A big thank you to all our parents, students and staff who once again, have navigated their way through the unknown waters of a term interrupted by COVID-19. We totally understand the challenges and frustrations that COVID-19 creates in our community but we must also remain open to the fact that at the end of the day, we are about creating safe climates within schools to ensure each person in every learning community is kept as safe as possible. The Health Department and DOSCEL are responsible for setting rules and conditions to make sure we are doing our very best for all in our learning community to limit any outbreaks.

After the school holidays, I’m confident that we will be able to make some changes to a few of the current COVID-19 practices and restrictions, so we can start rebuilding a sense of community in our schools by promoting parents getting back, actively involved in the St Ita’s community.

Depending what happens over the next fortnight, and if we can keep COVID-19 cases to the current number, I’m hopeful that we will be able to initiate the following changes in our school;

• Run our whole school assemblies every second Friday, inviting parents of children presenting class news and school prayer.
• Run school tours for all our new foundation enrolments
• Introduce the class sausage sizzle on the school site for parents to meet their children’s teachers from 11.45-12.45pm. We got through our foundation BBQ earlier this term and it was a huge success. The next BBQ (Date to be advised) will be for our Grade 1 students, parents and siblings.
• Allow parents the opportunity to participate in Parent Helper Induction and work in a support/helper role in the classroom

Our car line drop off and pick up will continue as normal at the school admin loop and the Drouin Rec Reserve and we ask that you adhere to a 10 km speed limit.  Please do not park in these areas and walk your children onto the site. Any parents wanting to park and walk their children to the gates at the school site can park in the Church Car park and walk up the ramp to see their children through the gates. 

One of our greatest challenges working in a COVID -19 environment with no active cases is a mindset of. Its not here in our community so its business as usual. Sadly we can not operate this way. Whist I understand parent frustrations and value their opinions and thoughts on COVID-19, it’s important that parents understand we are expected to follow rules and regulations as set out by our employer DOSCEL and by State Government departments. I thank all parents for their continued support in making sure St Ita's is a safe teaching and learning community and look forward to getting some things back to normal in Term 3.

FAREWELL TO MRS. LYN McMAHON/HYLKEMA

It is with much sadness that we say farewell to Mrs Lyn McMahon/Hylkamia who is finishing up at St Ita’s after 27 years working with our students as a Teacher’s Aide/ESO.  Lyn was passionate about supporting the learning of all students she worked with and one of her great strengths was teaching children how to work on improving their social skills. Lyn was also an outstanding contributor to supporting kids with their LLI (Levelled Literacy Intervention.)

We wish Lyn all the very best in her retirement and say a heartfelt thanks for all her efforts to support and assist our students across the last 27 years.

We also say farewell to Mrs. Caitlin Hatch who is finishing up this week and taking maternity leave. We thank Caitlin for her time with us and wish her all the best on the birth of her new child.

COPING WITH STRESS

STEP 3. STOPPING CATASTROPHIC THINKING 

Over the last 2 weeks, our school newsletter supplement for parents has outlined The 5 Essential Steps To Help Children Cope with Stress. Today we look at step 3. How to stop catastrophic thinking with children.

The famous author Mark Twain once wrote, “Some of the worst things in my life never even happened.”

Do you have a child who automatically assumes the worst-case scenario in any risky or new situations? If so, you have a catastrophizer on your hands.

Catastrophizers exaggerate their worries and place enormous pressure on themselves. The default mechanism in their thinking always goes to the most negative outcome possible. The results will not just be bad, it will be catastrophic!

Catastrophizers will not just mess up if they give a talk to their class at school. They will make total fools of themselves and the whole class will laugh at them, or so they think.

They will not just fall over in a game. They will break a leg, end up in hospital and miss out on going to school camp, or so they think.

They will not just get a dirty look from their teacher if they arrive late for school. They will be kept in at lunch-time, miss out on sport and have all the other kids making fun of them if they are late, so they think.

Catastrophizing makes kids feel miserable. Worse, they often do not want to do anything because they expect the worst possible outcome.

So what to do with a catastrophizer? Your approach will depend to some extent on your child’s age.

Under-fives generally do not overtly catastrophize, however even young children can be negative. Make sure you model upbeat, positive thinking as young children take their cues from their parents, particularly the parent they spend most time around. Being a significant adult in the life of a child carries some responsibilities, and presenting the world as an exciting, positive place full of possibility is one of those responsibilities!

School-aged children need to be encouraged to keep things in perspective. Challenge your child’s propensity to catastrophize. Here are five ways you can use to challenge your child’s catastrophic thinking:

• “What’s the most likely scenario?” Sometimes it is useful to introduce a dose of old-fashioned rational thinking. “Yep, you could break your leg if you go skiing. But the odds are that you won’t.”
• “Does it really matter?” “You may be right, but is it the end of the world as we know it?” One way of dealing with hard-core catastrophizes is to admit that they could be right, but even if they are right and the worst-case scenario does happen, the sun will still shine tomorrow. Take kids to the worst possible scenario and they may see it’s not so bad.
• “Where does this fit on the disaster meter?” Catastrophizes get themselves in a knot about relatively insignificant things. Okay, making a fool out themselves may not be insignificant to kids, however compared to plenty of other events…well, perspective is a good thing. Help them get some perspective by giving their worry a score out of ten, on how important the issue really is.
• That’s unhelpful thinking.” Sometimes kids’ thinking is so out of whack with reality that they become anxious about minor things. Thinking such as, ‘everyone must like me’, ‘I must never make a mistake’ and ‘bad things always happen to me’ are extreme and need to be replaced by more moderate, realistic thoughts. E.g. “It would be nice if everyone liked me but not everyone will. It’s important to have some good friends.”
• Replace extreme words for feelings with more moderate descriptors: Today’s kids talk in extremes – ‘awesome’, ‘the best’ and ‘gross’ roll off their tongues easily these days. Extreme language leads to extreme thinking. So encourage kids to replace “I’m furious” with “I’m annoyed”, “It’s a disaster” with ‘It’s a pain”, “I can’t stand it” with “I don’t like it”. Sounds minor but by changing kids’ language you change how they think about events and, more importantly, how they feel. I suspect that many parents will identify strongly with some of the above.

Yep, we all catastrophize from time to time, particularly when we are under stress. It takes a cool customer to moderate their thinking the whole time. So be mindful of your child’s need to jump to the worst from time to time. A bit of reassurance is all that has needed in these one off scenarios.

But if you, like your child, are a serial catastrophize, then it will be useful to challenge your

unhelpful or extreme thinking when it happens. Not only will you model realistic thinking for your kids, but you will get an insight into what you need to do to change your child’s catastrophizing.