From the Principal
It’s been a couple of big weeks at Tangara for sport, debating, singing, music and other special events. It is such a privilege to share in the wonderful opportunities and talent that exist in our wonderful school.
Thank you and Farewell Mrs Chigwidden
This week we said thank you and farewell to Mrs Barbara Chigwidden who after 9 years of dedicated service to Tangara, takes up retirement. Mrs Chigwidden has worked tirelessly leading our Junior School and ensuring the holistic development of each child. She has been committed and dedicated to preserving Tangara’s Mission and Christian ethos, working not just to educate students, but to form young persons.
We wish Mrs Chigwidden all the best for the future. And though we are sad to say goodbye, we are also happy that the woman who has given so much to her family and our school, will now be able to enjoy some time pursuing some of her favourite hobbies or finding some new ones too. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi “There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in our hearts”.
Eucharistic Procession
What a special and memorable day. Our Eucharistic Procession was very moving. The weather was perfect, the flower girls were beautiful, the choir sang angelically and God's abundant graces were felt across the school. I was particularly touched by the Infants children watching in awe as our Lord processed in front of Jacaranda Cottage.
Thank you to everyone who assisted in the lead up to the day and on the day of the procession. Special thanks to Mrs Herrenberg and her team of parent helpers who coordinated the Eucharistic Procession, and our Chaplains who always serve us so generously. We have so much to be grateful for and we continue to ask God to look over and guide our school and all our families.
Feast of St Josemaria
Everyone is welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral for a Mass in honour of St Josemaría Escrivá on Friday 25 June at 7.30pm. St Josemaría’s message was simple, but radical: every single person can and should strive for holiness regardless of our state in life. He challenges us to use everyday, ordinary circumstances, at home, in the office, on the sporting field, at our desk or wherever we are, to strive for holiness and to draw others, through our personal example, into a personal relationship with God.
St Josemaría’s ideas shape Tangara’s distinctive identity today: the conviction that genuine education should be ‘all round’, including academic excellence and character development; the importance of one on-one care for every student, so that education is personal; and the irreplaceable role of parents in forming their children. Today we see how the Mentoring System is fundamental to Tangara’s mission: it facilitates the holistic development of each child, as well as a close partnership between the parents and the school. There are over 250 schools across the world like Tangara, inspired by this vision. I look forward to seeing many of you at St Mary’s Cathedral next Friday evening.
Athletics Carnival
We enjoyed glorious sunshine at our Athletics Carnival last Wednesday as well as the company of our parents who joined us on the day. It was great to see the girls participating, cheering and running some personal bests. The overall House winners and Age Champions will be announced at the Primary and Secondary School Assemblies in Term 3.
Cross Country
We congratulate Clare Tanna, who competed at the CIS Cross Country last week. She did our school proud, placing 25th out of 80 competitors. A great achievement!
Musical Evening
Last Friday night’s Recital Evening showcased the high level of talent that exists in our school. I could not contain myself from tapping along to some great 80’s hits. Congratulations to all our performers, and thank you to our parents who make many sacrifices driving their children to music lessons, and providing them with these enriching and valuable experiences. Many thanks also to our staff who devote so much of their time teaching and preparing our students.
Reports
During the holidays you will receive your child’s Semester One Report. Academic reports should always be used as an opportunity to help your child to grow in virtue by focusing on effort, not just on academic achievement. Focusing on intelligence is fixed but focusing on effort leads to growth and change, supporting a growth mindset, rather than a fixed mindset. Our aim at Tangara is to help our students to grow from year to year as this is the real measure of success. To do this, we encourage parents to work with their child, their child’s mentor and teacher(s) in setting measurable and achievable goals and to revisit these goals over the next six months during your termly mentor meetings. We strive to work in partnership with our parents to help every child achieve their personal best and to grow in virtue in doing so.
Annual Support for Tangara
Part of our 2021-2026 Strategic Plan is to develop a master plan, planning for Tangara’s future. We are so proud of what we have achieved in almost 40 years but we now need to plan for the next exciting phase of our school’s life. However, these projects are only possible through the generosity and sacrifice of parents as government funding is only available for a minor portion of these capital projects. I encourage you to respond to the email you received from the Pared Office early in June. I thank you in advance for your support and generosity.
Thank you!
Many thanks to all our students, parents and staff for all your efforts over the last six months. We have enjoyed many enriching experiences and I commend you for your continued commitment and support of our school community. Wishing you all a well deserved break.
From the Chaplain
This year we will celebrate the Feast day of St Josemaria during the holidays. We are going to miss the traditional international food fiesta, especially the churros!!
Below are some photos of the Eucharistic Procession. After days of rain, we had the gift of a beautiful sunny morning for our walk with Jesus around the campus.
I couldn’t stop thinking of how St Josemaria taught us the love for the Eucharist that we try to live here at Tangara. Let’s ask for his intercession to keep helping all the Tangara girls to grow in their love for Jesus in the Eucharist.
The annual Mass in honour of St Josemaria will be at St Mary's Cathedral on Friday 25 June, starting at 7.30pm. You are all invited to attend.
Mass of Saint Josemaria Escriva
The Eucharistic Procession at Tangara
Thank you to all the parents who so generously donated beautiful flowers for our Eucharistic Procession.
A special thank you to Mrs Bona Mapa and the mums and grandmothers who helped arrange all the flowers into beautiful creations.
St Juliana and the feast of Corpus Christi
In your book Question Time you mention briefly that Juliana of Cornillon had something to do with the feast of Corpus Christi. Do we know anything more about her and her role in the feast?
From the Infants School
From the Coordinator
The term is drawing to a close and students and staff are looking forward to the final events for the term. The highlight is the Eucharist Procession where students and parents alike have the opportunity to process with the Blessed Sacrament on the Feast of Corpus Christi around our beautiful school. A lovely way for us all to give public witness of our faith and devotion towards this sacrament. How blessed our students are to be able to share in this Eucharistic Procession! No doubt they can look forward to many blessings and graces in the future.
In PDHPE we cover health, wellbeing, relationships and movement skills (Sport). In Sport our focus this term has been on gymnastics and dance.
Sport is a crucial part of a student's growth and development, an opportunity to learn sportsmanship, team work and a how to be gracious winner or loser.
Sport helps in the development of mental health and physical fitness of the body. Participation in Sport can help build self-esteem and confidence, can motivate children to excel academically and can help build important social skills while also teaching children the benefits of goal-setting, patience and practice.
This term students have focused on building friendship in our core curriculum through our GIVE, Grow in Virtue Everyday, Motto. By reading stories like The Rainbow Fish and discussing such questions such as: why didn’t the Rainbow Fish want to play with the other fish, why didn’t he want to share any of his scales, how did it make the other fish feel when the Rainbow Fish wouldn’t play with them or share his scales and how did the Rainbow Fish feel when none of the other fish took any notice of him, students learn very important social skills. They learn to identify and describe different emotions. Students see characters who are happy, sad, anxious, excited, tired, angry or confused and learn skills to help them regulate their own emotions.
In his article Parenting for Emotionally Healthy Kids, Michael Grose speaks about how by paying attention to children’s emotions and responding positively, you lay the foundations for them to reach emotional maturity and to live healthy balanced lives. These are some of the ways that we have fostered our students’ growth spiritually, emotionally and physically and we look forward to continuing our students’ holistic growth in Term 3.
News from Kindergarten Silver
Kindergarten Silver have been working hard and having lots of fun this term!
The class puppet, Mr Phony Gram continues to visit them weekly with new and exciting two letter phonogram objects to explore. The children are getting very good at guessing the sounds of the week based on the objects left in the sound bag. Every Thursday, the class puppet Mrs Phony Gram leaves fun challenges for the children. Their favourite challenges include sorting the mixed sound objects, distinguishing between trash and treasure words, unscrambling sentences that the alien has left, turning the phonogram wheel to reveal a sound to explore and lots of fun phonogram crafts!
Every ten days they continue to enjoy their visits from Zero the Hero. He brings them fun math activities, and the children enjoy wearing their own Zero the Hero capes as they sing songs and complete their activities. The latest activity the children enjoyed with Zero the Hero was making fruit loop pattern necklaces and developing their addition skills in a fun craft activity.
The children continue to develop their skills in writing different text types. Lately, they have been enjoying studying and writing their very own procedures. The best part has been that most of the procedures have been about delicious food and experiments including fairy bread, Vegemite toast, magic milk and growing their own grass seedlings. The children are looking forward to experimenting with their living plant to see what it needs to stay alive.
In honour of Reconciliation week, the children enjoyed participating in an Acknowledgement of Country and reading Aboriginal dreamtime stories like the Rainbow Serpent.
Keep up the great work Kindergarten Silver. I am so proud of you.
Mrs James
From the Junior School
Natural Disasters in Science, in Year 5 Rust
Alessandra has written a poem about a Cyclone.
Cyclone….
I peer out the glass panel to take a look,
I stumble onto the floorboards as the ground shook.
The grey mist, was swallowing the sky,
As the whistling winds make a screeching cry.
In the horizon , all I could see was a twirling cloud coming for me,
It was as loud as a lion's roar, this was simply a sound no one had ever heard before.
The mist starts to stray, as the bewildering noises fade away,
Will this horror arrive again?
I guess we'll have to wait till’ then.
Suddenly the leave bearing trees, become empty and twirl around.
There were preposterous craters in the obliterated ground.
WHOOSH! I’m twirling into the sky.
I look down, I’m up so very high.
‘Where am I?” I start to scream,
It’s so scary, is it a dream?
I am catapulted back down, flying so very fast,
I collide into the lush, green grass.
I look up and what I see is now so very clear,
It’s a cyclone , twirling , coming over here!
Anna has written a Descriptive Text about the volcano eruption of Mount Vesuvius
I hear screams, and the roaring of this careless, raging beast which causes destruction with anything in its path. Smoke, ash every-where. People are running as fast as a cheetah but they are as slow as a sloth against this raging monster! The lava burns anything in its path; turning people into stone. It's as sly as a fox, creeping up and destroying anything in its path. Will my life be the same again? This monster is causing devastation to all. The fire balls crying ash and smoke, embers steaming down the sky causing non stop ranging monster fires. My life changed forever!
Year 6 Design a new playground for Tangara
As part of our Science and Technology unit about properties of materials, the girls in Year 6 have audited the existing play equipment at Tangara and designed an alternate safe, durable area thinking carefully about the properties of the materials chosen. They had to measure the current space and consider how the proposed materials will be sustainable.
GIVE
The Virtue Focus in the Junior School is CLEAN HEART.
I have a Clean Heart when I:
- Treat people with gentleness
- Take care of my body
- Take care of other people's body and their privacy
- Am in control of my hands and eyes
- Set boundaries around my right to privacy
Farewell Mrs Chigwidden
How grateful we are to Mrs Chigwidden for all she has done for us over the years.
The Junior School took part in a collaborative artwork which was presented to Mrs Chigwidden's at her Special Assembly.
Every child added their fingerprint to form a heart shape to remind her of how many people she has helped and guided over her years at Tangara.
The Infants Children recited a special poem:
A Shining Star is what you are
Imitate the sky
And after all we have learned from You
It's not surprising why
Reading, writing, WRAP, Maths
And Religion too,
Spelling, GIVE and so much more
will always follow you
Let laughter, love and friendship
And happy memories made
Find a way onto your face
On any rainy day
And if you ever lose your way
Just cast your eyes above
Because a Shining Star is what you are
An example of God's love
Thank you Mrs Chigwidden. We will always be grateful to you.
From the Secondary School
Taste the Difference in Business Studies by Natalie
On Friday 14 May, the Year 11 Business Studies class engaged in a hands-on afternoon of trying different flavours of Coca Cola and determining if they differed in taste. We are currently studying the Business Management module and learning about the different approaches businesses take in selling products. Quite frequently in class, we apply the knowledge we have learnt to relevant case studies, which help in understanding the content. The day earlier in class, we learnt that every business follows the marketing concept approach, which is a philosophy that states that all sections of a company are involved in satisfying a customer’s needs. We then took the case study of Coca-Cola and learnt that the different flavours are designed to appeal to different groups in society, and their packing achieves this. Our class debated whether the flavours of coke differed in taste and were quite divided in our opinions. To finally decide if the flavours were different, Mrs Sahni organised samples of Coke Zero, Diet Coke and Coke Classic on different desks of the classroom. We each had a sticky note and attempted to determine which flavour we assumed each sample to be. After completing this process, Mrs Sahni allowed us to discuss our results and justify why we chose each option, and we also recorded our results on the whiteboard. We all had opposing opinions, and after justifying our choices to each other, Mrs Sahni revealed which flavour was which. Alessi, Sophia, Annabel and I were elated to have discovered our options were correct, as Mrs Sahni awarded each of us a sticker.
This activity was an excellent way to break away from the traditional learning methods and was rewarding after a long week of studying and working on assessments. This activity proved to be an example of how Business Studies enables us to bring real-life examples into our class lessons. We look forward to engaging in other practical learning methods, such as role-plays, debates and possible future excursions.
Creative and Performing Arts
Sports
HZSA Primary and Secondary Cross Country Carnival
AICES Cross Country Carnival
AICES 15s Touch Football
Match ReportUner 11s Netball
Sunny, cold, winter morning, 9.20am - instead of being rugged up at home, the girls have started their warm ups. Our U11s have been working hard. This week we played St Michael's and it was great to see the girls improving with each game, especially as many have not played netball before.
At half-time Tangara was up 4-0. Special mention to Maya, Alannah and Rachel at defense. The girls extended their lead to 7-0 in the third quarter with Ava, Naomi, Joy, Nada and Lillian playing well all around. Final quarter saw St Michael chase down our lead. At the end our U11s won 11-9. Well done to Sophie T. who shot 8 of our goals.
Aileen B
U11s coach
From the Library
Mother/Daughter Reading
Thanks you to all the mums who signed up for Mother/Daughter reading over the holidays. We have had over 50 families take up the challenge! The books will be loaned out to your daughters and sent home on Thursday next week.
Please note we have had to close off the event to further participants as we have run out of duplicate books!
Primary Reading Challenge - Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds
Every year, the Library runs a Reading Challenge for Years 2-6 which ties in with the Book Week theme for the year. This year's theme is "Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds". All students in Years 2-6 are being asked to read five Historical Fiction books (Old Worlds), five Science Fiction books (New Worlds) and five Fantasy fiction books (Other Worlds). The challenge will run until Friday 20 August next term, which is just before Book Week commences. You can find the form the girls have been given to complete here.
Please encourage your girls to read during the holidays. Girls who read all 15 books will receive a prize.
Overdue Books
Final overdue notices have been emailed to students and their parents with books still outstanding from last term. Items not returned by Tuesday 15 June will be regarded as lost and the replacement cost plus a $5 processing fees per item will be added to next terms school fees. We would be grateful if you could assist your child in locating the item/s and returning ASAP.
Speed Dating with a Book
Over the last couple of weeks, all English classes from Years 7-10 have spent a lesson in the Library, "speed dating" with a book. The girls had 3 minutes to spend "getting to know" each book before indicating what they thought of it. This is a great way to expose the girls to a broad range of literature, and hopefully they discovered new books to love!
General Notices
Please support your school
2022 will be the 40th anniversary of the commencement of the PARED Schools! Each of our schools over the last 12 months has been revising its masterplan and wishes to build and improve facilities to further enhance learning spaces and sports facilities for your children. These projects are only possible at independent schools like ours through the generosity and sacrifice of parents as government funding is only available for a minor portion of these capital projects. We will need additional funds.
This link allows you to nominate the school(s) you wish to contribute towards. All donations are 100% tax deductible. We wish to build on the generosity of parents at the PARED Schools since 1982 and to build for the coming third generation.
Regards,
Gary Doherty
Chairman
The Pared Foundation
Episode 16 on The Parent-Teacher Project
Listen to this week's episode by visiting pared.edu.au/theparentteacherproject or searching 'The Parent-Teacher Project' on any podcast platform!