Issue 8 Term 3 2020

Positive Education

In 1998, the then president of the American Psychological Association Professor Martin Seligman, published a paper challenging the way his profession view mental illness. Seligman coined the term positive psychology, defining it as the ‘scientific study of optimal human functioning [that] aims to discover and promote the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive’                                                           _{Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000}

The work of Seligman and his colleagues challenged the profession to focus not just on the problems with which clients present, but instead, to harness their strengths and potential.

Over the last 15 years, empirical research into the effectiveness of positive psychology has informed our approach to the promotion of mental health and wellbeing, especially in schools. The application of positive psychology to school settings is known as Positive Education and it is an important area that we are exploring as a college community here at Kildare.

Aligned closely with the Kildare Core Values, Positive Education is not a fad, nor is it something students do one or two lessons a week; it is a way of living, a way of being. A Positive Education Working Party was recently formed within the College to propose, plan, and strategically implement positive education across the College in a systematic manner. In addition, the Stewardship Committee meets twice a term to explore how positive education can be applied to the wider College community.

Why Positive Education?

• Positive emotions broaden our attention and thinking, which means we are more likely to increase our openness to relationships with others, and be more flexible and open-minded
• Positive emotions strengthen resilience and the ability to cope
• Positive emotions build psychological resources; for example, building healthy friendships teaches us how to empathise, how to compromise, and how to be self-less
• Positive emotions undo negative emotions
• Positive emotions can set us on an upward developmental spiral. Just as negative emotions can lead one into a downward spiral of anxiety and depression, positive emotions can lift our mood and help us flourish.

We look forward to working with you to nurture our flourishing Kildare College community. In the meantime, take some time out to meditate, to find positive meaning in simple daily activities by reframing them in positive terms.

Glenn Clifford
Director of Wellbeing

Over the last three weeks some of our staff and students have been visiting our partner primary schools to meet with the students who will be transitioning to Kildare in 2021. These visits have provided us with an amazing opportunity to connect with our new students and give them with snapshot of life at Kildare. We were able to answer lots of questions and explain to the students what the upcoming Transition Day is like, what to wear, and what to expect in the first week of the new school year.

The Primary School visits also enable our current students to develop their leadership skills and confidence. Our students demonstrated inclusiveness, kindness and patience as they listened to students and helped alleviate any worries the younger students had. It is a privilege to witness them develop into confident young women. The next step in our transition process is our upcoming family evening and the Transition Days in November. We are looking forward to welcoming many new families into our community.

Kim Thomas 
Middle Years Coordinator

Deep Blue: Innovations for the Future of our Oceans

National Science Week 2020 was celebrated at Kildare College with a range of engaging lunchtime and morning activities.

We started the week with an online quiz in morning Pastoral Care in which the whole College participated. Many of the questions focused on the theme for Science Week for 2020, 'Deep Blue: innovations for the future of our oceans'.

At lunchtime on Monday, 30 students participated in a sound bath experience run by professional sound therapist and musician, Heather Frahn. Students listened to quiet, subtle thrills of pure tones while lying on a yoga mat with their eyes closed in the Dance studio. Studies have shown that coherent sound patterns can help the nervous systems 'tune' themselves, in the same general way tuning-forks help experts tune pianos or harps.

Tuesday had students squeezing long streams of sodium alginate, by using a chemical reaction that created instant colourful and slimy gel worms.

On Wednesday, the Physics laboratory was at capacity with students using lasers to navigate through an oceanic themed obstacle course.

Thursday’s session involved students determining the sugar content in pre-packaged beverages and assessing what affect they are having on our health and environment. Who knew that pre-packaged beverages contributed to humans unknowingly eating and drinking enough plastic to make a credit card every week?

The week concluded with the screening of ‘A Plastic Ocean’ on Friday to raise students' awareness of the damage plastics are having on ocean food webs and species’ health.

Thank you to all the Science staff members and our laboratory technician (who is also a qualified marine biologist trained in Europe) for making the week such a success. As Claudio, our laboratory technician, was heard saying on Friday, “Che bella settimana”. 

Paul Beltrame
Learning Leader

Student Leadership

The College aims to promote leadership in many areas, such as community service, peer mentoring, sport, music and drama. Participation in student leadership is highly encouraged in order to promote student voice and enable participation in decision-making processes. It is the responsibility of all members of the school community to promote, foster and encourage students to take on roles of leadership, responsibility and commitment to their school. A wide variety of leadership portfolios exist across all year levels.

Kildare College encourages maximum student participation in its decision-making processes by establishing structures which enable student opinion to be voiced, thereby developing a sense of civic responsibility and pride in their College. College Captains and Student Leaders are encouraged to seek out student voice as part of their responsibility. By allowing avenues for the voice of all students to be heard, we can maintain a positive learning environment where students feel positive, connected and safe at school.

A wide variety of leadership positions exist including:

• College Captains
• House Year Level Captains
• House Sports Captain
• House Arts Captain
• House Justice and Democracy Captain
• Peer Support

The College Captains are responsible for representing the College at public forums, fostering school spirit, being role models for other students, and for promoting student participation in College and House activities such as performing arts and sporting events. The College Captains also host general assemblies and whole school events.

The work of the captains will be supported by House Year Level, Sport, Art and Living Justice Captains known as Student Leadership. As a group, the College Captains and Student Leaders will aim to work together to achieve goals and to set the tone for the student body in promoting a sense of pride and belonging in the school.

Why take on a Student Leadership Role?

• Learn new skills and build personal leadership capacity
• To be a voice and make a difference within the College
• Work with and get to know new people
• Represent the College at community events
• Undertake special leadership training programs and activities

To be eligible for the position of College Captain, applicants must be able to demonstrate and sustain:

• An exceptional attendance and behaviour record
• Commitment to the school through academic and cultural involvement
• Leadership attributes and qualities
• A vision for their leadership

New College Captains will be inducted to the whole school at the Graduation Assembly and the Student Leaders will receive their Badges during House Assemblies.

Raymond Kropinski
Seinor Years Coordinator

Parents: More important than ever – Parent Information Zoom Evenings

Towards the end of last term and the beginning of the new term we hosted two Parent Information Evenings where Joy Anasta, a well-respected psychotherapist, counsellor, mediator and parent coach, spoke to us via Zoom. Joy spoke with us regarding the challenges that we face as parents and provided us with some strategies that can support us during these times.

One of the interesting things she spoke about was over indulgent parenting, which is where parents give things to their children to suit the parent’s needs and not the child’s needs. Some examples of these include allowing children to have unlimited access to computer time, without requiring them to help at home, not requiring children to use please and thank you, buying children the best of the best in order to make the parents seem successful and allowing children to watch movies that are not classified for them.

While at the time it seems right to give children what they want and when they want it, over indulgent parenting can have serious ramifications for the children. As they grow they find it difficult to learn from and bounce back from mistakes or failures which leads them to develop feelings of shame. This becomes an ongoing cycle resulting in children developing addictions or fear and anxiety. To prevent this from happening it is important that we as parents set boundaries and rules and implement consequences when they are not followed, negotiate with them and encourage them to work for what they want and teach them the difference between a need and a want.

Kim Thomas
Middle Years Coordinator

Equity for all students has been highlighted for a long while now in education, but especially with the inception of the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data, which is primarily to acknowledge accountability for students with diverse disabilities and learning needs.

When referring to our diverse learners it is important for students who are recognised as Gifted and Talented (G&T) to be supported and enriched with their learning. We recognise our gifted and talented students through differentiated extension curriculum, and by providing many opportunities to participate in enrichment programs at Kildare and externally. We pride ourselves on continuous improvement in teaching and learning.

To enhance the professional learning of teachers at the College we are participating in a research study titled: Attitudes toward Gifted Students and Gifted Education which has been authorised by the University of NSW in partnership with Catholic Education SA. 

Recently Michael Murphy, Leading Learning Consultant from Catholic Education SA, presented to our teaching staff, an overview of the current research study including the research processes used for qualitative and quantitative data collection and a synopsis of the current status of the completion of research. From here Kildare College will choose a framework that it will adopt to implement processes and guidelines to help identify, enrich and monitor our Gifted and Talented students. Gagne’s Differentiated model of Giftedness and Talent which clearly distinguishes the difference between natural abilities or domains and talents, will be incorporated into our planning and programming. 

Teachers will participate in accredited learning to ensure that we continue to improve our teaching and learning of our Gifted and Talented students for equitable outcomes in education and a goal of individual excellence. We are very excited about this opportunity for our teachers in cutting edge research and pedagogical practices, as well as 21st century transformation in relation to student learning.

Cherrell Murray
Director of Learning Enrichment

The Year 7 students were lucky enough to attend an excursion to Monarto Safari Park! The purpose of this day was to enrich their in-class learnings about classification of animals, and place and liveability in STEM, as well as learn real life examples of economics and business for HUMS.

The students experienced a bus tour of the many animal habitats which was led by a wonderful guide who explained the conservation goals of Zoos SA, shared interesting facts with us, as well as asked and answered many questions.

Students also had time to explore the other exhibits on a self-guided walking tour, this included sightings of the chimpanzees and emus. 

A highlight of the excursion was seeing the white rhino calf that was only two weeks old and was out for public display for the first time that day!

Julia Groutsch
Learning Leader

Year 7 cohort completed another exciting learning week, ‘Jewellery Skills Week’ during which the students used all of their learned skills from STEM to make jewellery for their PBL.

The Year 7 students have been learning about Ancient Worlds in HUMS and will now connect these two topics by creating a contemporary piece of jewellery that represents their chosen Ancient World.

The students began the week by getting creative with polymer clay and moved onto sawing and saw piercing metal into different shapes and sizes. By Wednesday the students were busy filing their piece of jewellery and moved onto practising the various ways to texture a piece of metal. The students watched demonstrations of ring making and by the end of the week had a piece of jewellery ready to be polished and taken home.

The clases are now reflecting on the skills learnt and beginning to work through the engineering design process to create their contemporary piece of jewellery. 

Alicia Whitton
STEM Team

On behalf of Kildare College and the Resource Centre Student Volunteers we have new information regarding Book Week 2020.

The good news is Book Week 2020 will be going ahead with a very exciting theme - Curious Creatures, Wild Minds. This will take place in Week 2, Term 4. 

The week will be filled with Curious Games and Wild Activities. The Resource Centre will be transformed with fabulous themed displays. Our wonderful Resource Centre volunteers are busy creating and organising these activities and displays. We can’t wait to see what they come up with.

While Book Week may look a little different this year, we are confident that students will enjoy many exciting activities. We will know more as the weeks unfold and keep you all informed.

Tammie Haythorpe
Resource Centre Manager

The environmental group has continued to work towards making Kildare College an environmentally conscious campus. 

To build on previous goals of ensuring all classrooms and workspaces were equipped with recycle bins, teachers were provided with re-fillable white board markers and the removal of single use plastic containers, plates etc. from the College canteen. The Environmental Group have recently been working on a further initiative to encourage students to reduce the amount of plastic wrap they use.

Members of the group recently participated in a workshop to create environmentally friendly bees wax wraps and pouches. The students produced colourful wraps and pouches in preparation for the upcoming Brigidine Day where they will be on sale. 

The group would like to pass on huge thanks to Ms Peek who provided the 100% organic bees wax from her local ‘Honey Man’ and the Food and Hospitality teachers for making the kitchen available.    

Environmental Group
Mrs Selga, Ms McAteer and Ms Mader

The Year 8 cohort has recently begun a project in STEM and HUMS on the driving question “How can we create a sustainable and liveable suburb?” 

The students listened to a presentation from urban and regional planners specialising in sustainable and energy efficient housing. The students then went on a tour through Lightsview, Lochiel Park and Dernancourt. 

We observed the features in Dernancourt and discussed factors and places that make a suburb inviting for people to live in. We visited Lochiel Park to observe the sustainable features of the homes and the features in the community. In Lightsview, the students observed a modern suburb that has a variety of sustainable features as well as places that make a suburb liveable and inviting for all ages of society. 

The excursion assisted the students in the planning and creation of their own sustainable suburbs. The Year 8s are busy learning about designing energy efficient homes and the role of a council in a suburb.

We look forward to seeing the suburbs being built over the next few weeks. The classes are eager to showcase their work.   

Alicia Whitton
STEM Teacher

Here at Kildare College, immersion into the Italian culture is just as integral to the students' learning as the linguistic exchanges we share in our Italian classes. To continue to foster our students' love for all things Italian – language, culture, traditions and most significantly, food - we gathered our Year 9 and 10 Italian students and embarked on an Italian safari at Mercato.  

The students enjoyed a guided tour of Mercato with our passionate host, Jianna, a proud purveyor of Italian fine foods. Jianna perfectly captured the essence of Italy through an authentic Italian experience highlighting Italy’s most famous regions.

Following this, we enjoyed a taste of Italy, taking in the buzzing and happy atmosphere of ‘Il Bar Mercato’ whilst enjoying an indulgent and traditional panino made from the highest quality Italian products, a selection of Italian dolci (sweets) and of course, a classic Italian caffé. 

A highlight of our time on this excursion was the gorgeous nonni (grandparents) who introduced themselves to us and eagerly shared stories of their many happy days spent both in Italy and here within the strong Italo-Australian community in Adelaide. Our students had a prime opportunity to converse in Italian with these dear members of our community. Although they may not have been able to be translate the conversation completely, a connectedness was certainly conveyed in the many exchanges of smiles and nods between our students and the nonni across our long Italian table.

The Italian influence on Australian culture and identity was certainly understood and appreciated by all. It was a beautiful fusion of Italian culture, history and language and a timely reminder of “la dolce vita” that we have been blessed with here in Adelaide due to the vibrant contributions of our Italian friends.   

Angelica Paussa and Anne Molinaro 
Italian Teachers 

With sport being jammed into Term 3, our sporting teams are going great guns! We have netball and soccer teams eyeing off state titles, and footy teams aiming for some goals by the end of their season.

The Kildare weekly teams only have one round left before the end of their shortened 2020 winter season. We have six netball teams reaching finals in two weeks, and all three soccer teams also maked the finals. Unfortunately the football teams did not make the finals, but with only four teams entered the chance of getting third is still 50/50. It is great to see all the players enjoying themselves at both trainings and games. Their skill level has improved throughout 2020 and we hope they can all finish off the season with more success!

Since the last newsletter, our Open Netballers took on Round 1 winning against three tough teams. They worked their way through to Round 2, and after a shaky start they came out on top in their first game. With their second game it was a spot through to the state titles on the line, and with a nine goal lead at half time and 30 minutes of netball yet to be played, the Seniors couldn’t quite hold on for a victory. The Year 8/9 Netballers have been training hard as well, with three convincing wins in Round 1 followed by two 85 plus point victories in Round 2. They have now proceeded to the State Finals. The team continues to work hard and put new skills into play as they get ready for the final matches.

Our Senior Soccer team has taken to the field coming up against three hard fighting teams. However on a lovely sunny day they came out on top, moving on to Round 2 in Week 8, having only one more team to face for their road to the State Titles. Good luck to the Senior team.

The Open Volleyball team were competitive despite having had minimal training before the day. The team consisted of students from different year levels which shows great promise for the future of Kildare Volleyball. Our Year 8/9 Badminton team faced extremely strong competition in Round 1, however the team came away having gained experience and are already training for next year!

All students who have attended Statewide Sport have shown great sportsmanship and represented Kildare with pride. We are very proud of every single participant who has given their heart and soul by playing their role in the team, whether success has fallen their way or not. Kildare is looking forward to seeing how the teams go in the remaining rounds and hopefully we can bring home a State Title.

Looking towards Term 4, Kildare will are planning to enter weekly sporting teams in basketball, volleyball, tennis and softball, so please put your nominations in. The nomination sheets are outside Miss Catherine Smith’s office until the end of Week 6.

Term 4 Statewide nominations are now closed, and Kildare will be entering two Basketball teams, one Year 8/9 Volleyball team, and for the first time a Cricket team for Year 8/9 students!

We look forward to coaching these teams and reporting on their success in Term 4.

Catherine Smith
Sports Development Officer

In recent meetings the Captains and members of the Living Justice group have engaged in discussions around how they could best raise awareness about the issue of increasing domestic violence in society. 

While they discussed how this could be partly linked to the stress caused by COVID-19 in recent times, this does not change the fact that many women who make the decision to flee with their children often leave empty handed. 

Long term, the group intends to address this issue by organising ‘Lunch Boxes for Learning’ that will provide children in crisis shelters with a few basic essentials and messages of support. However, the group’s initial concern was to how best raise awareness to help young people develop the skills that would support them in recognising and forming positive healthy relationships. 

During the workshop, the students were motivated by guest speakers Paula May (Respectful Relationships Australia), Jayne Shortt and Anthea Worley (St Vincent De Paul WCC) who provided insightful information that inspired the students about how best to create an awareness campaign. 

The group are presently working on ideas which they intend to include in their upcoming campaign which will be pitched to different year levels. The workshop was a really beneficial session and we look forward to seeing what the students produce in their campaign.

Living Justice
Ms Anne Molinaro, Mrs Angie Selga and Ms Emma Lewis.