Issue 40 - 14th December 2017

THIS WEEK’S CLASS VISIT This week I visited Year 6 on their Student Self Governing Day activities: Scavenger hunts and cake baking as part of their maths activities, form part of this challenging day for our Year 6 students. The Year 6 students have been studying the concept, Power and have been learning about the Australian government system. As part of their studies, the students have a self-governing day. This is where students are placed in groups and run a campaign to govern their class for a day. Each group cre-ates a party name and assigns people to the following positions; Party Leader, Treas-urer, Minister for English, Minister for Mathematics, Minister for The Arts, Minister for The Environment and Minister for Physical Education. In class, the Ministers for-mulate policies for their areas (plan their lessons), create a budget and create a campaign launch (present their policies). Then, they have an election day. The class-room is set up like a polling venue and the students come in and vote for the party they would like to govern their day. This is a preferential vote to teach the students about our voting system. On self-governing day, the successful party runs their les-sons on the day. Parent Information Sessions We will be holding Parent Information Sessions on Monday 18 December at 6.00pm in the Library and also on Wednesday 20 December at 9am (not on Monday 18 at 9.00am as previously advertised). Please feel free to come along and ask any questions you may have regarding 2018 and beyond. Afternoon tea to farewell Mr Rothwell Our parent community are invited to say farewell to Chatham’s long serving teacher and Principal Mr Stephen Rothwell. Mr Rothwell has served our school for just on 17 years and our parent community and students have an opportunity to farewell him on Friday 15 December. There will be an afternoon tea for parents in the library from 1.30pm which will be followed by an assembly at 2.30pm where the students will say farewell. All members of our community are invited to attend both the afternoon tea and the assembly. Final 2017 Assembly Our final assembly will be held on Friday, 22nd December from 12.30pm – 1.30pm. Our end of year assembly is tra-ditionally a celebration of our Year 6 students, where they perform their graduation song and the whole school has an opportunity to wish them well as they embark on the next stage of their educational journey. At the conclusion of assembly, Year 6 students will exit the hall and receive our traditional Guard of Honour around the paths at the front of the school. The ringing of the school bell will signal the conclusion of the 2017 school year! All students will be dismissed at 1.30pm on this day. 2018 Start of School Key Dates Teaching staff return to work (officially) on Monday 29th January for one day of professional learning. All students in Years 1 – Year 6 commence school on Tuesday 30th January. Our Foundation students commence on Wednesday 31st January and finish at 12.30pm on this day.

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How to grow children into leaders I came across this article which I thought was worth consideration. I hope you find it interesting. If you believe as I do, that leaders are made, not born then the way we raise our kids has a massive impact on their leadership potential. Here are seven ways you can foster, rather than inhibit your child’s or young person’s leadership potential: 1. Allow children and young people to experience risk Currently our community is risk adverse when it comes to our children. It’s a parent’s job to protect our children and young people but that doesn’t mean we completely insulate them from risk-taking behaviour. One European study found that if children don’t play outside and have never experienced skinned knees and other small hurts, they frequently develop phobias as adults. Just as young children need to learn to fail a few times to learn it’s nor-mal, teenagers need to experience some friendship break-ups along the way to appreciate the maturity that real relationships require. When we remove risk we increase children’s dependence on others, which is the antithesis of strong leadership. 2. Give children a chance to solve their own problems If your teenager forgot a sports uniform would you take it to school if you were able? If so, you’d be inhibiting their resourcefulness by solving their problems or, alternatively, not allowing them to cope with inconvenience. Flexibil-ity, coping skills and resourcefulness are trademarks of good leadership in both adults and young people. 3. Be realistic with praise Praise and feedback should be realistic and given sensitively whenever children or young people do something well. Young people generally learn at some stage that their parents are the only people who think they’re awe-some, which can come as a rude shock when they hit the real world of the workforce. 4. Expect them to earn the right A common trait among many children and young people is their strong and increasingly, false sense of entitlement. That is, many children expect they have a right to (pick any of the following and feel free to add to the list): go where they want; use their mobile phone whenever they want; play in the living room without cleaning up. Alter-natively, we can insist that children and young people earn their rights through hard work, responsible behaviour and being cooperative. Learning that a right needs to be earned, rather than something that’s simply handed out to you, is a valuable lesson for an aspiring leader in any field of endeavour. 5. Focus on character Currently as a community we neglect character at the expense of personality. In this current era of reality TV and social media it’s not hard to get fifteen minutes of fame whereas in the past your spot in the limelight needed to be earned usually be applying yourself to a sporting, artistic or other endeavour. It’s quite a turnaround. However, character strengths such as grit, conscientiousness and reliability rather than personality traits consistently appear in discussions about leadership. Parents can actively promote their character strengths of children and young peo-ple in many ways - including focusing on character in conversations; sharing stories where character paid off for them in their lives; and using every day examples of how character leads to success Focusing on the above strategies won’t necessarily mean that your child will hold a leadership position in primary or secondary school. There are many factors involved in holding a school leadership position and being made of the right stuff is just one of them. But the qualities and traits we nurture in children and young people today will mani-fest in our future community, sporting and business leaders. That’s why great parenting matters. With the upcoming announcement of classes and teachers for 2018 there will be a range of emotions, as there is every year. For some students the world will have fallen in because they didn’t get their favourite friend or there will be wild celebrations because they got their favourite teacher. Whatever your child’s reaction, one thing is cer-tain, your children will be looking to you for a response to see how you react. With the above article in mind, I en-courage all parents to consider how they will use this moment as a learning and character building opportunity. Have a great weekend!

Rod McKinlay Acting Principal

Dates for the diary Friday 15th December farewell afternoon tea for Stephen Rothwell @ 1:30pm Farewell assembly @2:30pm Monday 18th December Prep and Year 2 Circus Skills School Council Meeting Tuesday 19th December Year 6 Big Day out to MSAC End of year Class Parties—Prep to Year 5 Wednesday 20th December Visits to 2018 classrooms Reports sent home Thursday 21st December Year 6 Graduation Friday 22nd December Year 6 breakfast Last day of term 4 for students—1:30pm finish Monday 29th January teachers return to school Tuesday 30th January Year 1 to 6 Students commence Wednesday 31st January 2018 Prep students commence Tears and Cheers 9:15am at 10 Benson st surrey hills Monday 5th February Year 6 Camp Friday 9th February Year 6 Camp returns

MESSAGE FROM DAWN GALE Thank you to the piano students at Chatham for giving me a wonderful farewell during recess last week. You have given me such wonderful support, kind words, amazing presents and gifts that have left me feeling humbled and overwhelmed. Many thanks for the $100 Rays Camping voucher that I know will come in very handy. I am planning to take a break for 6 months and then see what my options are as to returning to piano teaching. My sixteen years at Chatham have allowed me to expand my teaching skills and work with students with varying backgrounds and personalities. Working one to one with your children has been a privilege. I am leaving with fond memories of my time at your school and would like to thank Mrs Doherty for all her help. I encourage you to continue with piano lessons and keep practising. No one has ever got to old age and said “ I wish I had never learned music”. My best wishes for a Happy Christmas. Dawn Gale

The Victorian State Schools Spectacular! The Channel 7 broadcast of the Victorian State Schools Spectacular will be on this Saturday 16 December 2017 at 7pm. The two-hour broadcast will feature highlights from the live performances as well as be-hind-the-scenes footage and interviews. Tune in from 7pm to 9pm to catch all the action and relive the Spectacular memories. The show will also be simulcast via live streaming on the PLUS7 app and be available on the PLUS7 catch-up website for 30 days from the broadcast date. How exciting! Jayne Setford

GINGERBREAD HOUSES Thank you to all of our volunteers who helped make the 2017 Chatham Gingerbread Day a big sugar-filled success! Thanks to Bec, Julie, Dani, Jasmine, Mary-Anne, Marita, Na-dia, Marco and girls, Susie and Sarah, Mrs Kelly, Steph, Emily, Bev and Sue and all the extra volunteers on the night who helped pack up! And thanks, of course, to the beautiful Chat-ham community for coming along and enjoying Christmas with us! Bring on 2018! From your Gingerbread Elves, Lorin and Becky

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