Term 3 Week 1 - Thursday 24th July 2025
News From The Principal
Despite the impact of difficult Sydney traffic yesterday morning, Term 3 started well for students. Your daughters look to be well-rested and ready to embark on another term of learning and participation at school. We thank you for trusting us with their education as we enter the second half of the year.
Some Thoughts About Student Resilience
In the last couple of years we have noticed that students might have a level of distress when things are difficult for them, or when something unexpected happens during the school day. For instance, a student sometimes imagines she is in trouble when a teacher asks her to do something unusual, such as help to tidy a classroom rather than simply pitch in and get the job done, or she might react with distress if she receives a result in a learning task that is not as high as she might have hoped rather than consider how she might apply her teacher’s feedback to improve, or she might get upset if she has forgotten to bring something she needed to school rather than accept that there might be a consequence that will help her to remember next time.
Whilst distress is normal, we want students to develop resilience in the ways they manage situations that cause them to get upset too quickly. Resilience is something a young person can learn by taking an approach that reminds them to react positively, to look for clarity, to consider the options, and to solve the problem in this way. It is developed through experience, and trial and error, and it is safe for them to experiment with how a problem may be solved. In education theory, there is a concept called ‘the zone of confusion’, where things might be difficult to understand, and this is okay: coming through the confusion is when the learning happens. At Catherine McAuley, we have also talked about ‘the learning pit’ in this way. Whilst these theoretical concepts apply to academic learning, they can also apply to social and emotional learning.
We know that strong wellbeing, for young people and adults alike, develops when we have the ability to sit with struggle and when we have strategies to overcome adversity; this gives us emotional flexibility. These skills allow us to function well, to connect to others, and they give us the capacity to be available to ourselves and to others. Resilience is an important disposition for each of us to have, and young people need to have the opportunity and the space to develop it.
As parents, it is always tempting to respond on a young person’s behalf because we don’t want to see them upset. However, I would like to propose to you that there may be times when it is best for your daughter’s learning to give her the space, with your support, to solve problems independently. If she needs further support, she should talk to her teacher specifically as a step to address relevant concerns. If a resolution cannot be found, then of course you are welcome to contact her teacher, but to help her to learn the resilience needed for her adult life, it is good for her to grapple with the best ways to move forward when something tricky happens.
Mary Refalo
Principal
Pray With Us
Need To Know
Upcoming Fortnight
Term 3 Week 2
- Year 11 2026 Subject Information Evening
- Years 7 & 10 Vaccination Program Catch Up - Tuesday 29th July
- Catherine McAuley Hosting Japanese School
Term 3 Week 3
- NAIDOC Week
- Parents and Carers Group Meeting - Tuesday 5th August
- Years 9 & 10 2026 Subject Talks
- Year 10 RYDA Excursion
News Articles
Our School on Social Media
Follow Catherine McAuley Westmead on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for regular updates. A recent post is shown below:
Year 12 Chemistry students attended The University of Sydney Chemistry Kickstart Program at the end of last term.
In the words of their teacher Mrs Manoogian, “The students worked through different spectroscopy techniques such as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy, Infrared Spectroscopy, Mass Spectrometry and UV-Visible Spectrophotometry, to investigate the interaction between matter and electromagnetic radiation of all different wavelengths. The students learnt how these instruments are operated and used them to analyse different organic compounds.”
Sounds complicated! This program was a wonderful opportunity for the HSC Chemistry students to continue their study and preparation for the HSC.
