Wellbeing

Wellbeing End of Term 1

We’ve had a busy term. We revamped our Teacher Wellbeing Resource Packs and had Professional Development with staff about setting up Positive Classrooms. THRIVE and Berry Street values, strategies and expected behaviours were explicitly taught. The curriculum was based on our THRIVE values and presented through specific lessons and activities in the diaries. Berry Street strategies were incorporated into everyday classroom life. These included Welcoming Circles, Gratitude discussions and Ready to Learn Scales.

The Wellbeing side of COMPASS was built by our team and we transferred over our student data. We built proformas relevant to our school to note many wellbeing areas. Our modified behaviour Management Chart had a stronger focus on catching students showing positive behaviours. These directly correlate with our THRIVE award system at assembly.

We’ve worked with many families to build Student Support Groups for their child so we can work as a team to accommodate their needs at school. We have ongoing meetings with these families for as long as we need to get their child engaged in school activities in a happy and safe manner. I work with most of the families with students requiring behaviour or attendance support. We find that working as a team, setting short term goals and getting to discover why the behaviours are occurring is an effective method. We can then engaged the relevant supports and build towards a positive outcome.

Some students require extensive support and we have a detailed process for that. Our Inclusion Leader (Sharna Dean-Wright) and Student Support Officer (Luana Lane) work diligently to build Disability Profiles for students needing aide support. It’s an extensive process to prepare the evidence showing all of the adaptations made in the 32 areas analysed. We’ve had a number of successful applications which has enabled us to build a larger aide support team. Our aides work on specialised programs with our funded students assisting them with behavioural and/or academic goals to integrate well into school. They go out into the yard for all of the break times to provide additional support in the yard. We are very lucky to have such a diligent group of aides.

As part of our Behaviour Management review we have looked closely at school rules we want to explicitly focus on. We strongly encouraged our students to be SunSmart as it was quite a process to become an accredited school, and there are important reasons to be SunSmart. We are please to say that 98% of students now wear their hats outside. From September until May-not hat means no play.  They can play in shaded areas if they have no hat, but not on the courts or the ovals.

When visitors come to our school they need to be signed in and wear a lanyard. We thought that it would be a great idea for students to wear a lanyard when they leave a class during class time. They always leave in pairs for safety reasons . Having 2 lanyards per class makes it easy for teachers to identify them quickly and know they have a purpose.

Breakfast Club

Breakfast Club runs for 3 mornings a week over near the gym area. It is staffed by some of our Education Support staff. We firmly believe that students need to have a good breakfast to be regulated and focussed int e classroom. We are always looking for more volunteers so if you think you could help from 8.25am please just contact Naomi Mc Master at school. We offer fruit , milk and toast. We are aware of allergies alerted on student files. It is a ‘grab and go’ set up so we can cater for lots of students to have a healthy snack before class.

Fruit bowls are a huge success in the classroom. We have more than tripled our weekly fruit order this term. It’s great to see so many students enjoying the fruit.

Speech Therapist and Psychologist

We have 2 private practitioners who work out of our school one day a week- a speech therapist (Katie Watkins) and a psychologist (Meaghan Morley). We understand how difficult it is to get students to appointments out of school hours, and the long waiting lists people face. Thus, we feel very fortunate that we are able to offer you these services. There are further details in the newsletter. If you would like more information, please speak with Luana Lane in the Student Support Office.

BELLA

Bella is working hard for the 3 days a week she is at school. She’s in the yard in the mornings and often at recess. During class time she is in Mrs Hamilton’s art room. She’s also been part of Storytime with Bella for the Foundation students on Thursday recesses.

PLAYLEADERS

The Year 5 Playleaders and Helping Hub students are in the junior school courtyards each lunchtime offering an array of activities and games for them to participate in.

THRIVE AWARDS

Week 7 - Try Your Best

Week 8 - Be Healthy

Speech Pathology at LPPS 

Katy will be working as a private therapist from a room at LPPS this year. Stay tuned for more details…….

Wellbeing Contacts

I have come across a few more contacts which might be helpful to our community members. So we’ll continue to build this resource for you.

Families needing food or support:

• https://askizzy.org.au/food/personalise/page/sub-food
• Peninsula Donations (check their page on Facebook)
• BK 2 Basics Melbourne (also on Facebook)

Overall, it’s been a very busy and productive term. Please have a happy and safe school holiday break. We look forward to working with you again next term.

Deb Haddow

On behalf of the Wellbeing Team