Dear Families,

Thank you to the parents who attended our Student Wellbeing parent night with Georgina Manning from Wellbeing for Kids last week. Georgina provided some practical and useful tools for building confidence and resilience, with an emphasis on how best to support the development of self-efficacy and problem-solving skills in children. Last Friday as part of our Staff Retreat, Georgina facilitated a valuable session for our whole staff on supporting students with anxiety using research and evidence-based strategies. In a post-lockdown world, we along we other schools have seen an increase in the number of student presenting with anxiety.

Anxiety is a normal feeling people experience when faced with threat or danger, or when stressed. Most people including children feel anxious at times and this is perfectly normal. Anxiety presents itself in 3 ways; behaviour, thoughts and feelings. When children experience anxiety they may experience some of the following:

Anxious Behaviors

Anxious Thoughts

Anxious Feelings

Difficulty sleeping

Restlessness

Fast heartbeat

Sweating

Headache

Nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea

Tense muscles

Difficulty breathing

Not being able to think clearly or concentrate

Perceptions of threat or danger appear greater than they are

Excessive worry, or ‘catastrophising’, about life circumstances that have no factual or logical basis

Recurrent and persistent intrusive ideas and thoughts

Feeling anxious or tense

Irritability, uneasiness

Feeling ‘out of control’

Fear that something dreadful is going to occur

Feeling dizzy, unsteady, light-headed or faint

Feeling upset and uncomfortable

We all experience anxiety at some time during our lives when we are faced with difficulties, faced with challenges, or when we are feeling out of our comfort zone. Some children experience anxiety over everyday life activities and this can be incredibly draining and take the fun out of life. Although feeling anxious from time to time is normal for children, extra support may be needed when:

Children feel anxious more than other children of their age and year level and talk about their worries a lot
Anxiety stops them from participating in activities at school or socially
It interferes with their ability to do things that other children their age do easily
Children find it hard to separate from parents
Children are afraid to take healthy risks and have a go at new things.
Children need a lot of reassurance before beginning tasks or socialising
There is a need for perfectionism particularly with academic tasks
There are ongoing physical symptoms such as an upset tummy and headaches.

At St. Mary's, we have a number of programs available to support students at all levels of the school, both within the everyday classroom environment and for smaller, more targetted groups or individual students. Daily mindfulness practice is a feature throughout each day across every classroom from Prep-Year Six. All students in Prep participate in 'Peaceful Preps' in small groups with Mrs M during the year. The Peaceful Kids program targets students in Years 1-6 who benefit from a more targetted small group focus to support them in managing worries and anxiety and to develop positive coping strategies. Mrs M also works with small groups of students for ELVA sessions (Emotional Literacy through the Arts) supporting their wellbeing. If you would like to know more about these programs or have any questions regarding your child, please do not hesitate to speak to your child's class teacher, to Nathan Eddy our Student Wellbeing Leader or Daliah McLoughney (Mrs M) our Wellbeing Teacher.

Another area of student wellbeing that is increasing in prominence is technology.

St Mary's is offering four free webinars for parents that are aimed at supporting parents to Promote healthy and safe digital habits at home. Parents will have access to four live and on-demand cyber safety webinars throughout 2023 which cover topics such as creating a safe online environment at home, navigating social media, healthy gaming habits, and finding a balance with screen time. You can find more information about these free webinars further in this newsletter.

This week our Year Six leaders commenced a six-week Intergenerational Project connecting and engaging our young leaders with elderly members of our local community. Our Year 6 Social Justice Leaders and Friendship Leaders along with Mrs. Whatmore, took the Hampton community bus to Highett Neighbourhood House for the first session of this exciting project, which is in partnership with the Hampton-Highett Community Centres.

Our senior students have also been engaging with the local community through a number of Kindergarten visits in the past month. This week a group of Year Five students visited Hampton Community Kindergarten and another group to Holy Trinity Kindergarten earlier this month. This has been the first step towards our Year Fives having their own Prep buddies, who they will meet as part of our Prep Orientation Program later in the year, developing their leadership skills. Children from both kindergartens will also be visiting St Mary's over the coming weeks for a morning in the Prep classrooms with Miss Podgorska, Miss Walker and Mrs. M.

Next week, I will be attending the South Central Principal's Conference in Darwin, along with other Catholic Primary School Principals in the South Central Network. The aim of the conference is to learn about the culture and traditions of the Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory; explore ways in which schools can work collaboratively with Indigenous communities to provide culturally responsive education that acknowledges and respects Indigenous knowledge and ways of learning and; to build relationships with Indigenous community members and leaders, and to understand how schools can support their efforts to maintain and celebrate their cultural heritage. Nathan Eddy will be Acting Principal in my absence.

Matthew Sweeney

Principal

principal@smhampton.catholic.edu.au

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