In this issue

As we farewell Term 2, please watch this video message from our Principal, Mr Paul Sterling.

https://youtu.be/QFvUWB8y1tk

At a time when the mental health and wellbeing of children and teenagers is firmly in the spotlight, validation is an essential parenting skill.

When a child or teen comes to you when they are struggling emotionally, they want you to understand their dilemma. They don’t want to be dismissed or told to ‘get over it’. They generally want someone to acknowledge that their concern is real with comments such as:

• “I see you’re worried about going to camp. I can understand that.”
• “Thanks for telling about the scary monsters in your bedroom. Let’s see what we can do about them.”
• “I’d be afraid too if I was left alone on my own for that long.”

Validation of a child’s struggles helps them
Validating a child’s struggles helps in a number of ways. It works to:

Build deep connection
Relationships built at the time of vulnerability go deep and are hard to break.

Promote a child’s wellbeing
Validation helps kids feel safe, which is what ‘worry warts’ and anxious kids want. Lack of understanding rather than fear itself often impacts negatively on a child’s happiness.

Overcome disappointment and build resilience
Validation encourages kids to give voice to their concern or disappointment and either takes steps to rectify it or move on.

Develop emotional intelligence
Parental validation models emotional intelligence for children and teens. It requires you to identify the emotions that may be behind their language or behaviour.

Encourage empathy
Validation requires you to stop, listen and get on the same wavelength as your child.

Four steps to validating your child’s emotions
Follow these steps when your child comes to you with their worries or concerns to make sure they feel understood.

1. Attend – Stop what you are doing and give your child full attention.
2. Observe – Listen with your eyes as well as your ears.
3. Reflect back their worries – Get down to their eye level if necessary, saying something like, “I see you’re really concerned about this.”
4. Touch – If appropriate, gently touch their shoulder or give them a hug when you speak to them. This will help them feel safe and comforted.

There’s no better feeling for a child or teen who is struggling than knowing someone they value truly understands them.

By Michael Grose.

Michael Grose, founder of Parenting Ideas, is one of Australia’s leading parenting educators. He’s the author of 12 books for parents including Spoonfed Generation and the best-selling Why First Borns Rule the World and Last Borns Want to Change It. His latest release Anxious Kids, was co-authored with Dr Jodi Richardson

Secondary Sport

Genesis@Home Daily Sport 

 Well done to all students for taking part in the Genesis@Home Daily Sport sessions. This program was designed to allow students regular opportunities, at home, to keep fit, and balance school work and physical activity. It was also an initiative to challenge students physically and support their mental health during the challenging season of COVID-19 restrictions.  

 The response from students was positive and it was great to hear stories from students who developed their fitness and engaged their families in the workouts. A special thank you to the Genesis Sports and Aquatics staff (in particular Logan Maguire and the Cert III Fitness students Joel, Jack and Lachlan for designing the sessions. 

Cross Country@Home Met North 2020 

 This term, where representative sport was suspended, Cross Country Met North designed a virtual cross country competition for schools, where students could complete a course at home and upload their results via an APP. There were set distances for each age group with 95 schools in the region taking part. Well done to Harrison Barr for coming in 1st place in the Met North Region. 

 Genesis students performed very well in the competition and the results are as follows: 

•  Girls 12 years: Reagan Burke 
• Girls 13 years: Haley Wolters – 9th Place 
• Boys 14 years: Harrison Barr – 1st Place
• Boys 15 years: Mitchell Wolters – 5th Place 
• Girls 17 Years: Antoya Dan – 7th place (absent from photo)

 Term 3 Sport 

 Next term, with the gradual phasing in of Interschool competition, the focus in the Secondary sport for Years 7-11 will be on skill and team development as well as laying a foundation for our sporting teams to be ready for the 2021 season. A number of focus sports have been identified where there will be high level coaches conducting sessions. We look forward to working with sporting associations, such as the Qld Reds to offer these development sessions. Students have been issued with a sport selection survey and the following sports will be on offer. 

 Year 12 students will take part in the Principal’s cup tournament, competing in an inter–house sporting competition with a different sport each week.   

 BOSL Netball, Soccer (Year 7/8 boys) and Volleyball will be going ahead and students have been notified via the sport survey, if they wish to trial for these teams. 

 Zone/District Representative Sport Reboot 

 A number of representative sports will be rebooted next term in the Pine Rivers District and Met North Region. The websites have been updated with a calendar for parents, and students will be notified via the morning notices next term. Please contact me either by phone on 3882 9014 or email at secondarysportsdept@genesis.qld.edu.au if you have any enquiries. 

 Yours in Christ,

 Anthony Arro 

Director of Sport – Secondary

Gaining Full Stride

It seems as we look forward to the second half of the year, and as COVID-19 restrictions ease, we’re starting to get back to full stride. Most of the co-curricular groups are now back to rehearsals and we hope to hear positive news about the resumption of competitions over the coming months. 

 The combined Primary-Secondary Colours Committee met recently to review the impact of reduced opportunities to collect Colour Points (thus far). A further review will occur in Term 4. For this year only, we have made the following accommodations: 

• There will be no changes to the point value for groups whose rehearsals and competitions have been affected by COVID-19 cancellations. 
• Students will be awarded points upon their selection for representation to approved pathways. This will revert back to participation as a representative from next year. 
• Service hours will be calculated on a minimum of 10 hours over two activities for Community Service; and a minimum of five hours College Service. 

 Please refer to the Policy documents (available in Parent Lounge) for more detail of eligible activities and pathways. 

 The Athletics Carnival could not be held as a day event, as planned earlier this Term. Instead, the athletics events have been held on Sport afternoons over the past two weeks and will continue in Weeks 1 and 2 of next Term.  Results will still allow for selection to District/Regionals. 

With the Queensland school closures, we expected a challenging re-entry to school life. The break for most was longer than the Christmas holidays, it was under a ‘confined to quarters’ feel, and had students jump straight back into the busy end of Term 2. Additionally, learning became associated with pyjamas, couches and the social dynamics of a home. Students faced a real challenge in adjusting back to uniform, grooming, desks and the social dynamics of a classroom. 

A very big thank you to our parents who have journeyed with us in the transition back. Attending to haircuts, uniform, jewellery and the like has been appreciated. A HUGE shout out to the vast majority of students who have continued to identify as a Genesis student through their presentation, conduct and attention to learning. This Term has been a journey of adjustments and I look forward to a fully compliant student body after the coming mid-year break. 

 As we continue to navigate the changes occurring around us and what they mean for our College, please keep one and all in your prayers. 

 Stay safe & blessings to you all,

Stuart Taylor

Head of School – Secondary

Primary Sport

 It has been a quiet term on the Sporting front, but with the students back to school in Week 5, we were able to start running training in preparation for other sporting events.  

 Sessions are on: 

• Wednesday mornings at 7:30am – Prep to Year 6 
• Thursday lunch times at 12:45pm – Year 3 to Year 6 

 Please refer to the College Calendar (in the App and on Parent Lounge) for dates. 

 Met North Virtual Cross Country 

Met North School Sport hosted a virtual cross country with seven Primary students entering. Students were able to download any running app and submit their time via their smart watch or phone to be considered for the ‘All-Met North Honorary Cross Country Team’.  

Congratulations to Sienna Barr who finished 2nd place in the 11 years girl’s division. The following students were awarded participation certificates:

• Emma Nieuwoudt
• Ella Postle
• Jonty McCreadie,
• Hayden Warner
• AJ van Tonder 
• Peter Johns. 

 As restrictions are eased and more events are placed back on the calendar or rescheduled, we will keep you updated through the Genesis App. All Primary Sport information will be found there. 

Louise McCarthy
Director of Sport- Primary

Are you smarter than a 5th Grader? The secret skills for success in schools and life!

COVID-19 and our Genesis@Home period certainly presented us with many challenges as parents, staff and students. However, it also presented us with opportunities to look at learning in a different way. In some ways, dramatically different!

Throughout Term 2, I have had the pleasure of creating our Weekly E-Assembly. We adopted a theme for the term of unpacking the Six Secret Skills for Success in School. Each week we presented a different skill and gave practical examples of how our students could develop these.

The Secret Skills aren’t something I just made up during COVID. It is actually a system that was developed a number of years ago by an English headmaster called Dan Buckley. Dan went on to use these skills in his school, directly with the children in practical ways to assist them to be successful at school and life. The school he worked at was particularly hard, with students who struggled greatly. Through the system he developed, it turned the success of these students around incredibly.

The Six Secret Skills are an acronym for the word Secret. Notably, the skills are as follows:

• Self-manager
• Effective Participator
• Creative Thinker
• Reflective Learner
• Enquirer
• Team Worker

The Secret Skills are all doing words, and just like any skill, one needs to regularly and consistently practice them to improve. Targets for improvement need to be set, and need to be achievable, so we can continue to grow.

Another term used regularly in the Education professional world is “Future Skills” – essentially the Secret Skills are one set of Future Skills, which all humans need in order to be successful in the future. You should notice that the skills are not related to products – like “making a sandwich” or “kicking a footy”. Rather they are all related to how we work within ourselves, think, and also how we work with other people.

In a future world in which we don’t know exactly what it will look like, or what jobs will exist, it is the Future Skills which will see our current students succeed in life. Research over the past number of years has identified the Future Skills as being what we really need to be teaching in schools, and I am confident that at Genesis, our children are engaged daily in learning activities which are designed not just around content, but also the skills of the Future.

So, are you smarter than a 5^th-Grader? The truth is it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that our 5^th Graders, and all grades in Primary school are being well-equipped for a future which we can vaguely see, but not truly predict, but which the onus is on us as parents and teachers to adequately equip them for.

Kind regards,

Jeremy Williamson

Head of School (Primary)

Firstly, we wanted to say THANK YOU – we have so much amazing support from our Genesis Music students and families throughout Term 2!

Our Genesis Music staff and Instrumental Specialists have worked incredibly hard to continue to provide a high level of music education to Genesis students during this time and our program, while looking and operating a little differently than usual, is vibrant, strong and a continued blessing to all.   

Our Ensemble rehearsals have resumed during the past few weeks and we have loved making music together again. Ensembles larger than 30 members have been rehearsing in sectionals and have been using the time to refine and hone their instrument-specific skills. We can’t wait to rehearse as full ensembles again soon!   

 As we head into Term 3, please be sure to keep up to date with all Genesis App notifications, as information regarding remaining 2020 events and performances will be shared there, as it comes to hand. 

Marta Preston
Music Coordinator

Library News

During this COVID-19 season our library has issued thousands of printed and digital books. We are encouraged that so many students are reading for leisure. Primary students from Years 3 to 6 have borrowed 1,402 books on the ePlatform App for their iPads since the beginning of the year. Secondary students have borrowed over 135 Wheelers fiction eBooks since March.

 A parent emailed me to ask: “My daughter has been reading the Melanie Dickerson books and loves them so much. Do you think you will ever buy all her other books for the library? My daughter would love to read them, and I thought I will ask you first before I try to buy them for her.”

 As a part of the National Simultaneous Story Time, Mrs Roberts-Weiss and Mr Williamson presented an online story-time session to celebrate the reading of My friend Fred, by Frances Watts, to the Lower Primary students.

 The Accelerated Reader program has been extended to students in Year 3 since the beginning of Term 2. We have already seen some truly impressive reading and would like to acknowledge the following year levels for their achievements so far:

• Year 3 – one student has read over one million words
• Year 4 – nine students have read over one million words
• Year 5 – five students have read over one million words and one has read over four million words

The Library honoured Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week in our displays and library lessons. The library’s Aboriginal flag was also hoisted to acknowledge the week.

We have been working with Year 9 English teacher, Mrs G-O, to promote ‘First chapter Friday’, which is an initiative to get students excited about reading novels. The first chapter is read out loud with the goal to get students intrigued and hopefully wanting to read more. Here are some of the titles featured this term:

• The goose road by Rowena House
• Star Girl by Jerry Spinelli
• See you in the cosmos by Jack Cheng
• Dog by Andy Mulligan

Yr 9 student, Bronnie, in front of our First Chapter Friday display in the Library.

Joy Payne

Director of Library Services

From our Kitchen to Yours

Our Food, Textiles and Hospitality students have been busy during Genesis@Home and this continued from Week 5, when they returned to the College. Here is just a snippet of what we have been doing this term. Please have a look at our photo gallery below, showcasing some of the wonderful work from our students. 

•  Year 7 students have been exploring healthy snack alternatives or have completed a tie-dying unit where they constructed pillowcases, dying them in a diverse range of patterns and colours. The final results were amazing!
•  Year 8 students have been learning about cultural diversity and cuisines where students designed and produced three family meals from other cultures.  
•  Year 10 students performed experiments, exploring the functional properties of proteins. This included the effect of enzymes on a gel, such as comparing fresh and tinned pineapple and the acid denaturing of protein (tofu) The many functions of eggs were explored during our Genesis@Home time, with students seeing the amazing properties of eggs. Students made poached eggs (coagulation), rissoles (binding), cupcakes (emulsification), meringues (aeration), custard or pasta sauce (thickening), and filled pastry (glazing and sealing). 
• Hospitality students have been progressing through their units of competency toward their qualification and Genesis@Home provided them with the opportunity to focus on the theoretical demands required. Upon returning, the students have enjoyed balancing this out with plenty of practical work in the Hospitality kitchen. They have been preparing dishes for purchase; including classics like Caesar Salad, Thai Beef Salad, Coleslaws and Potato Salads with very positive feedback.   
• Fashion students have embraced sustainability in both Year 10 and Year 11 classes. With research and investigations completed during Genesis@Home, returning to school allowed us to tackle hands on projects. WATCH THIS SPACE for the end products as they transfer garments into something trendy and do their part in reducing the number of textiles that end up in landfill.   
• Year 11 students visited a robotic dairy in the Scenic Rim, in preparation for their IA2 project. They learnt about the processes involved in milk production and are researching how to develop a line extension for the company, such as ice-cream, yoghurt and cheese, keeping in mind the functional properties of proteins.
• Year 12 students have been exploring the functional properties of Carbohydrates and Fats. They experimented on powderisation of chocolate, spherification of berry juice and reverse spherification of yoghurt – all edible!

Blessings,

Leanne Paulsen

Innovation & Learning Leader: Food, Textiles & Hospitality 7 – 12

Fantastic Face to Face!

As Term 2 comes to a close, we can reflect on what an experience it has been. The transition to Genesis@Home learning and return to face to face lessons highlighted how much we really value having our students in front of us, in the classroom every day. While curriculum content can be delivered effectively online, it is the classroom environment that builds relationships, understanding and confidence, influencing student engagement and consequently positive social and academic outcomes.  

The teaching team has been diligently working with their departments and students to identify gaps in knowledge and understanding that may have occurred due to time off campus. This has been addressed through the revisiting and consolidation of concepts, access to Flourish sessions (before school in L3 Monday to Thursday) and identification of core topics requiring revisiting, prior to the resumption of units in 2021. 

Our students have worked conscientiously through their assessments over the past couple of weeks.  We are incredibly proud of the efforts of all our students and celebrate significant growth experienced in the areas of resilience, independence and digital citizenship.  

Weeks 9 and 10 have provided the opportunity for many Middle School classes to work on collaborative projects with an intentional focus of being hands on and highly engaging. The expressions on our students faces in the images below say it all. 

I encourage all our students and families to take some time to rest, reflect and recharge ready for whatever God has planned for us for the second half of 2020. 

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” Proverbs 3:5-6.

Fiona Hogan

Director of Middle School Innovation & Learning

Careers and Student Support Services have been busy changing things up a little!

With social distancing creating a few obstacles, we have had to look at alternatives for some of the events usually held on campus. This has produced some exciting options for our students, with the help of the internet and our ICT Department. 

Careers Expo went online at the end of May, with the opportunity for students to engage with stall holders and organisations, virtually. Some organisations even have an online chat  feature available to source information immediately. If you haven’t as yet had time to have a look at the online Careers Expo, please sit down with your child (and a coffee!) and take a look at the world of possibilities available post school. 

A great deal of work has gone into adding another facet to Subject Selections for Year 11 and 12, scheduled for next month. This will also be available online and incorporates a brief one or two minute video summary for each subject on offer. These videos will give some insight into the intended topics and the level of commitment to study that is required. You can also look through the subject selection handbook (hard copy or digital version) to find more comprehensive outlines of the subjects on offer.  The handbook will be available early in Term 3.

Robin Grant

Director of Careers and Student Services

Living & Learning Through Tough Times

As the term draws to a close, I can’t help but reflect upon the journey that we have each travelled in recent months. We have all faced significant change, great uncertainty and numerous adjustments to our regular and ‘normal’ life and there is likely more to come.  

In Ezekiel 33:10 it says that God’s people cried out whist they were in exile and said, “How should we then live?”  

As we consider this question ourselves following this recent challenge, I would like to suggest that this season has reminded us of the importance of human connection, the importance of family and the importance of community. At Genesis, the sense of connection and community that we seek to foster for our staff, students and families is of critical importance to us. Fundamentally for the education of a child to be effective, it requires a unified partnership between home and school.  Developing a strong and united community allows students to feel secure and safe, which in turn enhances their overall well-being. May we continue to work together to strive with relentless passion to maintain and strengthen this sense of community, care and support that we so appreciate at Genesis. 

Secondly, as we consider this question, ‘how should we then live?’ …. God calls us to live a life of confidence, hope and peace in the knowledge that our creator God remains in control of all things, even in seasons of change and uncertainty. We are reminded to live lives of faith and not fear; lives of hope, not hopelessness. My prayer is that as a community, we enter the ‘next normal’ stronger than we were before. 

As you embark upon the school holidays, I trust that your family will enjoy a refreshing break. We look forward to connecting again at the start of Term 3. 

Blessings,

Paul Sterling

Principal