Newsletter
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As always, please get in touch with me if you would like support at your first P&F meeting in 2024, or to brainstorm ideas for your P&F planning meeting. We are here to provide advice and resources to P&Fs, and new committee members. I can be contacted on 9338 9987 or via email [email protected].
The Catholic School Parents WA P&F Induction evening will take place on Wednesday, 21st February from 6pm, at St Peter's Primary School in Inglewood (103 Wood St).
The Induction evening will cover .................................... and information on how to access our P&F resources and online induction. An induction webinar will be available after the event for regional and remote schools.
The event is free but please register via this link for catering purposes ....................
Catholic Education Western Australia’s (CEWA) approach to learning is underpinned by evidence-based research, draws on the experiences and expertise of some of the world’s leading education experts and is enabled by a specialist Teaching & Learning team who support teachers to deliver the best learning outcomes for all students.
Catholic schools have a history of academic excellence and as providers of quality, Christ-centred and child-focused education, our schools and colleges enable students to gain confidence in their abilities and to achieve to their unique potential. Catholic schools are among the top performing schools in the state each year in the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) examinations.
Our schools and colleges are inclusive and supportive learning environments where diversity is celebrated, and students are encouraged to discover their abilities and explore their potential. We recognise the family as each child’s most influential educator and actively partner with parents and caregivers, encouraging open communications and supportive learning environments.
From our early childhood programs through to Year 12, Catholic schools deliver on the curriculum and support different pathways for learning, while fostering the integration of faith and values, motivating students to learn and celebrating their successes.
For more information on choosing a Catholic Education for your child, please visit CEWA's website.
Looking for a fundraising activity for the summer period? Telethon Community Cinemas works to support 6 different charities, as well as your school with their community cinema fundraiser.
Your school P&F can purchase adult tickets for $10 each and sell them within your school community for $14, and buy kids tickets (age 5-15) for $5 each and sell them for $7. These purchase prices of $14 and $7 are the same as the standard entry price to the outdoor cinemas.
Redeemed voucher tickets can be used at any of the four locations- Bassendean, Burswood, Joondalup, and Murdoch. All the proceeds are shared between Telethon and your school.
Please see the attached flyer for more information, and note that there is a minimum ticket order of 25.
For those P&Fs who have recently had their Annual Community Meetings, I hope they all went well. Congratulations to those who have been elected as P&F committee members for 2024, and thank you to those who are stepping down from their position, for your involvement and commitment.
We've had a few calls to our office recently, with P&Fs asking how they can try and recruit more parents to join the P&F, or encourage parents to take up a committee position. If these questions are also relevant at your school, please contact our office so we can provide you with some resources and brainstorm some ideas.
Since our last newsletter, we have updated our resources section of the website and have included a new tip sheet called “Why Join your P&F,” an ACM section and a handover section where you can download a check list of the type of information you may need to collate and have available for the incoming committee members for 2024.
As you will have read earlier in the newsletter, we have set a date for the Parent Induction evening, and we are wanting your feedback on topics for discussion. How have you found the first year operating under the new P&F Terms of Reference? What has been going well and what have you found challenging? It’s been great to see that parents have been using our Facebook Parent Connect group to ask questions and offer each other possible solutions to any challenges they are facing.
As always, please get in touch with me if you would like support at your last P&F meeting for the year, your first P&F meeting in 2024, or to brainstorm ideas for your P&F planning meeting. We are here to provide advice and resources to P&Fs, and new committee members. I can be contacted on 9338 9987 or via email [email protected].
With the school holidays fast approaching, you may be starting to plan activities to keep your children entertained. The following websites have some great ideas you may want to look into!
School Holiday Activities in WA
Summer time brings a lot of us to the beach or swimming pools. Not all beaches are patrolled by lifeguards in Australia. Staying safe on beaches relies on understanding beach safety protocols and not taking risks by swimming at unpatrolled beaches. Royal Life Saving Australia has lots of information on how to stay safe at the beach and swimming pools.
RLSA state most children who drown in home pools fall in by accident. Children drown quickly and silently, often without making any noise or splashing. Young children are naturally curious and attracted to water but do not yet understand the concept of danger, while parents can become complacent about safety around a familiar home environment.
In cases of child drowning in home pools, designated supervisors were often distracted by everyday tasks, such as a conversation with another person, answering the door or attending to another child, all of which give a young child time to wander away unnoticed.
Stay safe these school holidays.
Well just like that, Term 4 is underway, and the end of the year is approaching like the light at the end of the tunnel! The shift from Term 3 to 4 is almost palpable in the school year as we are all, what feels like suddenly, winding up and consolidating the learnings and events of the year.
Term 3 was, as expected, a very industrious one with so many events, carnivals, productions, exhibitions and so on. We have much to celebrate, and from everything I attended and witnessed, we have much to be hopeful and thankful for and I have no doubt that the future for so many of our children is so bright
For some of us, this end of the year is the end of an era, whether that be your last child is finishing primary school and your years as a primary parent are now finished and the excitement and anticipation of secondary school awaits, perhaps your youngest child is, like mine, completing secondary school and the years of being a school parent are coming to a rapid conclusion. For me it has been a 23-year journey, one I can hardly remember not being on! Already I reflect upon the years with fondness, of course there have been challenges along the way, but there have been so many joyous occasions, so many connections made and relationships built – some have lasted the distance and others have been a point in time – it has been all part of the wonderful journey of being a parent of young people attending school in our outstanding Catholic School system here in WA.
2023, on reflection, has been our most ‘normal’ post-pandemic year, and for some of our families, this has been their first year of full attendance at school. When the pandemic descended upon us back in 2020, little did we know that it would continue to impact us for several years to come. Of course, COVID-19 is still in the community and like many other viruses it continues to impact the health of some of our community, may we be ever mindful of those less robust than others. I am thankful that so many of our families have managed to transition smoothly back into regular schooling and life, but am aware that for some, post pandemic anxiety and school refusal has become an issue and our thoughts and prayers are offered that with supports in place, these young people will be able to attend school again this year and into the future.
The issue of transitioning from one section of schooling to another is very topical for many of our families at this time of the year. Whether it be from home to kindergarten, secondary to tertiary learning, or for so many, making the move from primary to secondary schooling, this is a BIG event. Please remember that CSPA (Catholic School Parents Australia) has developed in partnership with the federal government, a well-researched and resourced toolkit: Gearing up for Parent Engagement in Student Learning, to help teachers, schools and families with this transition process. Please take the time to access this wonderful resource.
As P&F ACMs are plentiful at this time of the year, please keep an eye out for the CSPWA Induction evening in February 2024, this is a great opportunity for P&F committees, both established and new in their roles to come together - both primary and secondary schools – to learn from each other and from the staff here at CSPWA. The information and insights gained from this evening can really make a huge difference to your understanding of your role within your school’s P&F committee. The highly competent administrative staff of CSPWA are always only a phone call or email away, please do not hesitate to contact them, they are a wonderful resource for you. They are always happy to assist and guide parents and carers of children in our catholic schools.
A final note of farewell for 2023, I sincerely thank all of the administrative staff of CSPWA – Jonelle, Jennifer, Nicole and Siobhan for their exceptionally hard work and dedication to their roles throughout the year. Much of their work is out of the public eye, but they are always working very diligently to establish and maintain good relationships throughout the community associated with Catholic Schools here in WA.
I wish all of our families, a very happy, blessed and safe Christmas, may we always be mindful of the ‘reason for the season’, and look forward to seeing what is in store for 2024.
Faithfully yours
Marina
FAMILY ENGAGEMENT IN SCHOOLS - Free Family Engagement Workshop
Together for Humanity are holding a free Family Engagement event at The Westin, Perth on Friday 10th November from 10am - 2pm - Family Engagement in Schools: Enabling and Energising.
Free for all parents and caring guardians of school-aged children plus those preparing to embark on their educational journey, the events explore the pivotal role of family engagement in elevating student success.
Topics covered include: What is family engagement? Why it's the key to academic triumph and well being, and unravelling barriers in schools.
Parents and carers of school students or anyone interested in the topic are welcome. Complimentary morning tea and lunch included. If you're interested in how you can support children to get the most of their education, be sure to secure your place.
The Catholic School Parents WA P&F Induction evening will take place on Wednesday 21st February from 6pm, at St Peter's Primary School in Inglewood (103 Wood St).
The Induction evening will cover the P&F Terms of Reference, Office Bearer role descriptions, the importance of school climate surveys, and information on how to access our P&F resources and online induction.
An induction recording will be available after the event for regional and remote schools.
If you have any topics you would like us to cover on the night, please email [email protected].
Please register via this link: https://events.humanitix.com/cspwa-parent-induction-evening.
Catholic School Parents Australia have some great Parent Engagement resources available on their website to help us parents guide our children through the transition into Primary and Secondary years.
Check out the CSPA website for further resources on mental health and wellbeing, esafety and much more.
As many of our are schools are approaching their Annual Community Meetings (ACM) this term, our office has been receiving calls from P&Fs regarding planning for the ACM, and what needs to be reported.
We have put together an ACM pack, which includes a guide on how to prepare for the ACM, a sample agenda and a suite of resources that could assist the current and incoming P&F committee with tips on handover, how to attract new committee members, and the importance of having a planning meeting to prepare for 2024.
Please see the links below to view and download the documents. You may also like to include some of our role descriptions as part of your advertising for any vacant committee positions.
Annual Community Meeting Guide.
Sample Annual Community Meeting Agenda.
How to Attract New Office Bearers.
The Role of the Chair and Deputy Chair.
The Role of the Class Representative.
The Role of the P&F Representative on the School Advisory Council.
ACMs are a good opportunity for Parent Groups to review the year that's been and congratulate themselves for the wonderful work they have done!
‘Artificial intelligence will shape our future more powerfully than any other innovation this century. Anyone who does not understand it will soon find themselves feeling left behind, waking up in a world full of technology that feels more and more like magic.’
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a term used to describe computer systems that can undertake tasks or activities that require features of human intelligence such as planning, problem solving or logical action. AI is not a new field. However, there has been significant interest and growth in the technology over the last decade due to advances in computer processing power, algorithm complexity, and data availability and storage.
Moving forward, practical steps are required to build the capacity of teachers and their students to learn about and with AI and emerging technologies, and to build their capacity to thrive in an AI world. It is an appropriate time to identify opportunities to integrate or strengthen learning about and with AI and emerging technologies within the Australian Curriculum. These opportunities exist within the Design and Technologies and Digital Technologies Learning Areas and in the General Capabilities component with its emphasis on developing student ‘Information and Communication Technology Capability’, ‘Critical and Creative Thinking’, and ‘Ethical Understanding’.
AI and emerging technologies need to be carefully ‘incubated’ in a controlled way in a diverse range of school settings, including rural and low income school communities, in order to identify practical, safety, ethical and technical issues. This ‘incubation’ must be accompanied by robust, theoretically-informed research on their pedagogical potential and impacts of the technologies on learners and learning.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- AI is a term used to describe a machine or computer program that uses features of human-like thinking to undertake a task. AI can be embodied in some robots or disembodied, that is ‘infused’ into computing applications (e.g. internet search engines, social media facial recognition tagging technology). Right now, we have narrow AI which is only able to do the single or focused task it was designed to do (e.g. facial recognition technology);
- AI in school education is still in the early stages of development. Educators need to develop foundational knowledge of learning about and with AI in order to empower students to thrive in an AI world;
- Learning about and with AI will require teachers to understand the economic and social changes that the technology will bring as well as its potential educational uses and ethical considerations; and
- There is much work to be done around the ethical, legal and governance frameworks to ensure that AI technology is used for good, and that transparent processes are in place to ensure accountability at classroom, school community and school system levels.
The above information has been taken from a report published by the Department of Education. Click here to access the full 'AI in Schools Report'.
As published in The Guardian, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that uses natural language processing to create humanlike conversational dialogue. The language model can respond to questions and compose various written content, including articles, social media posts, essays, code and emails.
Federal education minister Jason Clare said state and territory ministers have agreed on a draft framework for teachers on how the technology should be used in schools.
"It has not yet been publicly released ahead of consultation with schools and teachers, but recommends an overhaul of assessments to prevent students using such tools to 'bluff the system'," Clare said.
ChatGPT, which generates text on any subject in response to a prompt or query, has concerned many teachers given the potential for plagiarism, cheating and negative impacts on student learning.
Click here to read the full article.
What do you know about vaping?
The Lung Foundation advises the term 'vaping' is used to descibe the act of smoking e-cigarettes or 'vapes' which are battery powered devices that look like metal pens, USBs and other small boxy-shaped systems.
Vapes use cartridges with liquids, or 'juice', which usually have artifical flavourings and toxic chemicals in them. The vape liquid is heated into an aerosol, or 'vapour', and inhaled into the lungs.
Vape liquid isn't properly tested or regulated, and research shows many types contain nicotine even if they say they don't. This is really harmful to a developing brain.
The most important thing you need to know about vaping is that it isn't safe for your health, despite what you may hear from others. Vaping has made lots of people sick with the following symptons:
