As another successful school year draws to a close and everyone busily prepares for Christmas whilst looking forward to the new year, we hope you will find a few moments to browse through our final newseltter.

We congratulate all school communities who received PIE Grants for their initiatives in 2018, including the St Joseph's Education Centre which features here, and announce the successful applicants for 2019. We love learning of the exciting things you do, so please keep sending us photos and feedback on how these grants make a difference.

With Year 12 students now anxiously waiting for their final results, we offer some advice on how parents and carers can provide support if the results cause disappointment, and also how students heading into Year 12 can begin to prepare while still maximising their holiday downtime.

As well, there is a round up of our recent representation work on behalf of Catholic school parents in South Australia, some information on vocational education and training, and a simple prayer that invites reflection on the year that is almost gone and the year ahead. 

We wish you all the peace and joy of Christmas, and optimism and strength every day. Enjoy your family festivities and be safe.

Kind Regards,

Kylie Ind (President)

God of wisdom, we thank you for all the gifts you have given us throughout this school year. We praise you for giving us life, for saving us in Christ, and for choosing us to be your people.

As we come to the end of this school year, we voice our gratitude for the good things you have done in us and we praise you for all who have shared in the development of our children and the work of our school communities.

We ask you to bless them in your love and give them refreshment and peace. We praise you, God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns forever and ever.

Amen

Every year we delight in the applications we receive for PIE grants and it’s often a tough call as to who will be funded and for how much. There are usually a couple of stand-out initiatives where the selection panel thinks ‘YES! This school community wants to do something quite special to support parent engagement in children’s learning’. That was the case with the St Joseph’s Education Centre’s 2018 proposal which focused on connecting young mums’ classroom learning with their children’s learning in the crèche and community.

The proposal didn’t fit perfectly with the grant guidelines, but we were able to negotiate a way forward. So, while we couldn’t fund a camera, we funded the other requirements and were also able to increase the allocation for parent-child community excursions. 

"I would like to thank you once again for your support of our application and thought you might enjoy seeing the girls on their excursion. If you look carefully you can see that the letters spell out ‘Thankyou’. We took the girls and their children to the Big Rocking Horse and also the Gorge Wildlife Park for the day. It was a really lovely day and we had nearly 100% engagement. Once again, thanks so much … I believe your support has really made a difference in these girls lives and in particular in the lives of their children."

Successful PIE grant applicants for 2019

The Federation is pleased to advise the following school communities have been awarded grants for their parent engagement initiatives next year:

World Teachers’ Day Awards

Education SA’s World Teachers’ Day awards ceremony at the convention centre in late October saw 250 guests from public, Catholic and Independent schools and other organisations gather to celebrate the achievements of outstanding educators in a range of learning contexts and career stages. Caz Bosch stood in for President Kylie Ind and enjoyed the opportunity to network, including with President Janice Zerner of the South Australian Association of School Parent Communities which represents parents in public schools.

Good Practice Guide - Supporting Healthy Eating and Drinking at School

With evidence showing most Australian children are having too many unhealthy foods and drinks, and 25% of those aged 5 - 17 years are overweight or obese, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) started a childhood obesity prevention project in 2016. This will include publication of a good practice guide to support healthy eating and drinking at school, and a resource hub to support school communities to take new action. 

Mary Han Avina represented the Federation at the South Australian consultation on the draft guide. She communicated that culture-based foods and food practices, language barriers and socio-economic circumstances impact families' understanding and acceptance of the need for change, the pathways to change, and the effectiveness of strategies and messaging.

The Federation considers that family engagement and home-school partnership must be more clearly articulated as enablers in the change model that underpins the guide.

Bullying Conference and Consultation

Shefia Nemer-Khoury and Caz Bosch represented the Federation at the SA government’s Keeping Children Safe from Bullying conference and the invitation-only policy consultation that followed. Some of the points made by international and Australian experts that sparked their interest are:

• Young people’s use of visual social media is growing fast. Many say they know the risks of sharing nude or sexually suggestive photos of themselves and others but share them anyway.
• Both girls and boys can be quite off-hand about sexual harassment. They dismiss incidents as 'just a joke' or not meaning anything, even when they feel upset. This is concerning because sexual harassment amongst adolescents is directly related to bullying.
• Children don’t just suddenly become bullies. Bullying behaviours develop over time in the context of what’s happening at home (e.g. conflict in family relationships, sibling aggression, insensitive parenting, exposure to violence) and in peer social environments.
• Not all bullies fit the ‘thug’ stereotype. Young people who are popular and have very good social skills bully too.
• All bullying is aggressive but not all aggression is bullying. When young people say they’ve been bullied, it often means they’ve been hurt. When the definition of bullying is explained to them, they quite often see that bullying doesn’t fit their experience.
• Children, teachers, families and community leaders need to share understanding of what bullying is. It is characterised by three things: an unequal coercive power relationship, repetition and intent to harm.
• Young people are tired of everyone talking about bullying – they want strategies that will help them AND they want to talk about other things.

Waiting for the publication of Year 12 exam results and ATAR scores can be just as stressful, if not more so, than the exam period. Everyone in a family is affected by the slow passing of time, the undercurrents of anxiety, and the sense of helplessness that comes from being unable to do or change anything. When the results arrive, there is usually a mixture of joy, sadness and sometimes envy as peers and families learn who got what and what this is likely to mean.

You hear the alert of the text message. Your heart races as you realise that the number in the message could change the direction of your life. With sweaty hands, you swipe into the message, your eyes blurring momentarily, as the number hits your vision. It dawns on you: Too low, too low … what now? Anticipation is replaced by the cold hand of dread, disappointment, even fear (The Conversation, 2015).

When the results are not as hoped for, we can can encourage 'solution finding' by offering empathy, reassurance and optimism. As parents and carers, we can:

• Encourage our children to talk about their feelings and thoughts, and provide reassurance without downplaying the situation as they see it. For example, there’s no value in us saying ‘never mind’ or ‘don’t worry’ because they do mind and they are worried.

We can reassure them that not getting the required ATAR score or, later on, not getting into a particular course doesn’t mean they are a failure. We can reassure them that while we are disappointed for them, we are not disappointed in them - and that we appreciate, respect and love them for who they are.

Now is not the time to say that we don't think they worked hard enough, or should have done an easier Maths subject, or not done Maths at all.

• Encourage them, and help them, to keep things in perspective and not panic.

We can acknowledge that the result throws up more challenges but also emphasise it defintiely isn’t the end of the world. We can remind that everyone experiences big disappointment at some time or another and what matters is how you handle it. We can urge them to recognise that there are other options and that they need to get motivated quickly to find these and come up with Plan B.

We can suggest they:

• • Go to the South Australia Tertiary Admissions Centre website and look again at ATAR scores for university and VET courses in SA and perhaps at those on interstate admission centres; also for bridging courses or pathway programs that offer alternative ways into their preferred course.

• • Visit the SA Government’s Work & Skills webpage for information on traineeships and apprenticeships, and the My Skills website for loads of information on courses and occupations.

• • Take a good look at the Job Jumpstart website for tips and career/work ideas, including for young people taking a gap year or going on to further study.

VET studies offer work-focused and 'competency based' learning experiences. They lead to nationally recognised qualifications that employers tend to highly value, often provide young people with a head start into the world of work, and often lead to well paid and flexible careers.

Even so, many parents are under the impression that university is still the preferred post-school study option and have a limited understanding of the VET sector and opportunities within it. Take a look at this video of parents being put to the test. The results are surprising. Maybe also a bit concerning?

The Australian Parents Council recently released a set of free VET infographics for families, students, counsellors, teachers, employers and community groups. These bust some myths, snapshot interesting information and share some stories from VET graduates.

School holidays are the perfect time to relax and push school to the back of your mind. But as January unfolds, they can also be used to get ahead and so reduce the stress of the final school year. We asked a past Year 12 student to share some tips on how to focus on study while leaving plenty of time for summer fun:

If you are continuing some subjects, write out any notes you may have missed during the year and go over the important models and concepts you learnt. From mid-January onwards, set aside a few hours every second of third day to catch up and refresh your memory, or go for some bigger blocks of time if that's your prefererence. Also start to read up on first chapters of content you know you will be covering in Term 1. Make notes and write down questions.

Start your major assignments if you know what they are. Read over them and familiarise yourself with what you will need to do to complete them. These assignments will take a lot of time and are not easy to cram (sorry procrastinators!). Do a bit of light research and write a list of things to help direct you when you do officially start.

Reward yourself. Yep! Reward yourself! You know that you probably should be studying but, at the same time, it is the holidays! Studying all day, every day is never productive. It's better to create a rule and then really try to stick to it e.g. I will study for 2 hours and then reward myself with 2 hours of ‘me’ time, or I will study on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and the rest of the time is mine to decide. Go out with friends, do some exercise, watch movies, play games, read books - do different things you enjoy. If social media is a big part of what you enjoy, keep on eye on how much time you are interacting. Addictions are hard to break.

Make sure you attend any orientation classes that are offered. If your teachers have set aside time to help you kick start your learning, make the effort to attend and encourage your friends. Everyone will benefit - the teachers included - and there are lots of options to reward yourself afterwards.

Keep your holiday study goals realistic and manage your time well. Get a study planner and work towards it but make it practical. If you have a good relax-study balance in the holidays, you will feel refreshed, energised and prepared to begin Year 12.

Good luck. It's a tough year but it's over almost as soon as it begins.