Socialisation and Play Sessions for new families to the community

Our Socialisation and Play Sessions are scheduled several times per term for new families in our community. Many of our 2024 Preps have been attending to familiarise themselves with the different spaces our school has to offer and to get to know our staff, students and each other. Our wellbeing leaders plan a different activity each session; most recently they created a scavenger hunt of important places for Preps to know about around our school including the chicken coop, the red monkey bars and the gymnasium.

To book into a session for Term 3, please click here or head to our website.

Wellbeing Curriculum next term

All students will be learning about topics 7 & 8 ‘Gender and Identity’ (Years P, 1, 3, and 5) and ‘Positive Gender Relations’ (Years P, 2, 4 and 6) next term as part of our Respectful Relationships and wellbeing curriculum. As part of this learning, classes will be discussing what violence is, what gender-based violence is and how we can build more positive, gender friendly relationships in our classrooms and community. These lessons take age-appropriate forms. For example, discussions in prep centre around how boys and girls can be the same and different; everyone can be strong and gentle; and how we can engage in fair and friendly play. Year 5 and 6 students take a deeper dive into critiquing gender norms; investigating facts about gender and opportunity; understanding power relations; and setting boundaries around consent.

As a Respectful Relationships Lead School, we work with other schools in our area on delivering the Respectful Relationships Curriculum as part of their wellbeing program. We’re looking forward to having teachers and leaders from other schools come and observe some of these lessons in practice to build their own professional learning next term. While the Respectful Relationships program is now mandatory in schools, Elsternwick Primary School were one of the first schools to pilot the program back in 2018. We can certainly see the impact it has had over the years on our current year 5/6 cohort, who now have a deep understanding of what it means to contribute to a respectful and inclusive culture that values diversity and equality.

Read more about the Respectful Relationships program here.

Pivot Student Feedback Surveys

Teachers spent time in their planning sessions this week analysing the results of the Pivot Student Perception Survey on Teaching Effectiveness. The survey involves a set of questions designed to collect anonymous feedback from students about what it is like being a learner in their classroom community. There is strong evidence to suggest that meaningful student feedback improves outcomes for teachers, students and school communities. When students’ feedback is heard, valued, and acted upon, students can feel more engaged, motivated and focused.

As a school, our top areas of strength were:

This teacher cares about my wellbeing
I know how I am supposed to behave in class
I feel comfortable asking this teacher for help
This teacher respects me for who I am
This teacher knows a lot about the topics in this class

Our top areas of conversation were:

This teacher asks me to share my ideas about what we are learning
This teacher makes learning interesting
This teacher helps me to set goals for my learning
This teacher connects their teaching to my life
This teacher gives me choices about the work I do
I know how well I am doing in this class

Overall, it is great to see the positive impact of our whole school approach to curriculum, wellbeing behaviour management and help seeking has on student experience. Each teacher has created an individual plan to begin further conversations about how the class can work together to enhance the classroom community and learning experience, by sharing a summary of responses as part of their student voice conversations. This supports our work towards our strategic goal of ensuring all students feel heard, understood and empowered. Teachers will survey students again in second semester to determine the effectiveness of their actions.

More information regarding the survey can be found here.

POLICY UPDATES:

Camps and Excursions

Explains the processes and procedures Elsternwick Primary School will use when planning and conducting camps, excursions and adventure activities for students. Includes methods of payment and DE requirements for students to leave devices at home on camps.

Homework

Outlines the Department’s and Elsternwick Primary School’s policy requirements relating to homework, and the process for working with teachers to modify homework expectations for students.

Attendance

The purpose of this policy is to:

ensure all children of compulsory school age are enrolled in a registered school and attend school every day the school is open for instruction
ensure students, staff and parents/carers have a shared understanding of the importance of attending school
explain to school staff and parents/carers the key practices and procedures Elsternwick Primary School has in place to
- support, monitor and maintain student attendance
- record, monitor and follow up student absences.

Daily attendance is important for all children and young people to succeed in education and to ensure they do not fall behind both socially and developmentally. School participation maximises life opportunities for children and young people by providing them with education and support networks. School helps people to develop important skills, knowledge and values that set them up for further learning and participation in their community.

It is an expectation that students attend school every day, and that all absences are explained by communicating with the front office or your child’s classroom teacher. Please find a summary of this policy and our process for following up on unexplained student absence below:

Full copies of these policies are available on our website.

Warm regards,

Nicola Smith and Morgan Ili

Wellbeing team

Specialist Awards