Milkshake and Doughnut Day

On 13th December the Grade 6 students will be selling Milkshakes and Doughnuts across the school to raise money for a legacy project. This was voted on by the students and the project will involve an upgrade to the Senior Toilet Block.

Milkshakes will be $2 and Doughnuts will be $1.

Students should bring a plastic keep cup to minimise waste!

Wellbeing & Engagement

What an amazing year we have had at Rangeview in 2019! It has been such a pleasure and a privilege to work alongside our dedicated and talented staff as we support the academic, social and emotional growth of our Rangeview students. Some of the wellbeing highlights this year have included;

Rangeview Primary School Awarded Lead School for the Rights, Resilience and Respectful Relationships (RRRR) Program.

At Rangeview we teach the Department of Education’s Rights, Resilience and Respectful Relationships curriculum from Foundation to Level 6. This curriculum has been designed to develop students' social, emotional and positive relationship skills. 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 from childhood, through adolescence and into adulthood.

The Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships (RRRR) learning materials cover eight topics of Social and Emotional Learning across all levels of primary and secondary education:

Emotional Literacy

Personal strengths

Positive Coping

Problem Solving

Stress Management

Help Seeking

Gender and Identity

Positive Gender Relationships.

In 2019 we were awarded the role of Lead School in the RRRR program for 2020. This means that we will be partnered with several other primary schools and secondary colleges and will lead them through their implementation of this wonderful initiative. We are very proud of our work in this wellbeing field and this is a department recognition of this commitment and of the outstanding work of our leaders, teachers and support staff to ensure its success.

We look forward to increasing our RRRR whole school program in 2020 and to supporting new schools as they begin to implement the model.

Amelie Watson - RR Student Leader

This year at Rangeview I was the first Rights Resilience and Respectful Relationships leader. Being the first it was a strange and new thing to everyone but making this new subject into a leadership role has meant that more people now recognise the importance of this new subject. This year we had the professions without gender assembly as well the be the kind kid memorial and playground audit. This has meant that students at Rangeview more aware of everybody's differences.

Special Assembly – Professions without Gender

In Term 3 we had a fabulous special assembly – Professions without Gender. We heard from four special guests about what it is like to have ‘A Day in the Life’ of their profession.

Sarah Last – VFLW player and several years as an AFLW player for Carlton.
Riley Owen – Netball player – played for the Under 17 Australian team and now plays for the Victorian Under 20 team.
James Roche – Primary School Classroom Teacher
Michael Sacchetta – Primary School Specialist Teacher

It was a wonderful opportunity and clearly our student body enjoyed the presentations and had much food for thought around future possibilities.

Peaceful Kids

This year we began to run the Peaceful Kids Program and we began to utilise many strategies from the Berry Street Education Model.

‘Peaceful Kids’ is a Mindfulness and Positive Psychology based program to lessen anxiety and stress and increase resilience in children. The program has been created to fulfil a need in schools to offer all children a developmentally appropriate program that gives children the skills, practice and support to utilize coping strategies that lessen the symptoms of anxiety and stress.

Outcomes of the Peaceful Kids program:

Lessen symptoms of anxiety and stress in children
Teaches children to self-calm
Empowers children to manage their own anxiety and stress symptoms
Builds emotional resilience
Develops emotional intelligence skills
Teaches children life-long skills to manage stress and prevent stress build up
Supports children so they know that they are not alone with suffering from anxiety

Peaceful Kids is based on evidence based therapies and research:

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program (MBSR)
Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (MiCBT)
Positive Psychology
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

We have run two small group Peaceful Kids programs in Term 3 and Term 4 and will begin new programs in Term 1 2020. All of our grades have also embraced this approach with students practicing breathing using Breathing Buddies and Calm Jars filled with glitter. Our Level 5/6 classes also made models of the brain with playdough to better understand brain structure / function and how these relate to self-regulation. For more information on Peaceful Kids please visit;

https://www.peacefulkids.com.au/

Berry Street Education Model

Throughout the year our teaching staff have all participated in multiple sessions of professional learning from the Berry Street Education Model. The Berry Street Childhood Institute is an independent child and family services organization. All of their work comes from the simple premise that all children should have a good childhood. They work with many children with a trauma background and often with children in the Out of Home Care / Foster system. They have developed an evidence based education model – the Berry Street Education Model.

Although thankfully, many of our students have not experienced trauma, our teachers are now able to use positive psychology strategies in their grades when they are needed.

For more information on the Berry Street Education Model please visit;

https://learning.berrystreet.org.au/focus-areas/berry-street-education-model

Be the Kind Kid

Four of our Grade 6 students – Amelie Watson, Maddi Powell, Georgia Healy and Maggie De Voil – painted a new mural at the school. The Be The Kind Kid mural is in the breezeway between the senior toilet blocks.

Some kids are smarter than you

Some kids have cooler clothes than you

Some kids are better at sport than you

It doesn’t matter

You have your thing too

Be the kid who can get along

Be the kids who is generous

Be the kid who is happy for other people

Be the kid who does the right thing

Be the Kind Kid

Social Worker – Friendship Groups

Our wonderful social worker – Natalie Powell – has worked with us every Wednesday this year delivering small groups for students from Foundation to 5/6. These groups have built social skills, promoted positive peer relationships, explicitly taught social interaction skills and worked through peer conflict. Students, staff and parents have given very positive feedback around the success of these group interventions. We are thrilled that Natalie can join us again in 2020.

Yarra Valley Psychology

We have been very fortunate to be able to provide access to a psychologist and a counsellor here at Rangeview through Yarra Valley Psychology this year. Carina Purdea and Kim Robinson have been located onsite one day a week for most of the year and we look forward to continuing this model for families in 2020. Both of these therapists provide an essential service to our students when it is needed and both have built strong relationships across the school.

I look forward to another wonderful year with our Rangeview Community in 2020 and I wish you all a very restful and rejuvenating holiday period.

Andy Griffiths

Andy Griffiths – Treehouse Series