The annual Mission Action Day Awards will be presented at the conclusion of the Founders Day Liturgy on Friday 12 May. Again this this year the response from students and the wider community has been excellent, with about $100,000 pledged. The Mission Action Day Awards acknowledge the extraordinary effort of individual students in obtaining sponsorship money.
The top 10 fundraisers will receive a Certificate of Commendation from College Principal, Mr Peter Houlihan. The highest individual fundraiser will be presented with the Ian Oliver Mission Action Day Award. Ian Oliver, who retired from the College in 2015, was a driving force behind the success of Mission Action Day over many years.
The College once again congratulates the efforts of all students. The money raised will support the many development projects and initiatives of the Lasallian Foundation in remote Australia and throughout Asia.
The annual Mission Action Day raffle will also be drawn at the assembly. Boys will be allocated a raffle ticket for each $50 increment they raised. The major prize is a $200 JB Hi Fi voucher, with a runner‐up prize of a $50 voucher for each campus.
There are a small number of students still in the process of collecting and returning their pledged sponsorship money. This money is now overdue and I ask boys to attend to this as soon as possible, so the Mission Action Day Fundraiser can be concluded.
Last week the College was placed into a precautionary semi‐lock down situation after a gas leak in Northbrook Avenue. Our procedures went smoothly with minimal disruption to the College.
The next emergency management drills will occur in the week commencing 15 May. Parents will be notified prior to the drill that it is occurring.
Parents please note the following changes this week.
Thursday 11 May — Due to the 2:00 pm Funeral of Mr Brian Coulthard, there were no classes in periods 5 and 6 for Year 7 — 12s. ACC sport for Year 7 and 8 students, the Unit 3 HPE excursion and the Year 10 History excursion proceeded as planned. Primary classes continued as normal and the College Administration remained open as normal.
Friday 12 May — Founders Day — Primary and Year 7 students will be dismissed at 12:30pm and Year 8 — 12 students at 1:00 pm. College Administration will close at 2:00 pm.
It is with great sadness that the community was informed recently of the passing of staff member, Brian Coulthard. Brian was a much loved and respected member of the De La Salle College family, and he will be remembered by staff and students for his dedication to his classes, his hard work and commitment to his students.
We have all been saddened by Brian’s death. We keep in our prayers Brian’s family, and in this time of grief and sorrow our community will come together in loving support for each other.
Vale Brian; in God’s eternal care.
The Enhancing Catholic School Identity survey assists us in better understanding how our Catholic Identity is expressed in work and practice here at De La Salle. Every four years, Catholic Education Melbourne (CEM) asks all Catholic Schools in the archdiocese of Melbourne to register and complete the online survey.
The Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium, (Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven), was commissioned by the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Ltd (CECV) to design a process, based on sound research, to accomplish the goal of understanding our current Catholic identity and where each Catholic School community might like to see it in the future. Completing the online survey is a key element in this process as it gathers responses from the parent community, students and staff.
Thank you to all families who took the time to complete the survey, to the teaching staff who took the time with the students in their Religious Education Classes to complete and to the College staff for their commitment to completing the survey last Monday during an afterschool Staff Seminar.
This Friday 12 May, we will be celebrating the feast of our founder St John Baptist De La Salle; a man who inspired others by his example to become men and women of prayer, and we celebrate the passion invoked within our Founder to commit to the service of the poor.
As a Lasallian family, the College community will gather and commence the day with mass that will celebrate the work and legacy of the founder, St. John Baptist de La Salle and all those who were inspired by him and followed in his footsteps. As a Lasallian community, we acknowledge that our Lasallian tradition, has opened our hearts to the power of prayer, being present to others and dedicating ourselves to the service of the poor and vulnerable.
St John Baptist de La Salle – Pray For Us!
It was a heartening to see the many students and families attend our first Community Mass for the year at St Mary’s in East Malvern. A particular thanks goes to the students for their actual involvement in the mass as well as the Senior School Leaders for their presence at the mass in support of the boys from the St Mary’s Parish.
Thank you also to Monsignor Stuart Hall and the St Mary’s parishioners for their welcome and sharing morning tea with us at the conclusion of mass.
We celebrate in the month of May, Mary and all mothers.
In the Church calendar, the month of May is traditionally dedicated to Our Lady, Mary the mother of Jesus. We remember, that Mary had the courage say ‘yes’ to God’s calling.
St John Baptist de La Salle, (Med 112.1).
Mary gave up everything she had known to enter into this new world that God put before her. She could have very easily refused God’s request to be the mother of Christ, but she took on the calling to be a ‘servant of the Lord’ and we ought to be inspired by her actions and recognise that we too, are called to answer Gods call, to be servants to one another through our work and day to day living and especially, to those in most need. And so as Mother’s Day approaches this Sunday, we think of and give thanks to all mothers or significant women who raised us, served, cared and loved us unconditionally, held us, fed us kissed away our pain and sacrificed so much for us.
We pray and ask God to bless all mothers today and especially on Mother’s Day.
Year 12 students interested in attending the 2017 Lasallian Youth Gathering please refer to the information documents communicated home or see Mrs Brogan.
We are very much looking forward to celebrating Founder’s Day on Friday. Behind the scenes, the Year 12 Student Leaders have booked food trucks and ice‐cream vans, negotiated council requirements and developed a program of activities for the day.
This year, the work of the Year 12 Student Leaders is underpinned by three guiding principles: ‘Brotherhood at Heart, Excellence in Mind and Service through Spirit.’ The leadership team’s active contribution to the community has sought to encourage student participation, develop stronger relationships and to foster a sense of Lasallian spirit and belonging.
All of the Year 12 Student Leaders have lived out the mission of these guiding principles in a spirit of service in the lead up to the day.
Please note, any student who is absent on Friday for Founder’s Day will need to have the absence supported by a medical certificate.
Longitudinal research by Gottman and colleagues (1996; 1997) has provided one of the more detailed descriptions of some of these different parenting styles and how they affect children’s emotion regulation and other aspects of development. Gottman et al. found that the way positive and negative emotions are managed and coached (a way of teaching children about emotions) by the parent was a crucial part of emotion socialisation. From detailed interviews, they concluded that parents have a personal theory about emotions, called a Meta‐emotion philosophy. This philosophy, which is shaped by the parent’s experiences in their family of origin and continues to be refined over their life, influences the beliefs and responses they have to their own and others’ emotions. For example, a parent who believes that anger is about loss of control and therefore suppresses angry emotions, may not be able to teach their child about optimal ways to understand and regulate anger, nor about how to resolve situations of conflict.
De La Salle College has recently joined SAM4Schools, a secure, online Risk and Compliance Management System that benefits schools and their providers of on‐site goods or services (POGS)/contractors.
SAM4Schools provides the framework for us to establish and maintain an up‐to‐date Compliance Register for every POGS and contractor that work with us. This has provided an additional safeguard and support for De La Salle to meet its workplace obligations and comply with current legislation, while providing our legal duty of care.
All students benefit from the opportunity to learn about and experience the arts. Studies of The Arts in its many forms – whether as a stand‐alone subject or integrated into the school curriculum – increasingly accept participation in The Arts as an essential part of achieving success in school, work and life. Importantly, students who are actively involved in The Arts also watch fewer hours of TV, participate in more community service and report less boredom at school.
I commend the talented musicians, performers, dancers and stage hands for a wonderful performance. We are indeed gifted with some incredibly brilliant staff who have, so generously, given of their artistic time and energy to support the production. I will be counting down the days until the next senior production.