PRINCIPAL UPDATE 

It is great to be back, and I have loved getting around to classrooms, catching up with students, staff, and families in the yard.

I have been impressed with the number of students that have approached me and actively asked about my holiday, what was a highlight and welcomed me back.  This is a great attribute and showing maturity and interest in others.

My time away was fabulous. I have returned refreshed and ready for a busy and active term 3 and 4.  We have Student Led Conferences and Concert, along with House Activities and wellbeing afternoons in the coming weeks.

Last week we undertook our Friday afternoon of Wellbeing activities. Cathy Burns was lucky enough to arrange students from Matthew Flinders College to facilitate activities with the Grade 5 and 6 students at St Mary’s. This was a great afternoon.

Student Led Conference information went out last week. Although information presented could be confusing, we hope that families have booked appointment times and we look forward to seeing you next Tuesday afternoon/evening. The students have been working hard preparing for these.

Last Tuesday we held our Curriculum Day onsite with a focus on sensory friendly classroom environments.

We undertook some professional reading and listened to a presentation from Rivkie Berger, an Occupational Therapist who practices as a sensory coach.  Three key principles we unpacked were around ‘Understanding’, ‘Structure’ and ‘Environment’.  Our focus was to consider what we can control as educators in our classrooms and what changes we could make to our learning environments to make positive impacts on students. Please see Virginnia Gilham’s information in this newsletter.

To conclude our day Cathy Burns shared with us the work she is doing promoting wellbeing here at Chilwell. So many great initiatives having impact on our students.  From the effectively run lunchtime clubs, Project Art, run by Deb Fisher, whereby small groups are undertaking art projects with purpose.  Most recently creating bollards for an aged care facility in Geelong and creating a fabulous sensory board for our new sensory room. In addition to this we have the Story Dogs program in Grade 2 each Tuesday morning with Cocoa, the Life Skills group, and Project Connect, whereby a group of our students are being mentored by Year 8s and St Josephs.  They are embracing opportunities such as volunteering at Feed Me Geelong, undertaking activities in the Boardroom at Joeys, and next week giving the boys a tour of Chilwell.

Kind regards,

Meg