Assistant Principal's Report

We’re already past the halfway point of Term 1! Our Open Afternoons have begun, and on Friday, the Year 4 students welcomed parents into their classrooms. They proudly showcased their work from the unit ‘How We Express Ourselves.’ Each student researched an influential app or website and created a presentation to share their findings, highlighting both the benefits and risks of these platforms.

Wellbeing – Self-Regulation

Self-regulation is the ability to manage one’s behaviour and their reactions to feelings and things happening around them.

It includes the ability to:

• Control behaviour associated with strong emotions, such as anger, excitement, frustration, etc
• Calm down 
• Focus on tasks
• Control impulses
• Exhibit behaviours that assist in building positive relationships

Self-regulation is important as it helps children to:

• Learn at school 
• Behave in socially acceptable ways
• Make friends and keep them
• Become more independent

Some practical ways to help your child learn and practise self-regulation include:

• Work on your child’s skills to understand and manage emotions (the use of books is a great way to teach about emotions)
• Use calming down strategies, e.g. try these five steps:
  • notice the emotion 
  • name the emotion 
  • pause
  • support your child while they calm down
  • address the issue
• Plan for challenging situations and provide strategies
• Praise your child when they show self-regulation, e.g. I liked the way you waited for your turn
• Model self-regulation

At our school, we use the Zones of Regulation as our approach to support the development of self-regulation in children. All the different ways children feel are categorised into four coloured zones. 

The Four Zones are:

Blue Zone – sad, bored, tired, sick (low state of alertness and down feelings)

Green Zone – happy, calm, proud, focussed (a calm state)

Yellow Zone – worried, stressed, excited, frustrated (elevated emotions)

Red Zone – overexcited, panicked, angry, terrified (intense emotions)

Georgia Despotellis

Assistant Principal