Deputy Principal's Report

Dear Parents and Carers,

Protective Behaviours - Feeling Safe

This week each class took part in a Feeling Safe session, led by Cath McCallig, a trained primary school teacher and recent St Finbar's parent. These sessions aimed to teach students a range of skills to help prevent abuse and keep themselves safe.  Topics were handled in an age-appropriate way and included:

• We all have the right to feel safe.
• Who the trusted adults are in each student's life
• the difference between 'good' secrets and 'bad' secrets
• Body awareness
• How to speak and act assertively, and how to use the phrase "No! Stop! Don't"

Please scroll down to read some reflections from our Year 6 students on their session. 

Child Safe Standards 

The Commission for Children and Young People have developed a set of seven (soon to be eleven) standards that all organisations dealing with children, including schools, are mandated to adhere to. The Protecting Behaviours sessions held this week directly relate to Child Safe Standard 7 Empowering Children

Children can be empowered by:

• supporting children to understand their rights
• valuing and respecting children’s opinions
• seeking children’s views about what makes them feel safe and unsafe
• establishing an environment of trust and inclusion that enables children to ask questions and speak up if they are worried or feeling unsafe.

I will be sharing more information about the Child Safe Standards in upcoming newsletters, especially in light of the new Standards being introduced on 1st July 2022. 

Year 6 respond to their Protective Behaviours session

"In the Protective Behaviours lesson we learned about consent and early warning signs, which are things your body does when you're nervous."  Jack

"We recapped on how people react when they are scared or feel unsafe, we learnt,  "no! stop! don't!" and we wrote a list of trusted adults." Timothy

"I enjoyed participating in the protective behaviours class with Cath McCallig because it taught me different things about how to protect yourself from the dangers of school, social media and the public. It also helped me recognise the people in my life that I can rely on to care for me, listen to me, and take action to what will make me feel safe. All in all, this lesson contained lots of information that will help me throughout my life. And has helped me know what to do when certain problems occur, and who to rely on when this happens." Jackson

"In the Protective Behaviours lesson, we got to learn more about consent and early warning signs that can tell you how you're responding. We also got to learn more about how we can keep ourselves safe online." Lexi

High School Preparation & Resilience Group

Year 6 Girls may be in interested in the following high school preparation group. Please be aware that St Finbar's cannot vouch for the quality of this program but it may appeal and be beneficial to some students. Further information can be found by clicking on the information sheet below the image. 

Thank you

Michelle Hill & Steele Anderson

Deputy Principals