Wellbeing and Community Engagement
Patrick Halpin
Assistant Principal
The Self-Driven Child
I recently came across an article, in which Gareth Cook interviews the authors of a recently published book, ‘The Self-Driven Child.’ In the book, William Stixrud and Ned Johnson examine the importance of giving children control over their lives. Lack of control has shown to be one of the most stressful things that people can experience. This, in part, is due to the high number of scheduled activities children are engaging in. In the 1960s, children spent most of their Saturdays playing and chose their own games and how to play them. This lack of autonomy has been identified as one reason for higher levels of anxiety reported by children today.
The authors also identify a lack of sleep as a contributing factor. As we know, primary school aged children should be getting between 9 and 11 hours of sleep per night. If a child is tired at school, they are less able to cope with challenges and are more likely to experience frustration. Children cannot learn at school if they are tired. Parents are encouraged to promote rest – many of the parents who participated in the study rush in to fill every free hour that their child has. To combat this, the authors introduced ‘Radical Digital Downtime’ – no digital devices!
“Those times of mind-wandering (some call it boredom) activate neural circuits in the Default Mode Network, a system that involves reflecting on the past and projecting into the future, processing life.”
I recommend this article to all parents – it’s an easy read with some good tips to enhance the wellbeing and resilience of your child.
Drinks on the Green
The Kingswood Newsletter - Issue Two
Thank you to everybody who attended the Drinks on the Green this week. It was a great opportunity to chat in an informal setting.
We are always looking for ways to engage our community so we invite everybody to attend our Community Engagement Taskforce Meeting on Monday, March 5th in the staffroom. At the meeting, we will discuss our plans for 2018 and gather ideas on how we can further engage the community. Please email me if you can make it.
Shake and Wake
Thank you to everybody who joined us for Shake and Wake this week. The students were very excited about performing the Chicken Dance, Hokey Pokey and Macarena! We will join together every Wednesday morning from 8:45am – if anybody has any good ideas for new dances, please let us know.
If anybody has a special interest in student wellbeing and would like to join our team, please contact Miss Bennett – we have lots of fun activities planned for this year and would love your input.
Snapshot Survey
Thank you to the 253 individual families who responded to our last survey. As published via compass last week, 72% of families endorsed the proposed fundraising levy of $100.
The money raised from the levy will be used to purchase and install new bubble taps. The number of bubble taps we can purchase will depend on how many families contribute to the fundraising levy. New parents and visitors to our school often comment on the facilities that we have at Kingswood. These facilities are available to us, as a direct result of the fundraising efforts of parents in the past. The money the school receives from the government is not enough to maintain and improve our facilities, so we do hope that every family contributes to the levy.
Special Celebrations
At Kingswood Primary School, we engage our community in a number of ways and are grateful to everybody who participates at any level. There are opportunities to attend events, join School Council, Parent Club and working parties, review policies, provide feedback on school events, volunteer in classrooms and on excursions, etc.
Last week, I ran two Classroom Helper Sessions and was absolutely delighted that over 70 people attended. If anybody missed out this time and would like to attend, please keep an eye on Compass early in Term 2 for the next training sessions. It is school policy that all classroom helpers attend at least once every 3 years.
In 2018, we would like to widen our community involvement by celebrating special events that are important to our families. We would love your help with this by completing our brief questionnaire.
We love showing our wider community the great things that happen at Kingswood Primary School. To see whats happening follow our
Instagram page kingswoodps
Facebook page @kingswoodps