Mrs Melinda Richardson - Deputy Principal (Primary)

Deputy Principal (Primary)

On the 8th of March, 18 students from Years 5 and 6 attended the CRU FIT (Followers In Training) leadership event at William Carey Christian School. The students learnt about the Bible through team games, videos, talks and memory verse challenges from the CRU Schools Ministry Team. Following on from this Christian leadership training, the students will be assisting the teachers in running activities at BIG Senior our lunchtime group that runs on Wednesday for Years 3-6 students in the Recital Room.

Felix, who is also called Thata, lives with his mother and father in the Philippines and he is 14 years old.

He is one of 6 children. His father occasionally works as a day labourer and his mother looks after their very humble home. Due to a very low income, his family struggles to survive.

Felix likes swimming, volleyball, and handball. His jobs include carrying water, gathering firewood, and caring for his siblings.

We began sponsoring Felix when the current Year 7 was in Pre K. He is now sponsored by Ridley.

A story of hope from Cinthia, a 17-year-old young lady from Honduras:

“I never thought that my days of begging on the street and tugging on people’s clothes asking for food or money would come to an end.

I marvelled when I started attending the Compassion Centre because I was given warm meals and hugs, school supplies and shoes, gifts, and a Christian life I never thought I would encounter. I’m grateful for what I have been given. I could have grown up without the right to an education, and instead, it was granted to me.

The cycle of poverty ends with me, and my generation will be different. I have found not only my calling for serving the youth, but also my passion for dancing as I joined the dance ministry. There is no other place I would rather be than at church.”

An inspirational teen story from Compassion International

How special for us to be invested in the life of Felix and our other sponsor children. They too will have the chance to reach adulthood and break the poverty cycle in their families! Imagine how blessed they must feel to not have to beg for food anymore! To receive the blessing of an education and the hope of a life with meaning, purpose, and direction!

The Brownie Stall was so much fun. There were so many children eager to buy our brownies! Everyone’s brownies were so good and so yummy. People had great ideas of making their brownies look really cool and creative. We also thank Mrs Munce, Mrs Faurie and Mr Bell because if they hadn’t organised it, we wouldn’t have had yummy brownies. When you see those teachers say a big thank you!

By Jenson Pillai and Harry Wang 5W

This week two of our talented Year 8 Art Club students completed and submitted their entries for the Young Archies Competition at the Art Gallery of NSW. Congratulations Mariia Imameeva and Anastasija Mansell.

Thursday 14th March, the French Elective classes (yr.9 and Yr.11) attended the French Film Festival at the Palace Moore Park Cinema. Students watched the film Divertimento which was based on the true story of female musicians who took classical music to the suburbs of Paris. They were fortunate enough to hear from renowned conductor Zahia Ziouani, of whom the film is based, as she spoke to the students prior to the commencement of the film.

Afterwards, students enjoyed a typical French meal at the Little Snail French Restaurant in Pyrmont. Year 9 students particularly enjoyed using their recently acquired language to discuss their meals and interact with the waiters. The photos show well the students taking advantage of a wonderful language and cultural opportunity.

PAC students celebrated Pi Day around March 14th . Students in Year 7 and 8 participated in Pi-related activities like reciting Pi to 20 digits, created Pi inspired poetry and stories, reading a storybook about Pi, and competing in a trivia relay.

Fantastic

In

Mathematics

(Pi-ku by Hannah Devoy)

Math is fun

So

Practice it now

(Pi-ku by Izaak Casha)

This is a 

Pi

Haiku, a Pi-ku

(Pi-ku by Ivy Letertre)

Together

We

Can all do Maths

(Pi-ku by Jonathan Fox)

Premier’s Reading Challenge 2024 

Welcome to this year’s Challenge! As always, we will be encouraging students from Kindergarten to Year 9 to take part in this reading program which runs until Friday 21 August 2024. 

We have provided Year 3-6 students with login details and K-2 students will have their details sent home very soon. 

For more information about the Challenge go to the official website. 

This week in Chapel, I had the opportunity to speak to students and share a story of a time when I was in an unfamiliar environment, away from help and pretty scared. It wasn’t a major life trauma, just a very challenging evening involving geckos, crabs and darkness, but at the time it was a hard thing.

Life is hard. There are definitely delightful moments and moments of deep joy, but life is hard. When life is hard, we can experience big and challenging emotions. As a parent, I know when my children face such times it is really difficult. I want to save them from these emotions, to make them feel happy again and to return to normal programming in our lives. Sometimes this simply isn’t possible, and sometimes I do my best work by choosing to step back and allow my children to deal with hard things and to sit in the uncomfortable emotions for a while.

Many of our students at school face hard things too. Whether it’s family situations, chronic illness, learning disabilities, mental health challenges or other things that can make life challenging, many of our students experience difficulties in participating in normal school activities and experience big and uncomfortable emotions like anxiety, uncertainty and sadness regularly. Sometimes a chat and a cry and heading back to class is what’s needed, other times higher levels of interventions might be helpful. But we strongly recommend that student be allowed to journey through hard things with the appropriate support rather than being removed from them.

One way of journeying through hard things is to become reactive. To lash out, to express your emotions unhelpfully. Part of growing up and becoming a functional adult is to develop the ability to become responsive rather reactive. This does not mean ignoring emotions or pushing them to the side, but rather learning to sit with them but not be triggered by them. Going for a walk or a run, having a shower or a bath, getting a good sleep, journalling, deep breathing, talking to a trusted friend or family member, praying and turning to God and being self compassionate are all helpful ways of dealing with big and difficult emotions. I personally find that expensive ice cream helps as well!

All of these activities help our brain to accept reality and understand the reasons behind our emotions rather than reading any kind of discomfort as a reason to set our alarm systems off, triggering our fight, flight or freeze response. Wanting to quit in the middle of adversity is normal and reasonable, but pushing through with the right support, accepting the uncomfortable emotions and persevering results in a great deal of growth in self-efficacy – the belief that we have the ability to do what is needed to attain our goals and manage situations.

At PAC, we work to support and resource our students as they do hard things, because we are interested in crafting young men and women of good character who are resilient and resourceful and leave us ready to contribute positively to the world beyond the confines of the College.

Mrs Fiona Wright

Director of Students 10-12