Wellbeing Zone

Enter the Wellbeing Zone

Welcome to the Wellbeing Zone. When you enter the zone, you will find a wealth of information about all the things happening in the Wellbeing space at Sunshine Heights PS as well as strategies, articles, book recommendations and events that will help build our dream and culture of Wellbeing throughout our school community, inside and outside of school, so that we can sail together through a universe of possibilities with all the emotional and social skills we need to thrive. 

Oh, what a feeling! 

Dear Sunny Heights Family, 

How to summarise our first week of having some of our students return? I'd summarise it like this....

It has been such a strange feeling being in the school without the very thing that makes the school's heart beat - our students and the families - and while this term might still feel a bit strange and surreal as we slowly return to a new kind of normal, we will do everything within our power to reignite our community and get back to the great things that get us out of bed each morning. 

Naturally, with everything we have all experienced, none more so than our young people, our big focus in Term 4 will be on the students' wellbeing and social and emotional learning, ensuring that we rebuild our community, positive behaviours and connections, and that every single of our students, and families too, has the support they need in place to return to school safe, happy and healthy. 

If you have any concerns about your child's Wellbeing, don't forget I am just on the other end of the phone or an email. 

With love, 

Francine

<3

How to Support Your Child in Returning to School 

The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Melbourne recently presented a videoconference with an expert panel on helping Year F-2 children return to school. The panel included professors of medicine, developmental paediatric specialists, and an educational and developmental psychologist. Below are some take-aways from this session in relation to what parents and families can do to help prepare their children for returning to onsite learning. 

Home preparation is a key

• Chat to your child/ren about any concerns they have about returning to school, and things they are looking forward to at school. Any pressing concerns can be shared with teachers.
• Some children will find the mornings of returning to school exciting, but for others it may be worrying. Parents can be reassured that once the school routine is re-established, negative feelings will usually subside quite quickly. Each night over dinner for the first month back, families and parents can encourage each family member to share one or two good things that happened for them during the day.
• Families and parents can make or find keepsakes or small comfort toy for children who are anxious to take to school, such as, a photo of themselves with mum and/or dad or significant other, one or two gum leaves to smell, wrist band, popper, small car, footy cards or soft toy in their bag or pocket to share with others.
• Parents can help children to get used to wearing a mask at home in preparation for school. Make fun lips on a mask to wear on the first or second day.

There is also a wonderful resource, published by the Australian Psychological Foundation, which is full of great information and advice to help parents and caregivers to support their children in the transition back to school in the COVID-19 era. You can download the PDF below. 

And another great website to visit with lots of useful tips and strategies is 'All Play Learn', which has a great article on adapting to change! 

Turn Worry into Wonder

We know that many of our students might be feeling lots of worries and anxieties about returning to school. It’s normal for children to worry. But when the worries start to overwhelm them or cause physical symptoms, it can be more of a problem, which is why I thought I would share this fantastic strategy with you all! The wonderful people over at Big Life Journal have put together this great resource that parents can use to help them coach their children to turn worries on their head and into wonder. 

We can help our children break the cycle of worry by coaching them to turn their worries into wonders:

WORRY: "I’m worried that no one at school will like me."

WONDER: "I wonder if other children at school will like playing the games I like."

WORRY: "I’m so nervous about the game."

WONDER: "I wonder if I can improve compared to my last result."

This simple switch can make a huge difference!

While worries can reinforce the cycle of anxiety and produce MORE worries, wonders help interrupt that cycle of worry.

It puts a whole new spin on your child’s mindset.

Healthy Digital Habits

We know that lockdown and remote learning has meant that our young people has spent more time on their devices than ever before. We know that this can pose some great challenges when students begin to return to normality and onsite learning. Children may struggle with less screen time or have difficulties adjusting from online to onsite environments. Children may also take time to readjust to developing positive, healthy relationships with their peers after only engaging with one another in digital formats. 

As a school, we will be focusing on digital citizenship this term and helping build important skills and have important discussions with our students to help them readjust from the online world to the real world, reinforcing positive behaviours and healthy digital habits. 

If you're anything like me (the mother of a teenage boy), you might also need some support to re-establish healthy digital habits and routine as we transition back to onsite, face-to-face learning. Through the Wellbeing section of the newsletter, I will be sharing resources to help parents with this. 

Starting with this great article that contains some very useful information and support links, all about creating healthy digital habits - 

Need to reach me? 

To discuss anything Wellbeing related, feel free to contact me via email or the school phone number!