Curriculum- Teaching and Learning

School Wide Teaching and Learning

In each edition of our school newsletter, we share with our community an insight into the curriculum being taught within our classrooms. This reflects our school's strong focus upon continuous improvement. 

Each edition covers a different area of the curriculum, and is supported by our school-wide approaches to teaching and learning. 

In this edition we focus upon providing you an overview of what has been occurring across our English curriculum. 

John Monash Science School Immersion Program

This week we commenced our Term One John Monash Science School (JMSS) Immersion Program. The program involves 12 Year Six students attending JMSS throughout Term One to engage in VCE level Math, Science, and Coding concepts. In our next edition we look forward to hearing from some of our students taking part in the program. 

Yarra Valley Psychology is partnering with our school!

We are pleased to share with you that our school has secured a partnership with Yarra Valley Psychology (YVP) Services (https://yvp.com.au/), with the aim of providing in-school counselling services to students. 

Throughout schools across Victoria, student counselling is a much needed (and under resourced) service. Many of our families are currently experiencing first-hand the difficulties associated with trying to gain access to support services for their children. Therefore, we must be grateful that we have been presented with the opportunity to enter a partnership with YVP, as the resources do not exist for this partnership to occur across schools within our region. 

Please be aware of the information below:

Is there a cost involved to access the service, and does my child require a Mental Health Plan?

There is no cost involved for the family. 

Your child does not require a Mental Health Plan to access the service. This is due to the fact that the counselling sessions will be delivered by a Masters of Counselling practitioner, who is under the direct supervision of Yarra Valley Psychology (YVP) Services. 

There is also no limit on the number of sessions a child may access. Access to sessions, and duration (in weeks) will be determined between YVP, the school, and the parent/carer. 

When do sessions commence, and how will they be structured?

Sessions will commence from the beginning of Term Two, with student-needs being prioritized in partnership with the school and YVP. Prior to any child commencing, a confidential discussion will take place between the YVP counsellor and the parent/carer. 

Our school has been allocated a male counsellor (name TBC) who will conduct sessions each Wednesday for the entire duration of Term Two and Term Three. 

The counsellor will have the time allocation to see up to five students per day, with each session being allocated 50 minutes. At this stage sessions will be occurring each Wednesday. 

Will each child who is referred be able to access the service?

Unfortunately, this is not achievable within the current mental health environment. Referrals will be prioritized on a needs basis from within our own school cohort. 

If I wish for my child to access the service, what do I need to do?

Please complete the referral form below and return it via the instructions on the form. 

Let's TALK Program coming in 2022

Through our existing partnership with Yarra Valley Psychology, our school recently joined a Worksafe Funding Application to promote social-emotional welfare within workplaces and schools. 

As one of five educational organisations/schools we were part of a successful grant application, and will be launching this approach to creating 'safe' conversations in early 2022. 

The purpose of the program is to improve 'school connectedness' and to provide students and staff with a consistent and predictable approach to talking about mental health. A key component of the program is to train all staff, and to train 20 student mentors from Year Four - Year Six. 

Stay tuned for more information early in 2022.