Wellbeing

In Term 4, Year 5 students will be focusing on the “Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships program Topic 3: Positive Coping.

The activities we will engage with are: 

1.  Positive Self-Talk: Students will investigate the concepts of positive and negative self-talk, and will build their own positive self-talk vocabulary.

2. Strengthening Skills in Positive Self-Talk: Students will practise using positive self-talk in role-plays to strengthen their growth-mindset and to build resilience. Self-talk around their experiences can impact on how they learn, and how they deal with success and challenge. Positive self-talk can develop a growth mindset, whereas negative self-talk can develop a fixed mindset.

3. Personal Coping Strategies: Students will describe the difference between productive and unproductive coping strategies, identifying a range of productive coping strategies they can use in their everyday lives.

This unit aims to support students to identify a range of coping strategies to help them deal with intense emotions and recognise the influence of self-talk on their actions and emotions. As they grow and develop, all children will encounter challenging or stressful situations. Individuals deal with the demands on them by drawing on a range of coping strategies. Some strategies are more productive than others. Helping students to extend their portfolio of positive coping skills will enable them to cope more successfully with future changes and challenges. Resilience research shows that the use of positive self-talk is associated with greater persistence in the face of challenge, whereas negative self-talk is associated with higher levels of distress, depression and anxiety.

Research studies have demonstrated that those who use positive self-talk about how they will approach and manage challenges are more likely to succeed. Negative self-talk includes over personalising adversity, excessive self-blame, and exaggerating the likely duration and impact of adversity or failure. It includes focusing on what is wrong and ignoring what is right. Positive self-talk includes more realistic appraisal of capacity, circumstances and effort. It includes acknowledging and being grateful for the positives, recognising personal strengths and positive intentions, and realistic attribution of responsibility. Positive self-talk can be learnt or strengthened

In 2016, Respectful Relationships education became a core component of the Victorian Curriculum from Foundation to Year 12 and is being taught in all Government and Catholic schools and many independent schools. A core element of this initiative is the Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships (RRRR) curriculum. Efforts to promote social and emotional skills and positive gender norms in children and young people has been shown to improve health related outcomes and subjective wellbeing. It also reduces antisocial behaviours including engagement in gender-related violence.

Further information about Respectful Relationships education can be found at:  https://www.vic.gov.au/respectful-relationships

Prosocial Skills and Restorative Repair

Year 5 students will be focusing on prosocial skills during Circle Time sessions, and explicit wellbeing lessons throughout the term. They will be participating in role plays to learn about how to repair relationships, and resolve conflict collaboratively, where all parties are able to share their perspective, any ‘harm done,’ is repaired and all are able to express what they want/need moving forward. Social script and prompts will be used and students will learn the difference between ‘perspective,’ and ‘fact,’ using relatable examples. Teaching students about perspective can support them to understand that peers are not ‘lying,’ but rather are viewing it from their perspective, which is a point of view, combined with the experiences and personal feelings, and how they understand the situation. Multiple perspectives can be ‘true,’ at the same time and it doesn’t mean that anyone is lying. This learning build important self and social awareness skills, and develops empathy and compassion. It also fosters active listening skills and supports students to feel heard.

PCMS – Positive Classroom Management Strategies

In Grade 5, we are continuing to focus on establishing and reinforcing Positive Classroom Management Strategies to support a calm, respectful, and productive learning environment. This includes revisiting routines and expectations such as organising our learning space, with appropriate tools/materials ready for learning, responding when a class teacher ‘calls for the class’ attention,’ bringing in homework on the correct day and filing it in the correct area, and following all School-Wide Expectations, practicing our CAIR Norms consistently. These expectations help to build responsibility, independence, self-awareness, social awareness, connection, and a strong sense of community in our classrooms.

Inform and Empower (Term 4)

After the conclusion of swimming in Week 7, the students will continue their involvement with Inform and Empower, building on their knowledge of developing healthy digital habits, digital citizenship and understanding around cyberbullying. Learning this term will focus on being a critical consumer of AI and how influencers can shape our values. We will also explore strategies for navigating unsafe online interactions. 

Transition

In the last few weeks of term, the Year 5 teachers will be supporting students to become ready for Year 6. Students will engage in a number of activities to build their leadership skills and understand what to expect in Year 6. Opportunities to form connections with students across the cohort will be provided, ready to transition to their last year of primary school.

Sunsmart Term - Slip Slop Slap

This term is a ‘Sunsmart’ term which means that students should apply sunscreen each day and have a hat at school for all outdoor activities.