Dear Parents and Carers

Ten Commandments for Mature Living – Ronald Rolheiser

1. Live in gratitude and thank your creator by enjoying your life.
2. Be willing to carry more and more of life’s complexities with empathy.
3. Transform jealousy, anger, bitterness and hatred, rather than giving them back in kind.
4. Let suffering soften your heart rather than harden your heart.
5. Forgive – those who hurt you, your own sins, the unfairness of your life and God for not rescuing you.
6. Bless more and curse less!
7. Live in a more radical sobriety.
8. Pray, affectively and liturgically.
9. Be wide in your embrace.
10. Stand where you are supposed to be and let God provide the rest.

The American priest Ronald Rolheiser has a great gift of being able to write about immense spiritual truths in an everyday, accessible language. In his ‘Ten Commandments for Mature Living’, he has tried to think through what type of commandments might make sense to people today. Rolheiser thinks that most people have learnt, over the centuries, that murder is wrong, theft is wrong, slander is not good, and so on. He suggests that in these times, for most people, a more sophisticated moral commandment is called for. 2020 has been a very difficult year, for many reasons – bushfires, COVID-19, social isolation, the threat of economic difficulty. Perhaps more than ever, it is important, to the best of our ability, to live in gratitude and thank God by enjoying our lives. There is still a great deal we can be grateful for.

https://ronrolheiser.com/en/#.XxbU7Z4zbD4

COVID-19

Yesterday, I sent home a letter to the parent community, reiterating the school’s operating procedures during this trying time. I won’t summarise the entire letter here, but would request the support of the parent community around self-isolating if and when families have been physically present in geographically vulnerable locations, and/or if they are experiencing any cold or flu conditions. Parents will be rung to collect children if a child exhibits any symptoms that are cold or flu like. I acknowledge the inconvenience of this and I agree it is difficult. I would ask, however, that we all keep in mind that these are unusual times and call for a response that is relatively extensive, in terms of trying to cover all bases. The staff discussed yesterday the importance of hope. Hope is not in itself a strategy, but without hope, life would lose much of its richness and colour. While we all have procedures and strategies in place, we keep alive at the same time the flame of hope, knowing that this too will pass, and we will be stronger for it.

Soccer Clinics

For the next few Mondays, the school is running a soccer clinic for all classes. Each class has 30 minutes with a soccer coach practising soccer skills and playing games and it provides the children with a wonderful opportunity to hone their skills, increase their exercise and have fun. My thanks to our Sports Coordinator, Mary de Smet, for coordinating the clinic.

Maths Olympiad

In week 3, our students in Years 5 and 6 will have their third Maths Olympiad competition. Some students in Year 4 are also sitting the competition. Each competition poses 5 questions and the children are given 30 minutes to complete the questions. Probably unsurprisingly, the Maths itself is not terribly difficult, but the difficulty comes in the wording of the questions and the fact that the real testing is around the students’ abilities to reason. A Maths educator I admire greatly is Jo Boaler, who has written a number of books on Maths teaching and education. https://ed.stanford.edu/faculty/joboaler

Jo Boaler has stated that two things are needed to be a good learner in Maths: number sense and the ability to reason. Both of these things can be learned and it is never too late to learn them. Part of our challenge at Sts Peter and Paul is to teach children how to reason, using their Maths knowledge and number sense. My thanks to Sean Rutledge for coordinating the competition and to all teachers for their support.

Have a wonderful week with your families.

 Best wishes

Cameron Johns

Principal