Principal's Report

Todays Newsletter article from me is a long one. I know that we all are working towards making Carlton Gardens Primary School the best school it can be, where everyone feels safe, is known and cared for. This includes how we represent ourselves outside of school (including online) as much as it does when we come to school.

We all have a role to play in supporting this vision and I hope that some of the below contents reinforces some of our collective work.

Over the past few weeks, we have been working with a range of students, families and cohorts to support the learning of our values and school-wide positive behaviours. I am always in awe of how wonderfully our families engage with us when issues arise and how actively we work together to improve. Unfortunately, behaviour errors occur in all schools and our role as educators and parents/carers is to respond by supporting the learning and reconnecting to our values.

Below is some information that relates to Help Seeking behaviours, Online Safety and Bullying.

Help Seeking

Throughout our Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships (RRRR) learning, all students across the school engage in learning that supports development of social, emotional and positive relationship skills.

The Help Seeking topic is an important topic covered in this curriculum and aims to assist students with things like:

discussing the importance of seeking help when dealing with problems that are too big to solve alone
identifying situations where they should seek help in working through problems
identifying a list of trusted people to seek out when needing help
normalising and de-stigmatising help-seeking behaviour

Over the past few weeks, we have been noticing evidence of this learning taking hold in response to some incidents that have interfered with the safety and wellbeing of others. It has been positive to witness many students raising concerns, issues and incidents with trusted adults - staff and parents/carers - so that we can respond, Reflect and help Reconnect to our school values. This makes our work in schools much more able to resolve any challenges that arise and get to work to engaging students and families in growth and improvement.

Below is an excerpt from our teaching resources that outlines the significance of developing Help Seeking behaviours:

The help-seeking behaviours of children and young people are fundamental to their mental health and wellbeing. Encouraging and fostering help-seeking behaviours is one way to improve mental health and wellbeing. There are several barriers that children and young people can face when it comes to help-seeking, including embarrassment, shame, fear of making things worse, fear of getting into trouble, lack of confidence to initiate conversations with an adult, anxiety about not being believed, and lack of knowledge about who to approach.[38] Additionally, research shows that those who are in the most need of help for psychological distress may be least able to seek it, due to the burdens affecting their emotional competence and confidence at that time. Therefore, it is important to work with students to identify the situations where help from appropriate adults is warranted, make sure they are aware about help-seeking avenues, and ensure they feel confident to persist in seeking help from appropriate sources when needed. (Grade 3/4 Teacher Resource Pack pg. 77)

Supporting our Community to be Safe Online

Parents and carers play an important role in supporting their children to be safe online and on social media (which includes Group Chat platforms).

You can help your children safely navigate their digital world and educate them to avoid harmful online experiences. You can explore websites, games, apps and social media together and set some rules and boundaries. You can also have regular conversations with your children about their online interactions. Positive, negative and everything in between.

Your support and guidance can give your children the knowledge to make sound decisions online and confidence to ask for help when they need it. It is also important to stay informed about online safety.

The Department of Education has developed fact sheets that contain links to evidence-based information on supporting positive and safe online experiences, signs a child or young person might need support, what to do if something unsafe happens online, and where to reach out to for more support. To access the fact sheets, refer to the Safe Socials webpage. The fact sheets are available in 19 community languages.

Bullying

Bullying is complex social issue. Whilst simple solutions are not the answer, knowing exactly what bullying is and understanding why it happens are critical to finding positive and evidence-informed solutions for everyone involved.

We are aware of the potential harmful effects of bullying, including online bullying (cyberbullying) on young people and take reports of bullying seriously. While all Australian school communities are different and each student's circumstances are individual, there are some general actions schools take to address bullying. The primary aim of the our response is to restore a positive learning environment for all students.  Positive responses are based on the understanding that children and young people are in the process of learning how to be a member of the school and wider community. Thankfully, our community (students, families and staff) has been great at flagging behaviours of concern with our Wellbeing and Engagement Team and we have been able to initiate and escalate supports promptly in response. We will work with you to resolve the situation and will also work with the other student's parents. Due to privacy laws, they will not be able to share information about any other students involved.

There are some excellent resources available on the Bullying No Way! site.

The national definition of bullying for Australian schools External link (transcript (DOCX, 29KB)) says:

Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm. It can involve an individual or a group misusing their power, or perceived power, over one or more persons who feel unable to stop it from happening. Bullying can happen in person or online, via various digital platforms and devices and it can be obvious (overt) or hidden (covert). Bullying behaviour is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time (for example, through sharing of digital records). Bullying of any form or for any reason can have immediate, medium and long-term effects on those involved, including bystanders. Single incidents and conflict or fights between equals, whether in person or online, are not defined as bullying.

I hope some of this information resonates and is helpful. Feel free to reach out to myself, Leah, Pagen or your child's teacher if you would like to chat further about anything from the above.