Loving God,

May we who are merely inconvenienced, remember those whose 

lives are at stake.

May those who have no risk factors remember those most 

vulnerable.

May those who have the luxury of working from home remember 

those who must choose between preserving their health or

making their rent. 

May those who have the flexibility to care for our children when

schools close remember those who have no options.

May we who have to cancel a trip remember those who have no

safe place to go.

May we who are losing our margin money in the tumult of the 

economic market remember those who have no margin at all. 

May those who settle for quarantine at home remember those 

who have no home.

As fear grips our country, let us choose love during this time when 

we cannot physically wrap our arms around each other, let us find

ways to be the loving embrace to God and our neighbour.

Prayer by Cameron Wiggins Bellm

Dear Parents and Carers,

What a wonderful transition back to remote learning we have seen, in what is definitely challenging times. A real credit to the staff and parents and carers for enabling this smooth transition and really supporting each other in ensuring our students are at the centre of the learning. Well done of course also to our incredibly resilient students.

We were grateful to receive the warm feedback you have sent though to our staff in regards to the quality family time you enjoyed on Friday when completing the Screen Free Friday activities. These are wonderful learning opportunities which also enable the building of positive relationships within your family group.

Screen Free Friday: Everyone’s wellbeing is so important and particularly during this second stage of remote learning. We will endeavour to work together to further minimise stress. Therefore, we will be having Screen Free Friday every fortnight in odd weeks for the whole school Prep-6 to enable families to have this time together.  Prep-2 will continue with Screen Free Friday weekly. Prep-2 teachers will also use this day to connect with students and yourselves through Google Meet conversations or on the phone and continue targeted, short term goal work with students requiring this.

This Friday is an odd week so it will be Screen Free Friday again for Prep-6. The teachers will share another matrix with different activities not requiring the screen. Children will just get on in the morning for their class meeting and read the slides.

Next Friday will be the whole school Indonesian Day and therefore another whole school day of activities planned which will be completed by families and endeavour to be as screen free as possible.

The following Friday (Week 7)  will be Screen Free again for the whole school Prep-6.

Onsite Supervision: A reminder if you are requiring access to onsite learning that  you will need to fill this Google form in fortnightly. A reminder also. as you have been respectfully doing, if you need to cancel a day to please  let us know. Onsite Learning Week 6 and 7 

Wellbeing and Mental Health:  It was welcomed news on the weekend to hear the government’s commitment to Mental Health. The increase of 10 sessions to 20 sessions for children with a mental health plan is important and beneficial in these challenging times. For us all, we are constantly hearing the messages to ensure we take care of our health and wellbeing particularly through good sleep habits, a healthy diet and exercise. Please take the time to read through the mental health tips for quarantine that Paul has shared in his well being section. Whilst they were written for Stage 4 lockdown by a psychologist, there are many helpful tips for us all in our current stage of staying at home in order to protect the health and wellbeing of all.    

Hub News: As occurred in Round 1 of remote learning, we  will not be including Hub News in the newsletter after this week. You are able to access specific Hub news via the slides in the following weeks. Please be sure to sit with your children to discuss the news with them. This week we do have some of the Hubs sharing their news in the newsletter and others on the slides or via SeeSaw. Please ensure you read the slides to ensure you are keeping up to date with any news specifically for your child’s hub. Here is the link again to the landing page. 

Indonesian Day: Indonesian Day will be celebrated on Friday 21 August in Week 6. Bree Zivic, Georgia Cowling and Novy Sunarto are preparing the day which will include a video greeting on the first slide and a special Our lady Star of theSea story  to start you off at 9 am. Then there will be a  matrix of family activities for you to enjoy together. The screen time will also be minimised on this day. 

100 Days of Prep: Congratulations to our dear Preps who celebrated their 100 days of Prep last Monday in a year that has been quite extra ordinary for them. Here are some photos to enjoy.

National Tree Planting Day: Many thanks to Kellie Clark, Sue Constable, parent volunteers and Year Prep and Year 6 teachers in their support with the students to successfully plant 150 Plants. The Year 6 students and their buddies thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

External agencies: At Our Lady Star of the Sea, we wish to see all children have the opportunity to flourish. Therefore we value working together with outside agencies and providing opportunity for any students requiring extra support to access these services onsite. Click here for our NDIS and External Providers Policy

Wishing you good health and happiness for the fortnight ahead.

Kerryn

The following Mental Health Wellness tips were shared with me recently. They come from a psychologist who has worked with many patients on how to cope with COVID-19 and the impact it’s restrictions have on our lives.  Whilst not all tips will be helpful to you, I hope there might be one to two tips that help you cope at this challenging time.

• Stick to a routine.  Go to sleep and wake up at a reasonable time, write a schedule that is varied and includes time for work as well as self-care.
• Find some time to move each day, again daily for at least thirty minutes.  If you don’t feel comfortable going outside, there are many YouTube videos that offer free movement classes, and if all else fails, turn on the music and have a dance party!
• Reach out to others, you guessed it, at least once daily for thirty minutes.  Try to do FaceTime, Skype, phone calls, texting—connect with other people to seek and provide support.  Don’t forget to do this for your children as well.  Set up virtual playdates with friends daily via FaceTime, Facebook Messenger Kids, Zoom, etc—your kids miss their friends, too!
• Spend extra time playing with children.  Children will rarely communicate how they are feeling, but will often make a bid for attention and communication through play.  Don’t be surprised to see therapeutic themes of illness, doctor visits, and isolation play through.  Understand that play is cathartic and helpful for children—it is how they process their world and problem solve, and there’s a lot they are seeing and experiencing in the now.
• Give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and a wide berth.  A lot of cooped up time can bring out the worst in everyone.  Each person will have moments when they will not be at their best.  It is important to move with grace through blowups, to not show up to every argument you are invited to, and to not hold grudges and continue disagreements.  Everyone is doing the best they can to make it through this.
• Expect behavioral issues in children, and respond gently.   We are all struggling with disruption in routine, none more than children, who rely on routines constructed by others to make them feel safe and to know what comes next.  Expect increased anxiety, worries and fears, nightmares, difficulty separating or sleeping, testing limits, and meltdowns.  Do not introduce major behavioral plans or consequences at this time—hold stable and focus on emotional connection.
• Focus on safety and attachment.  We are going to be living for a bit with the unprecedented demand of meeting all work deadlines, homeschooling children, running a sterile household, and making a whole lot of entertainment in confinement.  We can get wrapped up in meeting expectations in all domains, but we must remember that these are scary and unpredictable times for children.  Focus on strengthening the connection through time spent following their lead, through physical touch, through play, through therapeutic books, and via verbal reassurances that you will be there for them in this time.
• Lower expectations and practice radical self-acceptance.  We are doing too many things in this moment, under fear and stress.  This does not make a formula for excellence.  Instead, give yourself what psychologists call “radical self acceptance”: accepting everything about yourself, your current situation, and your life without question, blame, or pushback.  You cannot fail at this—there is no roadmap, no precedent for this, and we are all truly doing the best we can in an impossible situation. 
• Limit social media and COVID conversation, especially around children.  One can find tons of information on COVID-19 to consume, and it changes minute to minute.  The information is often sensationalised, negatively skewed, and alarmist.  Find a few trusted sources that you can check in with consistently, limit it to a few times a day, and set a time limit for yourself on how much you consume (again 30 minutes tops, 2-3 times daily).  Keep news and alarming conversations out of earshot from children—they see and hear everything, and can become very frightened by what they hear.
• Notice the good in the world, the helpers.  There is a lot of scary, negative, and overwhelming information to take in regarding this pandemic.  There are also a ton of stories of people sacrificing, donating, and supporting one another in miraculous ways.  It is important to counterbalance the heavy information with the hopeful information. 
• Find lightness and humour in each day.  There is a lot to be worried about, and with good reason.  Counterbalance this heaviness with something funny each day: cat videos on YouTube, a stand-up show on Netflix, a funny movie—we all need a little comedic relief in our day, every day.
• Reach out for help—your team is there for you.  If you are having difficulty coping, seek out help.  There are mental health people on the ready to help you through this crisis.  Your children’s teachers and related service providers will do anything within their power to help, especially for those parents tasked with the difficult task of being a whole treatment team to their child with special challenges.  Seek support groups of fellow home-schoolers, parents, and neighbours to feel connected.  There is help and support out there, any time of the day—although we are physically distant, we can always connect virtually.
• Remind yourself daily that this is temporary.  It seems in the midst of these restrictions that it will never end.  It is terrifying to think of the road stretching ahead of us.  Please take time to remind yourself that although this is very scary and difficult, and will go on for an undetermined amount of time, it is a season of life and it will pass.  We will return to feeling free, safe, busy, and connected in the days ahead.
• Find the lesson.  This whole crisis can seem sad, senseless, and at times, avoidable.  When psychologists work with trauma, a key feature to helping someone work through said trauma is to help them find their agency, the potential positive outcomes they can effect, the meaning and construction that can come out of destruction.  What can each of us learn here, in big and small ways, from this crisis?  What needs to change in ourselves, our homes, our communities, our nation, and our world?

Stay safe!

Paul Anderson

Term 3 Week 5 - Green Hub News

Term 3 Week 5 - Purple Hub News

Term 3 Week 5 - Yellow Hub News

All orders must be placed at Bellarine Uniforms no later than
Friday 4 September 2020.

For more information please call Bellarine Uniforms. 

Bellarine Uniforms

will open for the following hours:

Monday, Wednesday and Friday 2.00pm- 5.00pm

Saturday 9.00am - 12.00pm

Online and email orders also welcome. 

162 Moorabool Street

Ph: 5221 9199

bellarine@noone.com.au 

Dear Parishioners and Friends,

 We hope you and your loved ones are well and keeping safe.

 Please find attached this week’s bulletin, letter from Archbishop Peter Comensoli and prayers.

** CHANGE TO LIVE STREAMING **

It has been decided to move the live streaming platform to YouTube. We find YouTube to be more user friendly and much easier to navigate. You can find the live stream link via our website at www.holytrinityqueenscliff.org.au.

As always you are warmly welcome to join us online for our live streaming Mass at 11:00am on Sunday:

www.holytrinityqueenscliff.org.au/mass-times/live-streamed-masses-videos/ … or you can watch later as you wish.

With every blessing,

Daniella, Deb, and Fr Darien

 Holy Trinity Catholic Parish

CareMonkey is rebranding to ‘Operoo’

This is a quick note to inform you that Our Lady Star of the Sea digital forms and school operations platform provider, CareMonkey, will be rebranding as ‘Operoo’: School processes, without the paperwork. 

Operoo’s mission is to help schools eliminate operational inefficiencies so that every dollar and every minute possible can be spent on a students’ education.

The name change will occur the week beginning Monday 3 August. How you use the service, as well as the ownership and operation of the company, will remain unchanged.

You can continue using the system, and its mobile application, as usual. Just be aware that, after Monday 3 August, emails and notifications sent from the system will start appearing under the new name ‘Operoo’. You will also be automatically diverted to the new Operoo website if you go to the old CareMonkey website.

Term 4 2020

Friday 16 October: Respectful Relationships "Gratitude Day"

Monday 19 October: Book Week Dress Up Day 

Thursday 22 October: Footy colours casual clothes day and Gold Coin donation for Cherished Pets Ocean Grove.

Friday 23 October: AFL Grand Final Public Holiday, school closed 

Sunday 25 October: School working bee 10am - 12pm - Purple Hub TBC

Tuesday 3 November: Melbourne Cup Public Holiday, school Closed 

Friday 6 November: Mission Fete Day 

Monday 9 November: School Photo Day Individual and Class Photos

Tuesday 10 November: School Photo Day Family Portraits

Monday 23 November  - Tuesday 24 November: Year 6 Camp Wyuna

Tuesday 24 November: Prep 2021 Parent Information Session 6 - 7pm TBC

Thursday 26 November: Prep 2021 Parent Information Session 6 - 7pm TBC

Friday 27 November: Staff 2021 Planning Day, student free day 

Monday 30 November: Year 3 Camp Wyuna

Tuesday 1 December: Year 4 Camp Wyuna

Wednesday 2 December: Year 5 Camp Wyuna

Wednesday 2 December: Prep 2021 Orientation Day 9.30am - 11am TBC

Tuesday 8 December: Prep 2021 Orientation Day 9.30am - 11am TBC

Thursday 17 December: End of Term 4

Please note: Please refer to the Parent Calendar for all dates

Staff Return: Wednesday 27 January

Term 1 Students return: Thursday 28 January - Thursday 1 April

Easter - Friday 2 April - Monday 5 April 

Term 2  Monday 19 April - Friday 25 June 

Term 3  Monday 12 July - Friday 17 September 

Term 4  Monday 4 October - Thursday 16 December