Positive Climate for Learning

Richard Crawshaw 

Assistant Principal

Richard Crawshaw
Richard Crawshaw

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NAIDOC Week

NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC is celebrated not only in Indigenous communities, but by Australians from all walks of life. The week is a great opportunity to participate in a range of activities and to support your local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’. This committee was once responsible for organising national activities during NAIDOC Week and its acronym has since become the name of the week itself. 

 

The theme for this years NAIDOC week is 'Always was. Always will be'. This recognises that First Nations people have occupied and cared for this continent for over 65,000 years. 

NAIDOC
NAIDOC

JSA will be celebrating NAIDOC week by holding a House Colour Day dress up on Friday 13th, and be involved with NAIDOC Literacy and Numeracy activities. Once again, it will be an opportunity to dress up in our house colours and see who else is in our house, as well as take the time to learn more about the culture and achievements of the first nations people. Look out on the school Facebook page for some photos.

 

 

2020 PASS Awards -   Most Outstanding Team Award

As Corinne mentioned, a huge congratulations to the School Improvement Team (SIT) for Student Voice and Agency for being shortlisted for this prestigious award! What a fantastic achievement for the team to be recognised this way for all that they have implemented at JSA this past year. The goal of the SIT is to empower students and build school pride whilst fostering student voice, agency and leadership. Specifically, here are the achievements of the team in 2020 which has taken them to being recognised by PASS;

 

1. Introduce a School House Teams concept which provides leadership opportunities for students, increases connectedness across all students, and is built in with positive behaviour systems. 

2. Develop staff capacity to understand how communication systems can enable participation in Student Voice and Agency

3. Increase communication and connection between home and school through the use of the Seesaw APP

4. Develop Student Voice and Agency Rubrics to improve the skills of staff to use student voice and agency across the school.

5. Connect the House System to School Wide Positive Behaviour Curriculum.

6. Empower students to have a democratic voice in the running of the school house communities in which they learn through a Student Representative Council.

 

It is important for the community to appreciate the dedicated work this team has committed to over the past few years, and particularly in 2020, to the students, staff, and the community working to embed student voice, agency and leadership at JSA. Well Done!

 

Seesaw Parent Survey

This year, the Seesaw platform has been a really important and effective place for communication to happen between home and school. Again, we thank families for making such a big effort to make this happen, and support the learning of your child/ren. 

 

We have trialed only a limited use of the Seesaw application with the intent to give you a small snapshot of your child’s learning as a symbol of their many achievements this year.  We would like to determine the value of the programs before we move into our next phase of use. In preparation for 2021, please take the time to provide some feedback on your use of Seesaw in 2020. A survey will be emailed to all families shortly.

 

Student Voice and Agency

Teachers have been proactive this year in enhancing the amount of student voice and agency they promote in their classrooms. This has been a great way for our students to be authentic in their learning and reflect on their progress on a day to day basis. You'll note that teachers have been using 'choice boards' and structured reflection activities on Seesaw this year, and it has been great to see these now being more in action in the classrooms too. It was evident on our student feedback survey that they feel a strong sense of voice and agency in school. As a parent / carer, take the opportunity to ask your child what they chose to learn in school today and encourage a response. This will be a great conversation for you to have, and then reflect on in the upcoming SSGs this term.

 

Parent Information Session

 

REMINDER: The second Webex presentation for parents on 'Positive Mental Health' is scheduled for next Thursday 19th November, 9 - 10:30am. The presentation will be building on the discussions about building resilience and coping with stress for you and your child/ren. Don't worry if you couldn't make the first presentation, this will still give you some fantastic insight to Positive Mental Health with some great practical takeaways for you.

 

Please contact our Wellbeing Officer Michelle Zammit: phone: 0428 733 203 Michelle.Zammit@education.vic.gov.au for more information and the details about how to log into the Webex session.