Compass No. 576 June 2020

The following prayer is an apt one for the end of this term. This term has been unlike any other before. We have been stretched, tested and challenged in ways we have not experienced before. For some families, the challenges continue. However, through it all, God is with us, teaching us to trust in Him and His promises that He has not left us alone. Like the Old Testament character Abraham, we are being called to go out into a new world, a new place, with faith in Jesus. The Lord had said to Abram: “Go from your country, your people, and your father’s household, to the land I will show you.” (Genesis 12: 1)

Teach us to believe,
Author and Finisher of faith, Lord Jesus,
here in this promised land:

in rain, even when it is dry;
in day, even when it is night;
in health, even when we are sick;
in living, even when we are dying;
in joy, even when we are sorrowful.

For we do believe
you always are,
even when you don’t seem to be,
you come, even when we can’t see you.
It is enough to know
you always see us,
you always come.

That’s why we believe
all those other hopeful things
we mean when we say
We believe.

You, Lord Jesus,
are here.
This we do believe.

(Written by Aub Podlich)

Pastor Tim Jarick, College Pastor

Thank you to our community for their contributions to the Red Shield Appeal this week at such short notice. The amount of food items collected over a few days was phenomenal. The Salvation Army were once again blown away by the generosity of the Pacific community and the much-needed donations will support those in need in our local area. We collected more than 1800 individual non-perishable food items, with many families contributing loaded bags of groceries for the cause. Thank you to Year 11 student Holly Ubrihien who was a great driving force in getting this up and running. Holly advertised the event and also put together a community-based promotional video to raise awareness for the cause. It is great to see student initiative and action. In conjunction to the food collection, we also held a red themed casual clothes day on Tuesday. The donations from this totalled $1900 which was also gratefully accepted by the Salvation Army and will be put to good use in the community. Thank you to everyone for your contributions.

It has been a busy term but I appreciate the effort that Senior College students have put into their learning and the way that they have embraced change around the school yard. We have seen lots of changes to normal routines, including the way we structure our Pastoral Care Groups. It has been great to see staff and students adapt to the change and continue maintaining care for each other through an unusual time. There is plenty to look forward to in Term 3 for our Senior College. I hope that you all have a great holiday break, manage to get some rest and I look forward to seeing everyone back at the start of Term 3.

Mr Mark Hauser, Head of Senior College Students

This famous quote by Shakespeare captures the essence of how events or happenings can at times, be overpowered by our view of events. Obviously, the actions of others cannot be controlled by us as individuals, but how we react to them is most certainly within our realm of control.

As part of the You Can Do It program, emotional resilience helps children to recognise that we have the opportunity to shape how we encounter events, words and actions.

Various brain researchers have shown us that by the age of 6-8 years old, children have developed the ability to think rationally about demanding and threatening events. By thinking logically and forming conclusions and predictions that are true, we begin to think about the ways in which we can promote helpful and healthy emotions and behaviours. With the force of such rational thought, comes emotional control and relief.

At the last two assemblies, we have examined two of these tools associated with emotional regulation, the Emotional Thermometer and the Catastrophe Scale. Both resources provide a visual cue to recognise the strength of our emotions and how events or actions can be identified in terms of significance. Changes in emotional state, be that anger, anxiety or happiness, are all offset by physical and mental changes. When recognising these signs that our bodies provide, we are more inclined to focus our emotions and channel the rational component of our thought process. These tools help our students by providing an alternative to pessimistic or irrational ways of thinking and enable us to focus on more positive and optimistic reasoning.

Thank You

When COVID-19 became our reality this year, along with it came the notion of the ‘pivot’. Everyone was required to pivot as our normal was changed dramatically. The way our students, staff and families have adapted to such a challenging time has been extraordinary. Our students have shown incredible resilience and persistence when engaging with online learning and keeping social connections open. Faced with putting our whole curriculum online, our teaching and support staff needed to be continually flexible in their methods and structure. As a result, we are well placed to continue to embed the positive lessons that arose from our continuous learning. Finally, a huge thank you to our P-5 community. Your ongoing support has been greatly appreciated. Changes to drop off, collection and communication haven’t been easy and we thank you for the way in which the choices made by the College have been supported by the wider community. We wish you a restful holiday and look forward to welcoming back everyone next term. 

Take care and God bless.

Mr Damian Davis, Head of Staff and Students P-5

Life has always had a way of throwing out-of-the-blue curve balls. Globally, the year 2020 is one that will not be easily forgotten by us or by history (and, we’re not even halfway through the year yet!). For many people, the insecurity caused by the continued shifting landscape is generating new feelings of anxiety or fear, or amplifying existing ones.

Thank goodness for Gratitude; a simple, proven activity to help manage emotions and shift our attitude. Practising gratitude is an easy and effective way to help develop positive emotions, feel more hopeful and build more optimistic expectations for the future.

Learn more at: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/.

Mrs Annie Williams, College Counsellor

COVID-19 hasn’t stopped universities running open day events this year – it’s just forced them to be creative regarding how they run them! I encourage all Senior College students and parents to consider attending as many of these events as you can, to get a feel for the different universities and get some of your questions answered about courses and university life. This year offers students and parents a unique opportunity to get to know universities outside our SEQ region and maybe think about going further afield for university study in the future.

The list below is a selection of virtual open day events that are currently confirmed. There is a link for each that will take you to a web page where you can register for updates as programs are finalised. Details on virtual events at other major universities are not yet available.

• USC – 19th July from 9.30am – 12.30pm https://www.usc.edu.au/open-day
• CQU – 1st and 15th August from 10.00am – 1.00pm https://www.cqu.edu.au/
• UQ – 2nd August from 9.00am – 3.00pm https://future-students.uq.edu.au
• RMIT (Melbourne) – 8th and 9th August http://www.rmit.edu.au/openday
• ANU (Canberra) – 22nd August https://www.anu.edu.au/
• QUT – 29th and 30th August https://www.qut.edu.au
• USQ – 5th September https://my.usq.edu.au/

Griffith University School Holiday Q&A

Griffith University is hosting 30-minute, personalised Q&A sessions for Year 12 students and parents over the school holidays. Study advisors will assist students who are progressing decisions around career goals and study destinations post high school.

These Q&A sessions will provide an opportunity for students to get their more detailed questions answered in a personalised setting and will include information on:

• Subject pre-requisites and alternative pathways to Griffith
• Degree information
• How to apply
• Getting the most out of QTAC preferencing

To book a Q&A session, visit: https://www.griffith.edu.au/year12-qanda.

EducationUSA Virtual Week – 6th – 10th July

EducationUSA will be hosting a week-long series of virtual webinars in collaboration with United States universities. Students can hear directly from university admissions staff on a variety of topics including researching student options, completing a university application, sport scholarships, Arts programs, STEM program and much more.

Click here for more information. Students can register at: https://edusavirtualweek.eventbrite.com.au.

Individual webinar information can be found in the events section of EducationUSA’s Facebook page. The webinars will also be broadcast via Facebook Live!

Mrs Wanda Hayes, Head of Career Development

The sound of shoes pounding the pavement have eased with the completion of the Interhouse Virtual Cross-Country competition last Friday. It was wonderful seeing so many students engage in this activity and it was pleasing to witness students’ levels of fitness increase over the three weeks.

As a whole College, students were able to run an amazing 7823.93km during the 19 days. This would have allowed our students to run from PLC up to Cairns, across the Northern Territory to Karratha in Western Australian and then all the way down the coastline to Margaret River.

It was great to have a number of students reach year level distance milestones during the event. Congratulations to the students listed here. A special mention to Liam Russell and Cody McMackin who were the only students across P-12 who ran their maximum kilometres per day every day of the challenge.

The final results were as follows:

Virtual Surfing Challenge

Our inaugural Pacific Pulse Virtual Surfing Challenge begins this Friday 26th June and runs until Friday 31st July. Students who wish to enter need to register their interest by Friday in order to receive a CareMonkey consent form. Please email Mr Hooper at dhooper@pacluth.qld.edu.au to register.

Contest Details

Competitors have five weeks to submit video footage of their two best waves surfed or bodyboarded during this time for judging. There is also a filming and editing section open to students who may not surf but film and edit their friends during the challenge.

Further details about the video submission format will be included in the CareMonkey permission and information email.

Your entries will be judged by our guest panel:

• Surfing – Reef Heazlewood (Hurley Team Rider and Current WQS and WCT surfer) and Tim Just (Fluid Performance Surf Coach).
• Bodyboarding – Michael ‘Eppo’ Eppelstun (1993 World Bodyboarding champion and inventor of the ARS manoeuvre) and Jake Stone (two time Australian Bodyboarding Champion and creator of the ‘Stone Flip’ manoeuvre).

K3 Coaching Camps - July

Mr Darren Hooper, Head of Sport

Pastor Ray Morris 0429 856 532 ray.morris@lca.org.au www.stmarkslutherancaloundra.net

Pastor Ray, St Mark's Lutheran Church