Student Wellbeing

Welcome Back to Term 2

As we now settle into the new term with the daylight hours getting shorter, the colder weather and winter approaching we now need to remind you moving forward of a few important things for the term….

Firstly, over the extended term 1 break all of the Marian staff were part of the KEM 10th Anniversary celebration that forms part of this Marian News. The theme for the conference as mentioned was:

                              Crossing New Seas – Encounter Dream Do

One of the most powerful parts of the conference was the recorded video with Student leaders from each of the KEM schools involved in the conference. 

These young people including our leaders – Sienna Galea, Leanne Paul and Victoria Messina talked about the ways in which they are supported to develop as leaders and the aspects of our school that allow them to grow into the young people who will become stewards of the world they inherit from us.

This also links to our Annual Action Plan and developing student voice and giving them the opportunity to be part of the decision-making processes within the school.

With this in mind, we are continually looking for ways for our student leaders to demonstrate their leadership to our community and beyond.

An example of this has been the changes to school tours initiated by Ms Romano that involves our Student Representative Council members being responsible for the school tours after the initial presentation in our auditorium.

This allows the student leaders to highlight to new families what our school has to offer from a student perspective. The next part of this work is for our student leaders to create a plan for how a tour will occur so that they can train other leaders to carry out the tours.

We look forward in future editions of the Marian to highlight the work of the Student Leaders in this space. 

High Impact Wellbeing Strategies

Over the next editions of the Marian News, we would like to give you an insight into the Wellbeing work going on in this space to enhance the wellbeing of our young people and community.

From the recent research carried out by Monash University and Victorian government Wellbeing is defined as:

The capabilities necessary to thrive, contribute and respond positively to the challenges and opportunities of life. It describes a person’s optimal experiences, physical health and psychological functioning, and involves factors like positive emotions, life satisfaction and mental flexibility. (FISO 2.0 – 2022)

The Seven Key elements of building wellbeing are identified in this paper as:

• Building Positive relationships with students
• Facilitating Peer Relationships
• Establishing and maintaining clear classroom expectations
• Supporting inclusion and belonging
• Foster student self-efficacy
• Engage students
• Promote coping strategies and facilitate referrals.

For this month, I would like to focus on two of these key elements:

Building positive relationships with students – this underpins all of the work we do with our students. Starting with our Homeroom/Mentor teachers who are your first point of call if you have any concerns. Our subject teachers are also important in forming the foundation of getting to know their students and their needs to maximise the learning opportunities for all of our students.

Promoting coping strategies and facilitating referrals – before the end of last term our counselling department presented to our senior cohort strategies to enhance wellbeing with all students at the end each receiving a wellbeing goodie bag to support these strategies. They also spoke to the cohort about the support the department can offer any of them if the need arises.

Our counselling department are a very important part of our wellbeing program as they support the work of the Homeroom/Mentor and Community Leaders in supporting your child in their social and emotional wellbeing.

In the next edition of the Marian, we will focus on two other key elements of Wellbeing.

The Challenges of the World around us and the work of the eSafety Commissioner in this space

It would be true to say that the last couple of weeks in particular have challenged us all as human beings based on some of the events around the world and closer to home, such as that of the incident at Bondi Junction last weekend.

We know that social media plays a role in this area as to what is then made available on the internet for other people to see, including our young people.

The eSafety commissioner has been very forthcoming in identifying the fact that many other people are exposed to inappropriate content and the trauma and impact that this may have on their wellbeing.

We are attaching to this edition a fact sheet from the eSafety commissioner about these concerns and it includes statistics related to the exposure of young people to this content. It also has links for parents to strategies that may support you when working with your child about this. It also includes strategies and information that may be relevant to your younger children.

We at Marian will work with our young people in our Pastoral program about these concerns as well. We have the Community Police visiting later in the term to support us in this work.

In the technological world, we now live in where you can find and see almost everything on social media we need to support our young people to learn to navigate this space and content responsibly.

Now some of the key pieces of information related to our day-to-day work:

Attendance Reminders

As part of our continual monitoring of student attendance and absence, we remind all of our families of the importance of informing us of student absence so it can be recorded on our Learning Management system.

We have a dedicated phone line to leave messages to record student absence and once roll call has been taken in the morning, the office will begin to call to verify all student absences that have not been confirmed via the phone system or email.  The expectation of explaining student absence is a government expectation.

Students that have five unexplained absences and have not responded to the absence follow up letters distributed by homeroom teachers, will then receive a letter from the College asking to explain the absences.

With all of the data collated for term 1, we are now at the point of these letters being sent to families to explain absences for this term.

Sadly, those students who have continual absences will need to be followed up with parent meetings that will involve looking at ways the school can support the family in getting their child to school.

We know that every day counts in terms of student learning and their ability to meet the benchmarks for them in their growth as a learner.

We thank all of those families who support this process daily by contacting us to inform us of the absence of their child.

Uniform Reminders

As we start the term, we have had long lines at the uniform shop as students try to get themselves organised for the term.

We are now in our winter uniform and this means the following for the middle part of the year:

• Winter skirt or the school pants should be worn
• With the winter skirt both blue tights or long white socks can be worn
• The school tie is a compulsory item during this time
• The school tracksuit pants should not be worn as an alternative for the school pants and these students will be followed up
• Black or other tops under the sports polo should not be worn as the school provides both a rugby top and jacket for warmth
• Hoodies are not part of the sports uniform at all

We understand that many students have been purchasing the school scarf for warmth as well but this is an optional item for the uniform.

Any family that is struggling to organise their child’s uniform for financial reasons please contact your Community Leader to assist with this process.

Concerns regarding VAPING

We have been alerted by members of our community of the concerns related to the issue of VAPING amongst our young people and the possibility that this may be taking place on our bus services travelling to and from school.

We remind all of our students that the same process will apply as it does if you are caught vaping on school grounds if you are travelling on one of our bus services that we provide. We will also apply the same process to students standing waiting for the bus service in school uniform.

Students found in the toilet with multiple students when the detectors go off, will all be treated as though they are responsible for the detector.

The normal process is that the student is suspended and a re-entry interview needs to take place with the family on their return.

We recognise that this has become an issue in society and are working with the community police and outside agencies to make our students aware of the concerns related to this not just for our young people but everyone.

The government in recent times has recognised the significant problem this is and have made changes to both the selling, purchasing and labelling of these products, particularly to students.

As mentioned earlier later in the term, we will ask the Community Police to work with our students to explain these changes.

Parent Sub Committee – Request for extra parents

In the first week of this term, we have sent a message to all parents via Direct Message asking if they are interested in joining our Parent Child Safety Sub- Committee. While we have three parents already, it would be great to have additional parents if they are interested. 

If you are interested you can contact me either by phoning the school, sending an email or direct message. All parents are welcome.

Wellbeing thought.. 

As we approach the cold, dark and winter months we remind everyone of the importance of looking after yourself and this means if you are unwell remaining at home until you recover.

If the last few years have taught us, anything it is so important to look after your health but by doing the right thing you also look after the health of other members of our community….

Kerrie Williams – Assistant to the Principal – Student Wellbeing