Student 

Engagement

& Wellbeing

Reconciliation Week

National Reconciliation Week is this week, 27th  May to 3rd June – is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia. This year's theme is “Be A Voice for Generations”.

Last week, sub-school Assistant Principals met with a number of our Indigenous students to discuss how we can recognise reconciliation week at Horsham College. We are proud to recognise reconciliation week by:

•  Only playing music for our bells performed by Indigenous Artists
•  Displaying the Reconciliation Week Posters Around the School on our TVs 
•  Encouraging discussion and education about reconciliation week in form groups

AtoSS update

Our students have been busy participating in the Attitudes to School Survey. We now have only a small handful of classes who still need to complete this survey and we will be running catch up sessions for students who were absent when their class participated. This data is extremely important to us and we appreciate the honesty from our students. 

Uniform 

With the colder weather, we’ve noticed a few students wearing non-compliant uniform items such as hoodies, flannelette shirts and jumpers underneath their uniforms. A friendly reminder that hoodies are not to be worn. Students wishing to wear long sleeve shirts - plain white or navy blue long sleeve can be worn under college polo only. Your support with this matter is appreciated. Further information on the uniform policy can be found here: https://www.horsham-college.vic.edu.au/school-life/uniforms/ 

E-Cigarettes and Vaping 

Vaping is an ongoing challenge for many schools. Research shows that 1 in 5 people aged 18–24 years (non-smokers) have tried vapes. Nearly 80% of them say it’s easy to get a vape illegally at a shop or online. At Horsham College, we encourage families to have a conversation with their children about vaping. Here is a resource to assist families in starting the conversation: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/blog/how-to-talk-to-your-kids-about-vaping 

World Environment Day celebration is next week, Thursday 8th June.  The day will include food, prizes and the opportunity to recycle and learn about upcycling. 

Social Media

There is much debate through news channels around the world about when it is appropriate for your child to start using social media. Many platforms state that children must be 13 before they can create accounts, however we know that this is still a very young age to be dealing with what can be found on social media. Experts recommend that parents consider how vulnerable their children are to online behaviours and discuss if their child is mature enough and have the required resilience. The advice continues to ask if your children listen to expectations around social media use and can follow expected rules. It is important that children understand the risks, but also understand the strategies to manage online behaviour and it is incredibly important to know if your child would come and speak to you if there were issues online. 

It is recommended that parents think about their child’s offline behaviour, including friendships, risk taking behaviours and the ability to think about consequences. Talking to your child about all of these things is important. Generation Next have fantastic resources that help facilitate discussions around social media use in children. It is so important to know what your child is up to online as their footprint stays online. There was an article circulating the internet this week that recalled doing something embarrassing in primary school and how people spoke about it for a few days and then something else happened and it was forgotten about by those that witnessed it. It then went on to tell the same story but with older students who captured the moment on their phones and circulated it, screen shot it, made it into a meme, made a tik tok about it and it never went away - this is our reality and we need to teach our young people that this is not ok.