Dear Parents,

Thank you to everyone who attended our Language of Friendship workshop online last night for UR Strong. If you couldn't make it, we are very happy to be able to provide you with a recording of the session that will last for the next seven days. We strongly encourage all parents at Toolamba PS to engage in the session with their children.

WATCH LANGUAGE OF FRIENDSHIP WORKSHOP HERE

Passcode: #1Ninjas

Expiry Date: Tomorrow, March 1st

It was great to see some of you coaching your children along last night and empowering them to put out their Friendship Fires. Some of the ways we can be consistent between home and school are to use the language 'kind on purpose' to praise our school value of kindness and 'mean on purpose' to identify intentional unkind choices. If someone is mean on purpose, we remind students that mistakes are okay and encourage students to speak firmly and ask the person being 'mean on purpose' to stop. If the behaviour continues, we encourage students to seek help from a trusted adult.

As parents, teachers, school leaders and friendship coaches, we think it is important for us all to be on the same page in supporting TPS students with the right tools to make better choices next time or to speak up when they see 'mean on purpose' behaviour.

As Tyson explains in the session, it is also important to remove labels such as 'bully' or 'bullying' when we are describing a person or behaviour. We use 'mean on purpose' language to describe the unkind action and always use any mistake as a teachable moment.

We appreciate your support and are so happy to have our parents on this journey with us to transform our students into Friendship Ninjas and give them the strategies to navigate tricky social settings! As some next steps, we would recommend:

Activate your FREE Parent Membership and explore all the resources available to your family.
Complete the activity called Must-Haves, Deal-Breakers, & Ice-Cream to help your child really crystallise the difference between healthy & unhealthy friendships.
Try out this interactive tool: Friendship Fire or Mean-on-Purpose?
Check out our library of Keeping Kids Connected activities & videos designed for home learning!
Pop over to our BLOG with news & advice and be sure to check out our PRESS page for interviews & podcasts!

We appreciate your support,

Toolamba Primary School Staff

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