Enter the Wellbeing Zone

Welcome to the Wellbeing Zone. When you enter the zone, you will find a wealth of information about all the things happening in the Wellbeing space at Sunshine Heights PS as well as strategies, articles, book recommendations and events that will help build our dream and culture of Wellbeing throughout our school community, inside and outside of school, so that we can sail together through a universe of possibilities with all the emotional and social skills we need to thrive.

Return from the Land of the Rising Sun

Dearest Sunny Heights families,

It was great to return to the community from long service leave this week, after 3 amazing and dream-like weeks in Japan. I lived in Tokyo in my very early 20s, met my son's father on a train in Tokyo, which changed my life, and had been back many times since leaving, with the last time being 15 years ago when I was pregnant with my son.

To return to the land of the rising sun after 15 years, was like a nostalgic homecoming.

We visited so many incredible places, spending time in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Kobe, Nara and Hakone. I got to catch up with old friends, revisit my old house in Ichikawa and even got to take my son to the very place where I met his father and his story started.

We had the most amazing time and carved so many irreplaceable memories, and to share this with my son (with this trip being his first overseas) and my partner was something not only galvansing and rejuvenating, but a feeling I won't quickly lose.

Being back on Sunny Heights grounds now, I am slowly catching up on the past three weeks of emails and happenings, so please bear with me as I catch up and ground myself again, but also please don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything in the coming weeks before our Easter holidays.

With love,

Francine

Happy Space Speech Pathology Reminder

A reminder to families that we have Liv, a speech pathologist from Happy Space Allied Health, with us each Thursday, who is working in our school offering individual speech therapy to students who have signed up for the program when we sent out our expression of interest last term.

If you missed the information last year, there is still time to sign up!

Does your child have NDIS funding or are you looking for a private speech?
Does your child need support to develop their speech and language skills?
Are you interested in school-based speech pathology sessions with an amazing speech pathologist?

If you answered yes to these 3 questions, this program may be perfect for you/your child! Please email me if you would like to sign your child up or find out more about the program!

RESP Program

We are very excited to have been accepted into the 2-year RESP Program, run by Centre for Multicultural Youth and Foundation House, who do incredible work in the space of supporting refugees and migrants. As part of our involvement in the program, our staff will participate in many professional development sessions to help us build our capacity in working together with, and engaging, our families and students of diverse backgrounds, with ongoing support and guidance from CMY and Foundation House.

On Thursday of last week, 2 of our action team teachers, Ms Nguyen and Ms Hill, attended a PD session to kickstart our work on this project, returning with to the school to share information and our first step of conducting an audit intended to provide a comprehensive picture of what our school is currently doing to support our students and families from diverse backgrounds, identify our strengths and areas for whole school improvement and guide whole-school action planning.

This audit information will be used to help focus a project we will collaboratively develop with our community to enhance our connection to our diverse community.

Stay tuned for more information on this project and ways for you to share your input and stories throughout the project's journey.

Together for Humanity: Intercultural Awareness Grant

In exciting news, Sunshine Heights has been the proud recipient of one of Together for Humanity's Intercultural Awareness Grants of $10,000.

This grant project will strengthen the work we do around creating a sense of belonging, bridging cultural and social gaps and developing awareness of our social and cultural diversities.

The grant money will be used to establish and train up members of our community to become social and cultural ambassadors who will work directly with community groups to build intercultural and intersocial awareness at Sunshine Heights Primary School through creative initiatives.

To share more information about the project, Francine will be setting up a stand at the Harmony Day Block Party which you can visit to find out more and express your interest in being involved.

Further information on the stand will be released prior to next Friday's Harmony Day celebration.

Need to reach me?

To discuss anything Wellbeing related, feel free to contact Francine via email or the school phone number!

EMAIL - Francine.Sculli@education.vic.gov.au

PHONE - 8311 7100

Harmony Week

Monday 18/3-Friday 22/3