St Ita's Primary School Drouin
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50 Victoria Street
Drouin VIC 3818
Subscribe: https://stitaspsdrouin.schoolzineplus.com/subscribe

Email: admin@stidrouin.catholic.edu.au
Phone: 03 5623 7222

Principal's Messages

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    WELCOME BACK TO THE 2022 SCHOOL YEAR

    A warm welcome back to all St Ita’s families old and new. As we start another school year, I’m hopeful that it will be one of learning consistency with minimum disruptions. The last two years have thrown up many challenges however we have met these head on and come out on top each time. I'd like to extend a big thank you to all families who have supported us by following the COVID-19 guidelines that we have had to put in place for the start of this year. We are very appreciative of your efforts to make sure St Ita’s is the safest place it can be.

    A big shout out to all our new students and families who have settled in really well to the routines of school. They have had an amazing start and have turned up for their first few days so excited and eager to learn.

    I would like to formerly welcome all our new staff members for the 2022 school year.

    • Miss Gabby Hopgood - Foundation
    • Miss Madeline Baker - Grade 1
    • Miss Kristy Boettcher - Grade 5/6
    • Mrs Robyn Leary - Art Teacher 3 days a week
    • Mrs Alice Thomson - ESO 5 days a week
    • Miss Abbey Commaduer - ESO two days a week
    • Mrs Mindy Atkins - ESO one day a week

    I’m sure they will be well supported in their role as teachers and ESO’s and will be a great asset to our learning community.

    Thanks to all our Foundation families for their patience and understanding as we begin the school year. Our Foundation kids have made a really good start and the Foundation team have put a lot of effort into supporting our Foundation students transition.

    St Ita’s is first and foremost a Catholic primary school and we are about the development of the whole child; spiritually, academically, physically, emotionally and socially. We seek to prepare all of our students for a life beyond school. In an age when change is ongoing and accelerating almost out of control, our students will need to develop the skills to be life-long learners.

    Could I please ask the following of all our St Ita’s parents?

    1. SUPPORT YOUR CHILD’S FAITH JOURNEY WHILST AT ST ITA'S. Please embrace us as a Catholic School of action. Make an effort to attend Mass with your child on weekends. Make an effort to pray to God each day with your child. Make an effort to support your child in their Sacramental journey. Make an effort to use Christ as a role model to your children. 
    1. SHOW YOUR CHILD THAT YOU VALUE EDUCATION: It really helps if you show interest in your child’s learning. For example, when you see your child after school, ask them for 3 positives about their day. What they have learned today? What did they do in class? What did they do during play? Don’t be shrugged off too easily; deep down, even if they roll their eyes, they will be grateful you care enough to ask, and recalling what they learnt will help them remember it in future. Do your best to attend every school event relevant to them and most importantly please ensure that your child is at school for the beginning of each day. 
    1. KEEP IN TOUCH WITH YOUR CHILD’S TEACHER Let us know how things are for you and your child, especially through the class teacher or our Deputy Principals and Principal. It is particularly important for us to know if concerns arise, so that we can work with you to help your child. When parents, students and teachers work together, the young people benefit significantly and the learning partnership should create a wonderful year of learning and growth. 
    1. ALWAYS DRIVE SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY WHEN ENTERING OUR SCHOOL Please adhere to an 8km speed limit within our school when dropping off and picking up. We will publish the correct procedures for both our carlines in this newsletter. The top Admin carpark is for staff cars only. Parents wanting to walk their children into school will need to park in the Church carpark or out the front of the school. The disabled car parks located in the Admin car park are not to be used by parents when dropping off or visiting the school. Any parent parking their car in the disabled carpark must have a disabled sticker on display.

    DEVELOP A GROWTH MINDSET IN YOUR CHILD

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    We want our children to be resilient in the face of adversity and be able to feel confident to persevere in difficult situations. This will help them in a range of daily life situations from struggling with friendships, life changes such as moving house or school, coping with physical illness or learning new skills at school or in sport.

    Common wisdom over recent decades agrees that encouraging or praising our children’s achievements will lead to confidence and resilience. While this is true, a particular style of praise and encouragement has been found to be the most helpful: that which encourages a growth mindset in children.

    Carol Dweck is a professor of psychology at Stanford University who studies mindset in children and its relationship to success. She is the author of the book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” which discusses growth vs fixed mindset and how we can best set up our children to develop a growth mindset.

    Dweck’s defines fixed vs growth mindset as: “In a fixed mindset, students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset, students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.”

    While certain skills and abilities come more easily to some children than others, brain plasticity teaches us that we can always learn and develop new skills. Our brain is like a muscle and working it makes it stronger and more capable in a particular area. We might find that maths does not come easily to us, but the more we practise maths, the more skilled we become.

    A fixed mindset regarding ability or intelligence is particularly unhelpful for children. If they believe that maths ability is fixed, they will easily give up when they come across a new maths problem that they cannot solve. This means they miss the opportunity to learn and grow their ability in this area as well as their confidence with maths. This can also lead to unhelpful beliefs about themselves such as “I’m just no good at maths” or worse still, “I’m not smart”. When children believe that their successes are the result of innate ability or talent, rather than attitude or effort they can give up easily when tasks are difficult or in fact not even try new tasks or tasks in areas that they do not feel confident in.

    Dweck suggests that there are a few simple steps that we can take to help develop a growth mindset in our children:

    1. Ensure children understand that our brains grow and develop through hard work and practise, just like a muscle.
    2. Try to avoid praising children by telling them that they are ‘smart’, ‘intelligent’ or ‘talented’, as this implies that these abilities are fixed and unchangeable.
    3. Direct your praise and encouragement instead towards effort, practice, strategy and actions, rather than results. This helps children to learn that success is more connected to what we do rather than our innate abilities.

    Instead of:

    “You’re such a smart cookie.”

    “You’re the best soccer player I know, you never miss a shot!”

    “I’m proud of you for getting an A.”

    Try:

    “I’m so proud of you for sticking at this even though it’s hard.”

    “I can tell that you’ve been practising this.”

    “I love how you tried out lots of different ways of working out this problem until you found the right one.”

    “I can see how hard you worked on this project, its really payed off. Well done!”

    “It was great how you stuck right on your opponent through the whole game tonight.”

    1. Importantly, encourage children to try out new things and stretch their abilities often. Embrace and praise failures and mistakes as this is such an important part of the learning process and is growing a child’s mind, abilities and confidence. The reward for overcoming something is also much sweeter when we have struggled and worked hard to accomplish it and this is a wonderful and rewarding lesson for children to learn early in life.

    For example:

    “It’s so great that you’re giving this new thing a go. You haven’t quite got the hang of it yet but we know how getting it wrong helps your brain to grow and learn. Jump back in and give it another go.”

    “Getting it wrong sometimes means you’re working hard and learning something new. I’m really proud of you.”

    Through encouraging a growth mindset in our children, we can help them to build resilience, perseverance and confidence in their abilities to overcome difficulties: some of the best resources for a happy and successful life.