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CELEBRATING CARROLL DAY
"Two are better than one...if either of them falls down, one can help the other up”.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
Dear Parents, Students and Friends
Tomorrow we celebrate a significant day for the College. Carroll Day acknowledges our College founder, Fr Francis Carroll. On 5 December 1989, an initial meeting took place to discuss the feasibility of establishing a Catholic Secondary College in the Eurobodalla. This was a bold and ambitious vision. Now, almost 25 years on we are proud contributors to our Catholic community as we continue to strive for excellence in creating a high performing school.
St Mary Mackillop once said, “Never see a need without doing something about it”. This statement encapsulates the shared vision of the then Parish Priest of Batemans Bay, Fr Henry Bryne, parishioner Noel Cook and Archbishop Carroll. During 1992, Noel Cook proposed that the College be named Carroll College in recognition of Fr Francis’ contribution to Catholic education. This was endorsed by Fr Byrne and was approved by the Archbishop. Today, Carroll College is a leading school on the South Coast. It provides exceptional opportunities for students and families and promotes a strong culture for learning. It is fitting that we celebrate Carroll Day each year and give thanks to those who contributed their time so generously to ensure the establishment of Carroll College.
Tomorrow is Mufti day for all students in Years 7-12. We ask that students wear warm casual clothes as we will be in the Hall for a large part of the day and it is an extremely cold venue.
I invite you to join us for our College Mass at 9.30am tomorrow morning in the Hall.
Rome Study Tour
On Saturday 22 June, Mrs Veronica Harrold-Carter and Mrs Charlotte Nicoletti will travel to Rome with the Australian Catholic University, as part of their postgraduate studies in Leading the New Evangelisation. The unit to be studied abroad, Catholic Education: Mission, Culture and Spirituality, focuses on key documents concerning Catholic Education and schooling. The emphasis is on the role of schools in realising the mission of the Catholic Church and how spiritualities and charisms can contribute to the culture of Catholic schools and communio. The unit, led by Peta Goldburg Sister of Mercy and Professor of Religious Education and Professor David Hall, a Marist Brother and Dean of the La Salle Academy for Faith Formation and Religious Education, is a blend of lectures, workshops and excursions to places of religious significance in the Catholic Tradition.
The course prepares educators for leadership roles with Catholic schools. Within faith-based schools, Religious Education is a key learning area and for Catholic schools in Australia, Religious Education has been one of the ways in which the Catholic Christian tradition has been transmitted across generations. In his writings, Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope Paul VI states “Evangelisation is in fact, the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelise". Teaching in a Catholic school is a vocation, a calling. Through the course, Leading the New Evangelisation, Mrs Harrold-Carter and Mrs Nicoletti have become familiar with dynamic expressions of youth evangelisation, new methods and innovative ways the Gospel message can be presented to our students; methods which exist beyond current pedagogy but through accompaniment, and witness.
I wish Mrs Harrold-Carter and Mrs Nicoletti a safe and enriching experience.
Staffing
Mr John O’Neill will be taking leave in Weeks 9 and 10 to enjoy some time with his family. Mrs Sandra Harris will be Assistant Principal, Curriculum and Achievement (Acting) for the last two weeks of term. I take this opportunity to congratulate Mrs Harris on her successful appointment to this significant leadership role within the College. I also wish Mr O'Neill an enjoyable and restful break.
As you are now aware, Mrs Veronica Harrold-Carter and Mrs Charlotte Nicoletti are travelling to Rome and will also be on leave for the next two weeks. I congratulate Ms Lizette Richards on gaining the position of Xavier Pastoral Coordinator (Acting) during Mrs Harrold-Carter’s absence.
We have welcomed Mrs Belle Barling back to work this week following Maternity leave. Mrs Barling re-joins the team for only a short period, as she is pregnant again. Congratulations from us all! Mrs Barling will be teaching until the middle of next term before taking leave again. During this time, she will be teaching in the area of Learning Support and relieving for Mrs Nicoletti as Faith Formation Coordinator.
An announcement will be made in the coming days regarding the successful applicant for the role of Coordinator, Administration (Acting). A current member of the team will fill Mrs Harris’ role while she undertakes higher duties.
Social Media
I invite you to listen to the podcast (link below) which highlights the danger that devices can have on brain development, particularly for adolescents. As a result of current research such as this, staff have revisited the College’s mobile phone policy. Further information will follow in the near future. https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/david-gillespie-2019/10986686
Lollapalooza – CLAIM THE DATE!
Please contact Karen Motyka M: 0415 592 019 or Brigid McNeill M: 0408 888 756 to get involved!
As we move into the last couple of weeks of term, I thank you for your ongoing support. Our building project is almost complete with a new staff centre and four new classrooms. It is a beautiful work space. More details will follow in next week's newsletter.
Warm regards
Jacqueline Heffernan
Principal
Electives Choices for 2020
Students in Years 8 and 9 will be selecting their electives for 2020 early next term. At Carroll College, we run electives for one year, and students then reselect again for the following year. Students have received a booklet with information about all the electives and been spoken to about how electives are chosen. In week 2 of next term, students will be invited to use a web-based subject selector program. In the program, the students need to select their TWO preferred electives from the lists. It is important that they select their most preferred elective first, followed by their second choice. The program records the time and date of the selections as well as the order selected. From this information, the electives that will run are decided and students allocated to them. Please encourage your child to seek out more information from teachers and students currently in the electives they are interested in. The more information they have the more suitable choices they can make. As part of this process, the College runs a Curriculum Information and Expo evening where teachers are available to discuss the electives in more detail. The evening will be held on 30th July in the Hall.
Students in Year 10 have received an invitation to meet with a senior staff member to discuss their subject selections for next year. Students need to gather as much information about their subjects as possible so that they make informed choices about the courses they will be studying for the next two years. I have encouraged them to speak with other teachers and students currently studying the courses to get a real picture of what they are selecting. It is important that students select courses they are interested in (not what their friends are interested in!), that will challenge them and that will help them achieve their long term goals. More information for parents and students will be provided at the Curriculum Information and Expo evening on 30th July.
Year 12 students will be sitting their Trial exams in six weeks time. These exams are very important indicators of overall success at the HSC exams at the end of the year. Students should already be spending considerable time making summaries of all their topics, attempting past HSC style questions and revising all the work they have done to date. Students need to be writing! They cannot expect to retain information by just reading over notes. They need to be writing, re-writing, summarising, drawing and labelling diagrams, making mnemonics, putting information to songs or whatever they find works best for them. If students do not yet have a regular study timetable then they should devise one and stick to it. If parents want any information about how to help their child study, please contact the College.
John O’Neill
Assistant Principal, Curriculum and Achievement
Changes to Broulee/Mossy Point bus time
Broulee/Mossy Point Bus No 7 will be picking up students 5 minutes earlier than the current time. This will commence on 11 June.
This Friday 21 June, we will celebrate Founder’s Day or as we know it Carroll Day. I would hope our students take some time to consider that this day is not just an excuse for a day without the routine of classes, for fun activities and battle of the bands. But for us to consider through prayer and the Celebration of the Eucharist, as well by example the legacy that Emeritus Archbishop Francis Carroll has left us. We continually remember his dedication, so that his work in commissioning our school and his life of dedication will be an inspiration for us in the light of the Gospel message. So when we gather for Mass on Friday to celebrate Founder’s Day we will proudly pray, reflect and sing together. We will listen to the Scriptures and we will remember the life and work of Fr. Francis Carroll who was so moved to make a difference. Families and the College community are warmly invited to join us for Mass starting at 9.30am in the College Hall.
Luke (4:18-19) sees Jesus quoting from Isaiah. He says this: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people.”
Our students are offered a unique opportunity: to become more like Jesus every day in their words and actions and to seek to emulate His example by the good works they do. Our job is to put these opportunities in their way! One such opportunity is the annual St Vincent De Paul Winter Appeal. During the months June – August, students are asked to donate what they can; blankets, doonas, sleeping bags, beanies, gloves, warm socks, scarves and tins/packets of soup. All donations support the poor and disadvantaged in our local community. I take the opportunity to share a story a St Vincent De Paul volunteer shared at Mass. A local man, who had been sleeping rough in the bush near town walked into the St Vincent De Paul shop in Batemans Bay. He was dressed in an old t-shirt and pants, had nothing on his feet and was freezing. He quietly asked for assistance. The women working in the shop had little warm offerings, as the shop had not received many winter donations. All they could provide were some jumpers, a pair of shoes and beanie. They couldn’t provide a blanket, a tent or any soup.
After the rain and cold weather we have been experiencing, I can only imagine how desperate this man felt. St Vincent De Paul offers a hand up, not just a hand out. By donating your pre-loved items to Vinnies they get a new life, support Australians doing it tough and reduce landfill and the impact on the environment. Vinnies need your good quality items to help. When considering whether something can be donated to Vinnies, our rule of thumb is if you’d give it to a friend, then it’s ok to give to Vinnies. Your donations can be dropped outside the REC office in the HUB.
I know that together we can make a difference, each one of us, to the lives of the poor in our community.
Fr. Francis Carroll … Pray for Us
Live Jesus in our Hearts … Forever
Mrs Charlotte Nicoletti
Faith Formation Coordinator
https://www.catholicvoice.org.au/confirmation-retreat-prepares-students-for-their-faith-journey/ link to the article Confirmation retreat prepares students for their faith journey in the Catholic Voice, written by our Youth Minister Juliette Pierre.
Heads up, lean forward, engage!
In a recent ABC Radio National programme called, “Conversations”, on 16/2/2109, an owner of a software company and social entrepreneur, David Gillespie, made the observation that lifetime addictions start during the adolescent phase.
He informed the audience of a part of the brain, called GABA, which is defined as “a chemical messenger” that is widely distributed in the brain. GABA's natural function is to reduce the activity of the neurons to which it binds. Some researchers believe that one of the purposes that GABA serves is to control the fear or anxiety experienced when neurons are overexcited.
GABA allows us to enter puberty without succumbing to addictive behaviours. It dials down dopamine and allows the brain to suppress addiction in the prefrontal cortex. Decision making is good when GABA is working, but because it is a general purpose system, it does not account for “the pleasure principle” of online participation, and so, can be overridden.
Gillespie reports these interesting research findings relevant to device addiction:
- Every person has stimulators of addictive behaviours. It is heartening though to see that substance abuse figures have fallen by half in a decade. Gillespie attributes this to education.
- What about mental health issues? Addiction flows through to anxiety and depression. Why aren’t they halving in the same decade? Gillespie argues that there is a powerful correlation between the rise of these mental health issues in young people and the arrival of tablets and smart phones. The software is designed to be addictive. Companies are competing to be part of one of the five apps they would like you to use every day.
- What are the tricks these companies use keep you consuming online? It is called the “near miss phenomenon”. It has the same effect as three apples in a row on a poker machine. Close but not close enough! This trick keeps the user involved.
- Oxytocin is the chemical which produces the good feelings you get when you are accepted or liked. It rewards socialisation for girls. It helps a teen girl think, “You’re a good person, you are popular”. It is called “approval porn”. Likes and Dislikes on Facebook etc. are indicators of social approval and can produce this good feeling in young girls. This can explain why they may constantly check their social media updates.
- Men seem to be less sensitive to this Oxytocin effect. Boys respond in online games to “danger porn” which involves the potential for survival, and an emotional roller-coaster ride. How are rewards in these games constructed? They are carefully manipulated to make the player feel the satisfaction (or ‘high’) of completing a mission and being part of a successful team. Gillespie cites this scenario: “Try telling a boy to stop in the middle of a mission. He would feel that he is letting others down”.
- How much time spent on devices such as tablets and smart phones is used for anything other than “entertainment”? They are loaded up with free software. This gives children a reason be on them. “I need it to do homework”. What percentage of tablet/phone use is actually for educational purposes is problematic.
There are many complexities to parenting these days. Gillespie argues that, in 2019, it is ‘child-centred parenting’. He argues that parents of Gen Z are incapable of saying ‘no’. Parents want peace! However, while technology has its place, it is not in the hands of a teenager at midnight.
He recommends the following guidelines for use of technology by young people:
- devices at home are placed in a central location
- No internet-connected phone
- No financial capability for online purchases
- No social media in the junior forms
- Plan alternative activities and insist on them.
- When discussing with your child about the use of the internet, remember the person you are talking to has impaired impulse control. Don’t react, back off and talk again calmly the next day.
- Homework should ideally be done in a public thoroughfare.
- Ban tablets and smart phones during holidays. Encourage renewal and breaking reliance on technology.
So, bio-chemistry now tells us that an obsession with social media and gaming is a form of addiction. If you disabled the Like/Dislike function, fewer people would use it. What does that tell us? We may be unleashing a tidal wave…a gateway of addiction to other things. Unless judicious use is encouraged, we may leave our children with an impaired breaking system in the long term. The good news, according to Gillespie, is that saying ‘No’ gets easier and there is life on the other side of withdrawal. We can teach our kids to be present in the moment; heads up, leaning forward and engaged with life.
I hope this article provokes discussion with your children at home and that we as a community continue to believe that parents’ willingness to set limits has long-term benefits for the young. I welcome your feedback.
Paul Cullen
paul.cullen@cg.catholic.edu.au
Congratulations to Amelia Harding for achieving second place in the Archdiocesan Cross Country. Well done!
The Yr 7/8 Girls AFL team won 47-9 against Lumen Christie last Tuesday in the AFL schools cup held at Narooma. Making them the South Coast Champions! The team played extremely well against a strong Lumen Christie side and displayed a high level of AFL skills. This team now progresses onto the State Finals in Canberra on Monday 24th June. Special mention must go to Zalie Betts (Year 12) for her excellent coaching of the team. Congratulations and good luck to the girls.
Chisholm Day
This year’s Chisholm day celebration took place on Wednesday the 5th June. This date is also the annual celebration of World Environment Day and so Chisholm day conveniently became centred around a very important focus; Our planet, and the increasing need for environmental awareness and conservation. Jake Lyttle and Lily Cooper; the Chisholm house captains, teamed up with former Carroll College students, Pearl Mitchell and Ella Hodges who attended the school last year. They collaborated with one another to organise both the events of the day and the fundraising involved. Pearl and Ella are both closely affiliated and involved with the non-profit organisation “Ekipa Tasi Mos”, and so it was decided that all funds raised from the day would go towards this amazing environmental group.
Ekipa Tasi Mos translates to ‘clean ocean team’ in Tetun; the local language where the organisation originated. Ekipa Tasi Mos is based in Atauro, a tiny Island off East Timor, just north of Australia. The island sits within the world-renowned coral triangle and is home to amazing fish species and coral reefs. However, with the recent introduction of single use plastics and the unfortunate swell direction towards Atauro, the once pristine beaches of the island are becoming inhabited by the masses of plastic and waste that wash ashore. The aim of Ekipa Tasi Mos is to remove and record this plastic pollution from the beaches of Atauro, and to assist the local community in reducing their use of single-use plastics.
Since 2014; locals, tourists, and volunteers have been doing Marine Debris Clean-ups on the Island. However, until now, the plastics and debris collected from the beaches have been either buried or burnt; neither of which are good for the environment. There is now substantial action in place to build a new recycling station on Atauro. The machine will re-shape the marine debris into usable items for the community, such as bowls and cutlery. The items produced can then be sold by the locals, helping provide an income as an added benefit to the project. The funds raised from Chisholm day were donated specifically towards the installation of this station.
To begin the day, students came to school dressed in either red or recycled clothing for a gold coin donation. There was then an assembly where Jake and Lily introduced both Chisholm day and world environment day to the college. They then passed over to Pearl and Ella who discussed the amazing contributions of Ekipa Tasi Mos, and explained what the proceeds of the day would go towards; the recycling station on Atauro. Then the students took part in a trivia, split up in their homeroom groups, and answered questions about the waste found on Atauro over a 90-day period. The winning homeroom was Xavier 4, Ms Richards homeroom.
After trivia, everyone headed down to the oval to make a human sign. Together with three other schools; Radford College in Canberra, Emmanuel College in Victoria, and St. Mary’s Primary School in Moruya, the words ‘Ekipa Tasi Mos’, followed by a heart shaped full stop were formed. Carroll College spelt out the word “Mos” and a drone was flown overhead to take an aerial shot of the formation. The letters had been marked out on the oval the previous afternoon by Ella, Jake and Lily. The human sign was part of raising awareness for Ekipa Tasi Mos and world environment day.
Following the excitement of creating the sign on the oval, the students headed to recess where Jake and Lily ran a very popular hotdog and soft drink stall, raising more funds for the day. The stall was a huge success and it wasn’t long until all the hotdogs had sold out! Overall the day was not only a huge success but also a lot of fun. The contribution and involvement of all the students allowed a total of $900 being raised for Ekipa Tasi Mos. That is an amazing outcome that couldn’t have been possible without the generous donations from all students and teachers who either purchased a hotdog or willingly donated to the organisation.
Although it may not seem like much in the big picture, every small action such as the installation of the recycling station on the tiny island of Atauro, contribute positively towards environmental change in our world. It is becoming even more detrimental to make these small contributions in order to see large results. Hopefully the day also exposed the students to the startling effects of littering and the increasing need to look after our planet. A massive thank you to Mrs. Price and Mrs. Enfield who helped organise and make the day come together. Also to Pearl and Ella for their time and dedication, you two are truly inspiring and set an example to so many! Big thanks to Jane and Louise for ordering and cooking the hotdogs, and to Tom Gear from the shire council for coming and flying the drone for the human sign. Finally, one last massive thank you to the students of Carroll College for your generous donations and amazing involvement on the day. We hope to keep you up-to-date on the installation of the station on Atauro so that you can see first-hand that your money went to an amazing cause. In the meantime, remember to put your rubbish in the bin and avoid using single use plastics!! And…Go Chisholm
Mel Price
CHISHOLM Pastoral Leader
Handy Hints
How to keep track of your Qkr! Payments
Itemized Qkr! eReceipts provide a record of purchase and are a convenient way to keep track of your Qkr! Payments.
To view your eReceipts:
- Open Qkr! And tap ‘Activity’
- Scroll down to ‘Order History’ and tap ‘Receipt’ to view eReceipts
Never lose a receipt: email receipts to your account by choosing to turn on Auto email Receipts in your account settings.
Qkr! Is our preferred payment option. If you need help using this please contact the Office.
This year Carroll College will be participating in the Woolworths Earn & Learn program. The program allows schools to earn points to purchase equipment.
We have included a sticker sheet to print off (or you can get these at your local Woolworths) and a FAQ sheet.
A box will be available at the school near the office for stickers to be dropped in.
Earn & Learn runs from 1 May to 25 June 2019.
Thank you for your participation!