for the community include enhanced processes and institutions of governance.” 1

Over the past two years at JPC, we have developed an empowering model of student leadership at the Year 10 level, electing a team consisting of two students per House to take on a broad range of responsibilities within the community. This year, the model is expanding to create an additional tier for Year 12 students. Over the past four weeks, twenty-three Year 11 students have participated in our Leadership Preparation Program, devised to assist these students in discerning their own values and skills, and applying these to considerations of a range of issues and scenarios that they may encounter in a leadership capacity. The Year 12 Leadership Team will be elected from this pool of nominees, with Year 11, Year 10 students (who are returning to JPC in 2018) and staff eligible to vote next week. Based on the results of this election, the eight students who gain the highest number of votes will be invited to interview with Mrs. Rey and a panel of community representatives. The panel will then determine the specific role that each student will be offered on the Leadership Team. These roles consist of diverse portfolio positions that we believe will enable our student leaders the flexibility to be actively engaged in a wide range of community experiences, whilst also perusing areas of student interest and importance. The team will consist of:

The election of our first Year 12 leaders marks a significant milestone in the continued growth of the College. It has been a privilege to work with Mrs. Jennifer Tually and our nominees throughout this process, and I have every confidence that from this pool of exceptional candidates, an outstanding Year 12 Leadership Team will emerge to set the standard for successive year groups to follow. Elections for Year 11 will be held next week, and results will be announced to the College community on Tuesday, 28 November.

Many of our Year 9 students are eagerly awaiting their chance to commence the process of nomination for House Leadership positions. The discernment session for Year 9 will be held on November 21 and more details will be available to students in the coming week.

Our patron, St. John Paul II, reminds us that, “The future starts today – not tomorrow!” In the busy weeks of term still to come, it is my hope that all members of our community, from aspiring leaders to our youngest students, parents and staff alike, will take our eyes off the countdowns long enough to savour today and all the promise it holds!

Have a safe and happy weekend.

Mrs. Nicola Edghill
Leader of Learning and Wellbeing – Maathai House, Religious Education

1. Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth. (2014). The Nest action agenda: Improving the wellbeing of Australia’s children and youth while growing our GDP by over 7%. [online] Available here​. [Accessed 30 Oct. 2017].

3 classes of year 9/10 food technology students combined on Wednesday 1st November to produce a lovely buffet lunch in our JPC restaurant for local Gunghalin police and other community members with ‘stressful’ occupations. The lunch was a culmination of the student’s assessment; to identify, design and produce dishes containing ingredients that help alleviate stress. The day was a big success and we were lucky to have many JPC teachers as well as Ross Fox, CE director and Mrs Rey amongst our guests enjoying their delicious, healthy food. Hopefully they all left feeling more relaxed!

On Thursday, a group of 40 students from years 7 – 11 went to Canberra Theatre Centre for an ab-worthy workout delivered by the touring performance of “The Popular Mechanicals”.

Shakespeare’s greatest clowns — the rude mechanicals from A Midsummer Night’s Dream— took centre-stage to show us just how zany these characters really could be, both on and off stage. The play featured multiple plays within the play and kept the audience interested with a wide range of comedic styles from clowning to slapstick, stand-up comedy to fart jokes and bad puppetry with hundreds of rubber chickens. Yes, hundreds!

Luckily for us, we had a Q and A session with the actors following the performance. Our students asked insightful questions about life in the industry, the difficulties of touring and how they established such belief of performance during some intimate and hilarious moments in the play.

The performance was not what our students were expecting but exceeded their expectations and they enjoyed the whole experience. Our students found it hard to pick an absolute favourite moment but with the mix of Shakespearean language, music and song, and surprising character moments – our theatre outing was a complete success! This group of students proudly represented our College and relished in the experience. 

Miss Sarah Keane

Parents: How can you support the development of a Growth Mindset in your child? (Session 3 of 6)

This week’s Family Challenge: The power of your reaction to mistakes - embrace failure!

Activity 1: Reflect on your failure mindset

Children learn how to behave by imitating others. That means one of the most powerful ways you can help your child develop a Growth Mindset is to model it with your own actions. New research shows that one powerful way that parents model mindset in front of their children is through their reaction to failure.

Take a moment to think about how much you agree with these statements.

       •  “The effects of failure are negative and should be avoided." AGREE or DISAGREE?
       • "Experiencing failure enhances performance and productivity." AGREE or DISAGREE?
       • "Experiencing failure facilitates learning and growth." AGREE or DISAGREE?

Activity 2: Model making mistakes
Modelling a Growth Mindset means being willing to try hard even when failure is likely because that's how growth happens. For example, parents should try to get excited when their children make mistakes because these mistakes can reveal important conceptual gaps that should be filled. When adults get excited about the learning that mistakes can facilitate, children start to think of mistakes as a natural part of the learning process.

This leads to a few important changes in learning behaviour where children:

       • stop avoiding challenging work just because it could mean making more mistakes.
       • become less likely to try to "sweep mistakes under the rug" because they stop thinking of them as something to be ashamed of.

Action Ideas!
Make mistakes in front of your kids, have a positive reaction to those mistakes, and openly reflect on what could be learned from the mistake. Try to show that it's all about learning, not about being right.

At the dinner table, share a time that you struggled with something and how hard it is and how you overcame it. Then ask your kids if there's anything they struggled with, how they overcome it, and what they learned from the experience.

Get excited when your child makes a mistake and help her think through what could be learned from it. Even mistakes that seem careless can be good learning opportunities. For example, if your child forgot to study enough for an important test, it might be an opportunity to learn about planning, prioritisation, goal setting and to-do-lists.

Jen Tually and Patrick Wood

Adapted from https://www.mindsetkit.org/growth-mindset-parents/how-parents-can-instill-growth-mindset/model-making-mistakes

If you are contacted during the day by your son or daughter, please ask them to report to student office.  We would appreciate your support with this as it is a duty of care issue for our staff.

Thank you.

Every year, more and more emphasis is placed on achieving good results in exams causing many students to feel extraordinary pressure and having unrealistic expectations. This month on SchoolTV, parents will find advice on how to help students cope with the pressure and how students can work smarter to achieve the results they desire.

Exams are like a game. Once you know how to play the game, your chances of achieving great results rapidly increase. Parents can learn how to assist their kids to maintain perspective and keep their sanity intact during exam time.

Diet, exercise and sleep all play an important part in helping a student balance a busy schedule and study smarter. Keeping stress levels to a minimum and reducing anxiety can be easily achieved through careful planning and having a supportive environment.

We hope you take time to reflect on the information offered in this month’s edition and we always welcome your feedback.

If you have any concerns about your child, please contact the school counsellor for further information.