In this issue

The Queensland Government  announced yesterday that as a result of the recent emergence of omicron sub-variants in Australia and a corresponding increase in COVID-19 cases,  Queensland is entering a fourth wave and the traffic light system will switch from green to amber as of today.

Amber (Tier 1) means there are moderate rates of community transmission, and the following Qld health advice is applicable:

More information from Queensland Health can be accessed here: https://www.qld.gov.au/health/conditions/health-alerts/coronavirus-covid-19/health-advice/traffic-light-advice.

Stuartholme are supporting Share the Dignity during Term 4. This initiative helps provide women of all age’s living in poverty, distress or insecurity, with essential feminine hygiene products.

So, what can Stuartholme do?

Simply donate one item! The Stuartholme community are striving towards ending period poverty by creating bag donations for Share The Dignity. Each TMG will create a bag filled with essential period products, the bag categories are in the table below.

Yr 7 and 9 reps will collect the bags on Friday 25th November.

St Vincent de Paul is a Catholic organisation which focuses on supporting those who are pushed to the edges of our society. By supporting St Vincent de Paul Stuartholme has the opportunity to collaborate with an organisation who share our values and traditions, whilst aligning to our social justice theme, solidarity with the marginalised. The SVdP Sprint focuses on food items.

Each Teacher Mentor Group (TMG) has been allocated to brings in specific items – please see the table below. Each person in your TMG is encouraged to bring at least one item and to place it in the basket that will be brought to your classroom. We do ask that all items have at least a 6 month from donation time expiration date.

The SVdP Sprint is solely for giving back to those who need it most in our community so it will be great to see some full hampers from each TMG by Wednesday 23^rd November.

Science for a celebration

As the year draws to a close, we start to focus on the holidays, Christmas and seeing in a New Year. Where will you be to watch the fireworks on New Year’s Eve? In recent years this is an event where cities try to outdo each other in colour, quantity and custom design. Have you ever wondered how fireworks are made and what creates the spectacular colours in the night sky?

Fireworks result from a chemical reaction of three reagents, Potassium Nitrate, Carbon and Sulfur. It is a combustion reaction of these materials that creates the explosion effect we see as the fireworks open. These three reagents react to make solid potassium carbonate, solid potassium sulphate, nitrogen gas and carbon dioxide gas. The end product is having solid reagents reacting to make gases. The explosion spreads out all the material. Metal salts are added to create the colours. These metal salts heat up to become over excited in an energetic situation and as a result also emit light.

There is even a chemistry element to the colours of fireworks, as shown in the chart below.

Different metals burn in different colours. The arrangement of electrons in shells outside the metal’s nucleus allows for the absorption of energy and the emission of different colours of light.

I wonder how many budding chemists will be thinking about the above reactions as the clock strikes midnight on 31^st December?!  Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and a colourful New Year!

Isobel Tracey (Year 11 UQ Science Ambassador)

Wendy Macdonald

Leader of Learning – Science

The Year 11 Drama class, would like to warmly invite you to Ruby Moon by Matt Cameron on Friday 18^th November at 4pm.

Sylvie and Ray Moon are struggling to come to terms with the disappearance of their six year old daughter, Ruby. They retrace the events that led up to her disappearance, investigating their weird and eccentric neighbours for any knowledge of what happened to Ruby. Haunted by their missing child, Ray and Sylvie descend further into a nightmarish world where the boundaries between the real and imaginary become increasingly blurred.

This absurdist take on Matt Cameron’s play will leave the audience wondering if Sylvie and Ray will ever get over not knowing what happened to Ruby or will they be stuck in their nightmare forever?

Please be aware, the performance contains mature themes, some course language and a search for meaning that never comes.

This performance is free of charge. We look forward to seeing you there to support the senior Drama students in their first IA performance.

Olympic diver, Tom Daley, made headlines in 2021 for more than just his incredible athleticism.  The world watched on as he calmly knitted sweaters in between executing spectacular dives.  For Tom, knitting was more than just a method of killing time out of the pool.  It was a highly effective tool for stress management that he credits as the secret behind his gold medal success.  Tom says, “The fact you only get one opportunity every four years is super intense, which is why knitting really helped.  It took the stress out of it.  I honestly think I owe the Olympic gold to knitting.”

Tom is not alone in using hobbies to effectively manage stress and improve performance.  If we are to believe the collective wisdom of the internet, Mike Tyson blows off steam by raising pigeons, Tim Duncan from the NBA plays Dungeons & Dragons in his down time, and Cristiano Ronaldo enjoys a bit of bingo.  Though the accuracy of these celebrity pastimes may be dubious, the peer-reviewed research on how hobbies affect performance is very clear.  Hobbies of all kinds can help anyone to manage stress, improve resilience and increase success.  Notably for our context here at school, researchers have collectively found that hobbies are an effective way to eliminate academic burnout.

The secret is that when we are engaging in our hobbies, we are practising mindfulness.  This acts as a circuit breaker for our brains in periods of peak pressure.  Hobbies also give us opportunities to take risks, make mistakes, and build resilience.  Tom Daley says that knitting helped him overcome his own perfectionist tendencies.  He explains, “Perfection wins you gold medals, and I think what knitting has taught me is that mistakes can teach you so many lessons.  With diving, I was so worried about making mistakes that I didn’t try to push forward because I was worried that if I made a mistake, it would set me back.  Knitting has allowed me to be a little more creative.”

When we have a hobby, especially one that allows us to experience challenge and a sense of achievement, we develop a greater sense of self.  In Tom’s case, he’s not just an Olympic diver, he’s also a knitter.  When we expand our identities beyond one definition of ourselves, it gives us more opportunities to build confidence and experience accomplishment.  This message is so important for our young people, especially as they enter peak pressure points in their schooling journey.  They are not just a student, not just their exam results, and not just their ATAR score.  Their incredible value cannot possibly be defined by one thing alone.  As Madeleine Sophie says, they are “seriously begun on a wide basis” and they should continue to allow themselves opportunities to grow and flourish in myriad ways too.

As our Year 12s push through the rest of their External Exams and our younger students commence their end-of-term assessment, I invite them to borrow Tom Daley’s “purl” of wisdom and stay committed to their hobbies even in the busiest weeks.  An effective routine with regular sleep and study is hugely important, but it is equally important to build in time for adequate rest and opportunities to recharge.  For students who come to me experiencing “burnout”, this is one of the key things I look for when working with them to evaluate their own routines.  As the saying goes, “a stitch in time saves nine”; whether we are talking about a literal stitch or not, regularly giving time to hobbies can be a gamechanger for sustaining energy levels, and developing the resilience and confidence needed under pressure.  It just might be the secret to a gold medal performance.

Students who want to further develop their own academic resilience can contact me at any time to organise a meeting to review their current routines and discuss strategies to optimise performance.  I look forward to sharing more with you all in our final newsletter of the year.  For now, I’m off to water my plants because it is important to practise what you preach!

Annie Van-Homrigh

Director of Academic Development and Performance

The National History Challenge is an Australia-wide competition organised by the History Teachers Association of Australia, which requires students to conduct independent, original research and communicate their findings via a historical essay. Each year there is a different theme that students need to write to, with this year’s theme being ‘Causes and Consequences’.

Congratulations to Sophia Lyons (Year 10) and Zara-Jane Wicht (Year 9) who have each won the Young Historian Silver Prize, which is awarded to the top three entries in Qld for each of their respective year levels. Both of these students’ research essays have now been sent to national level judging to determine if they might be eligible for further distinctions.

End-of-term assessment FAQs:

The Assessment Policy details the procedures to follow to respond to a number of issues that students may encounter over the next two weeks as we enter the peak assessment period.  Below are answers to some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that students may have during this time:

• What happens if I am absent on the day an assignment is due?

Your parent/carer must contact the Leader of Learning on the day of your absence.  You still need to submit your assignment by 3 pm via myStuartholme.  If this is not possible, you need to email it to your classroom teacher instead.  The hardcopy must be submitted as soon as you return to school.  See p. 7 of the Assessment Policy for more information.

• What happens if I fail to submit an assignment?

You will be required to complete task during the lesson on the day that it is due.  That response will be marked and a grade will be allocated.  Your teacher will then get in touch with your parent/carer and advise the Leader of Learning and Director of Studies that you have failed to submit.  An appropriate consequence will be determined by the LoL in consultation with the LoSW.   See p. 8 of the Assessment Policy for more information.

• What happens if I am away on the day of an exam?

Exams will only be rescheduled for students who arrive late or miss exams because of illness or bereavement.  Exams will not be rescheduled for students who are absent due to family holidays or celebrations.

• • Students in Years 7 to 10: Parent/carers must telephone the Leader of Learning to discuss the absence and negotiate an alternative time to complete the assessment.
  • Students in Year 11: Parent/carers must telephone the Director of Studies before the exam begins and a medical certificate must be provided.  The Director of Studies will liaise with the LoL to negotiate an appropriate alternative to the missed assessment.

Under no circumstances is any student permitted to complete an exam ahead of the scheduled date.  See p. 10 of the Assessment Policy for more information.

In exceptional circumstances where you are away for an extended period of time due to illness/bereavement, Ms Shannon Lacey (Years 10 to 12) or Ms Annie Van Homrigh (Years 7 to 9) will coordinate rescheduling of assessment and/or flexible arrangements for the impacted assessment.

The sports department would like to kindly remind all parents, caregivers and students that as of 2023, all year levels are required to have the new sports uniform.

The old sports uniforms are no longer permitted to be worn, except for onsite team training sessions.

Please refer to the relevant sports page on mystuartholme to see all uniform requirements.

An example:

November – The month of remembrance 

The month of November is traditionally a time in which the Catholic community remembers those who have died. This time of remembrance is linked to the end of the liturgical year – a moment to reflect on the end of life and the end of all things and the great hope that when our days are done, we begin a new life in God’s heavenly embrace.  

All Saints & All Souls Day 

In commencing this time of remembrance, the Church pauses to remember the great communion of saints on All Saints Day, on 1 November and All Souls Day on 2 November. These feast days speak strongly to us of the unseen realities of our shared faith that transcend time and space – the extraordinary company of the communion of saints; the power of love over death; the hope and mystery of eternal life; the connection of us all to each other.  

On All Saints Day, we celebrate the wonderful company of saints we know as part of the reality of our Catholic tradition. While on All Souls Day, we remember those who have died – friends, colleagues, relatives whom we have known, worked with, laughed with, cried with, walked with. Many of them are not famous. Their statues are not in churches, but their pictures are in our homes and their stories alive in our families, and in us. We know of their goodness and their struggles. We now pray for them, and remember them with love, and celebrate in faith their journey to God, now within the great communion of saints.  

At Stuartholme, we have marked this special moment of the year in a couple of ways. Throughout the first week of the month, staff and students were invited to remember their loved ones through a prayer space in the chapel. This space was utilised by Religious Education classes who spent some time in prayer. Additionally, we celebrated the annual Stuartholme Sacre Coeur Association Mass of Remembrance. Stuartholme Alumnae, family and friends gathered in our School Chapel for the celebration, with names added to our Book of Remembrance – a place to record and remember Alumnae who now take their place in the communion of saints. 

As these special days of remembrance continue throughout November, take some time to recall and rejoice for the lives of your friends and loved ones who have passed beyond this world and now rest in the embrace of our loving God. 

Peace and blessing for the week ahead. 

Justin Golding

Dean of Mission

Whilst week 6 and 7 of Term 4 are a time of focus for our students as they engage with assessment, attention for parents and caregivers can start to turn towards the upcoming summer break. This week I have asked members of our Wellbeing Team,  our School psychologists, to offer some advice about the importance of rest and self-care for families – both parents & caregivers and adolescents. I hope this is timely for you.

Slowing Down & Self-Care for Adolescents & Families

“It’s a beautiful day to choose rest over a false sense of urgency” – Michell C Clark

As we head into the 2022 Christmas/New Year holiday break as a community, it is important to consider how your adolescent and your family can rest, restore energy, and spend time together in a meaningful way. “Self-care” has become a bit of a buzzword over time and is often linked to activities such as “taking a bath” and “eating some chocolate”. While both of those activities are important if we find them enjoyable, true rest and recovery connects our mind, body and senses and the recipe for this is specific to who we are and what we find nurturing. Adolescents pick up on our actions significantly more than our words. If parents can take time to truly rest, do nothing and, better still, be accepting of doing nothing, adolescents will also see this as acceptable.

Some ideas to inspire meaningful rest:

• Allow lots of time for no structured plans or activities: let your adolescent “get bored”, this can often inspire creativity and time to slow down.
• Consider speaking with your adolescent about what rest and self-care means for them.
• Ask yourself and your adolescent: Does self-care involve activities that include all 5 senses? Does it mean certain boundaries to preserve our emotional energy? Might it include unplugging from device usage for an amount of time?
• Supporting your adolescents to care for themselves could also mean providing “emotional check-ins” where you allow space for your adolescent to share how they’re feeling or express this in different ways: talking, listening to and playing music, drawing, painting, writing, and time outside.
• Consider asking yourself and your adolescent what kind of barriers stop rest and recovery from happening – what can you do to remove these barriers?

Rest – A Poem by David Whyte.

“Rest is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be. Rest is the essence of giving and receiving, an act of remembering, imaginatively and intellectually but also physiologically and physically. To rest is to give up on the already exhausted will as the prime motivator of endeavour, with its endless outward need to reward itself through established goals. To rest is to give up on worrying and fretting and the sense that there is something wrong with the world unless we are there to put it right; to rest is to fall back literally or figuratively from outer targets and shift the goal not to an inner static bull’s eye, an imagined state of perfect stillness, but to an inner state of natural exchange.

The template of natural exchange is the breath, the autonomic giving and receiving that forms the basis and the measure of life itself. We are rested when we are a living exchange between what lies inside and what lies outside, when we are an intriguing conversation between the potential that lies in our imagination and the possibilities for making that internal image real in the world; we are rested when we let things alone and let ourselves alone, to do what we do best, breathe as the body intended us to breathe, to walk as we were meant to walk, to live with the rhythm of a house and a home, giving and taking through cooking and cleaning.

When we give and take in an easy foundational way we are closest to the authentic self, and closest to that self when we are most rested. To rest is not self-indulgent, to rest is to prepare to give the best of ourselves, and to perhaps, most importantly, arrive at a place where we are able to understand what we have already been given.

In the first state of rest is the sense of stopping, of giving up on what we have been doing or how we have been being. In the second, is the sense of slowly coming home, the physical journey into the body’s un-coerced and un-bullied self, as if trying to remember the way or even the destination itself. In the third state is a sense of healing and self-forgiveness and of arrival. In the fourth state, deep in the primal exchange of the breath, is the give and the take, the blessing and the being blessed and the ability to delight in both. The fifth stage is a sense of absolute readiness and presence, a delight in and an anticipation of the world and all its forms; a sense of being the meeting itself between inner and outer, and that receiving and responding occur in one spontaneous movement.

A deep experience of rest is the template of perfection in the human imagination, a perspective from which we are able to perceive the outer specific forms of our work and our relationships whilst being nourished by the shared foundational gift of the breath itself. From this perspective we can be rested while putting together an elaborate meal for an arriving crowd, whilst climbing the highest mountain or sitting at home surrounded by the chaos of a loving family.

Rested, we are ready for the world but not held hostage by it, rested we care again for the right things and the right people in the right way. In rest we re-establish the goals that make us more generous, more courageous, more of an invitation, someone we want to remember, and someone others would want to remember too.”

We hope you are inspired to focus less on productivity and more on rest and recovery across the holiday break and that this inspiration can be shared with your adolescent. We look forward to supporting our students and families when we all return to school in Term 1 2023.

From the Wellbeing Team

Eloise Conrad, Sally Blight & Natalie Morgan (School Psychologists)

Links that may be of interest:

The Power of the Afternoon Nap: https://theconversation.com/guilty-about-that-afternoon-nap-dont-be-its-good-for-you-89023

Why your teenager really needs self-care: https://parents.au.reachout.com/skills-to-build/wellbeing/things-to-try-wellbeing/self-care-for-teenagers

Self-care and teenagers: https://parents.au.reachout.com/skills-to-build/wellbeing/self-care-and-teenagers

Elizabeth Foxover

Acting Dean of Student Wellbeing 

End of Term 4 is always one filled with emotion for our boarding community: it’s the excitement and anticipation of returning home to loved ones, bidding friends farewell and the excitement of a summer of working, relaxing, holidaying and catching up with friends and family.

Boarding school is a transformative experience for all of our young women who are given the opportunity. They’re thrown in the deep end of living with over one hundred other girls away from home. It’s an experience like no other and it is why our boarders’ emotional resilience and intelligence is so high. They learn to navigate communal living and the intricacies that accompany it.

In a recent Boarding School Expo publication, Ruby Riethmuller, Founder & Director of Womn-Kind shared five lessons she learnt during school that she puts down to boarding experience:

According to Ruby:

• There is more than one form of intelligence. I had a friend who was on track to receive a perfect score in year 12 but couldn’t – for the life of her – ride a bike. Another friend was your average student, who spent hours reading everyday, though never a textbook or the prescribed English novel. She knew what felt like everything about the world, politics, social issues, philosophies, history and everything in between. I often considered her my smartest friend, but her school marks rarely reflected that. Albert Einstein once famously said, “the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination’’ and I believe it to be true.
• Not to take life so seriously. Often when studying at schools of high caliber, there is a greater element of pressure, whether that comes from yourself, family, peers or teachers. It can be easy to get caught up in the pressure, but I encourage every young person to challenge that feeling. Even after a shocker of a math test, friendship fallout or boarding ‘consequence’, the sun will rise again tomorrow.

• That there really is no place like home and that wherever you end up in life, it’s important to remember where you came from. There is nothing quite like the diversity of a boarding school where each person calls a different corner of the world their home. Because of that, I’ve always felt an urge to learn where people have come from – the journey that led them to where they are now.

Home for our Stuartholme boarders: We currently have over one hundred boarders from all over Australia, PNG, Japan, Indonesia and                                          Solomon Islands.

• That everybody has a chapter they don’t read out loud. When you’re living and breathing with your peers 24/7 as you do as a boarder, you see them at their highest highs and lowest lows. I’m grateful to have learnt during those years that there is far more to a person than what appears on the surface. You know to give people the benefit of the doubt and to act with kindness in all of your interactions.
• The friends you make at boarding school are friendships that last a lifetime. My advice: to never let them go easily.

Memories in the making: Our year 10 boarders hosted Nudgee last weekend for a Mocktail event.

In two weeks, our house will close and the laughter and life that permeates the halls and dorms will quieten and pause in anticipation of our girls return in January.

From all of us in boarding, we wish you a wonderful two weeks ahead and hope your summer holidays are filled with joy.

End of Term 4 is always one filled with emotion for our boarding community: it’s the excitement and anticipation of returning home to loved ones, bidding friends farewell and the excitement of a summer of working, relaxing, holidaying and catching up with friends and family.

Jane Morris

Dean of Boarding 

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of Stuartholme,

It is hard to believe that we have reached the end of Week 6, and our students only have a fortnight left. However, you can certainly tell it is a busy period with students and staff in the thick of assessments and examinations, accompanied by the full schedule of social events that characterise the end of the year.

With all of this in full swing, we must work together to ensure these final couple of weeks are filled with joy, allowing our students to remain focused on the end game with a sense of determination and pride to perform at their absolute best.

In addition, it is also a timely reminder to be kind to ourselves and each other. When I reflect on the contributions of our foundress St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, I am reminded that it was her sense of kindness and compassion that accompanied her courage and confidence to forge forward with momentum. In so doing, at our recent assembly, I encouraged our students to check in with each other, offer a smile and reach out to others to support and make kindness a priority. Through these intense periods, we need to dig deeper into our kindness bucket to support and encourage one another to get through to the finish line.

Our Year 12s now have the finish line well in sight as they come to the end of their external examination period. I have been in awe of how these young women have rallied to support one another and stepped up throughout this intense period, and we, as a school, are immensely proud of their efforts. We look forward to one final celebration with them to mark the end of their senior schooling journey at the special Year 12 breakfast next week.

I am also very pleased to announce to the community that Brendan Downes will take on the role of the inaugural Director of Primary for our expansion into Years 5 and 6. Brendan has substantial experience in primary education fulfilling roles as a primary principal and head of primary in independent Catholic schools and is currently Head at Padua College. We look forward to welcoming Brendan to our team in 2023 as we embark on this exciting chapter for Stuartholme School.

As the year draws to a close, several significant events and opportunities exist to conclude the year. Our Parents of Stuartholme’s Lab for Parents – parents coaching parents workshop is a wonderful highlight. This innovative approach to learning from one another has become a staple at Stuartholme over the last few years. It is a rich opportunity to come together to conclude the year, and the presentation will focus on the junior years. I encourage families to attend this special event.

In addition, I am excited to host alongside the School Board our Mille Merci function to thank all who have supported Stuartholme throughout the year. The event is an opportunity to celebrate our partnership in ensuring we continue to enflame the vision of our wisdom women in provisioning an exemplary Sacred Heart education that allows our young people to thrive and make a difference in the world for the better.

I wish the community all the very best as we all head into the final stages of the term. I am comforted in knowing that we will continue to rally and support one another over the next couple of weeks to finish the year proud of all we have contributed to our beautiful community.

Yours in Cor Unum,

Danny Crump

Acting Principal

Being present and displaying grit to perform well under pressure

In January 2022, Ash Barty a well loved and respected Australian Tennis player made history contesting the Australian open and winning.

Barty was the first Australian Woman to claim this prestigious title on home soil since Wendy Turnbull 42 years prior.

Whilst Barty engages in the usual training regime associated with elite athletes, of note was the emphasis she placed on the huge role that her “mindset coach” Ben Crowe, Sports Psychologist, played in her success.

2022 is fast drawing to close, peak assessment periods are on the horizon and the festive season is approaching.

I therefore thought it was timely to take on board some top tips from the mindset domain to ensure that we continue to exhibit the attributes required for our best performance and sustained success on Stuartholme soil.

These practices feature as a key element of the Growing to Great Plan where where we work hard to ensure that our students are gaining the skills required to grow and deliver a peak performance.

Top 5 Tips:

Harvard University have identified the top 5 actions to display grit , remain present and perform well under pressure:

1. Stop time travelling – take a deep breath, feel your feet on the ground and stay right where you are in the present moment.
2. Focus on what is – part of staying in the present is not focus on ‘what if’, but ‘what is’
3. Play out your worst and best-case scenarios – often reality is somewhere in between
4. Go grey – catastrophising is often a form of black and white thinking – the trick is to land somewhere in the middle
5. Get more data points – confidence comes from experience – it is normal to be anxious before a big test, have faith in the plan you have put in place and know you are exam attack ready!

References:

1. https://www.tennis.com.au/news/2022/01/29/world-no-1-ash-barty-making-history-staying-present
2. https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/ash-barty-sports-mentor-ben-crowe-psychology/13732544

• 2020, Harvard Business Review.

Deborah Lonsdale-Walker

Acting Deputy Principal