Wellbeing and Inclusion 

Dear Karoo PS Community,  

Welcome to June and a new season - winter!  We may all begin to talk about the changes in temperature that the winter season brings, but it is also an opportunity to spend quality time with your favourite people while the weather does its thing outside!

At Karoo PS we have continued to be involved in many exciting events from our Young Leaders Program to hosting the Respectful Relationships Community of Practice and have more exciting events coming up, such as our 'Building a Resilient Child' Parent Education Partnership Series evening.

Young Leaders Program

At Karoo PS, we believe that developing proactive leadership skills and strategies to impact change in the wider community is so important for our students.  One area that we support students in being able to do this is our involvement in the Young Leaders Program.  Our group of Year 5 students have continued to take part in the Young Leaders Program.  As part of the action, they identified that they don't feel there is enough recognition for positive behaviour in our school. They wanted students and teachers to recognise respectful behaviours around the school and to celebrate this, as so many amazing people in our school do wonderful things everyday!

The project that the Young Leaders developed to address this concern is called the 'Box of Positivity!' As a result, there are boxes around the school for students and teachers to put notes in about positive behaviours they see in the yard or the classroom. Some of those positive behaviours might be helping someone else, encouraging others, being an upstander, showing the school values, or showing fairness and teamwork during games.  

Before each sub-school assembly, the Young Leaders sort through the notes and create certificates for those students nominated by their peers and teachers. These are then shared at each sub-school assembly. The first assembly was a huge success, with students across all sub-schools being recognised for their positive behaviours. We're looking forward to seeing much more positive behaviour being acknowledged at our next sub-school assembly! 

Respectful Relationship (RR) Community of Practice

On Monday the 3rd June, Karoo PS hosted the Term 2 Respectful Relationships (RR) Community of Practice (CoP).  This involved representatives from our network schools coming to our school to engage in further learning about RR and the opportunity for our Respectful Relationships Coordinator, Karen Corrales to share our current practices at Karoo PS.

The feedback that was received for the work that is occurring at our school was extremely positive.  Well done to our school community for working together to support our students learning through Respectful Relationships (RR) and the Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships (RRRR) Curriculum.

For further information on Respectful Relationships please go to: Respectful Relationships | vic.gov.au (www.vic.gov.au)

                                     Whole School Approach to Respectful Relationships

Parent Education Partnership Series (PEPS) - Save the Date!

Each Term we invite our families to take part in our Karoo PS PEPS.  In Term 3, we will have Shelia Bollard, our Real School Facilitator, coming to our school on Wednesday 31st July to facilitate a parent session on 'Building a Resilient Child.'  Tickets will come out via EventBrite in the coming weeks. Please save the date for this exciting evening of learning.

Real Schools - The Human Behaviour Muscle

Part of Real Schools working in Partnership with our Karoo PS community ​includes bringing parents along with us on our journey. 

When we talk about behaviour, we often separate it into 'kids' and 'adults' however, when we understand our brain a little more we begin to understand that behaviour is behaviour for everyone - there is no age distinction! By understanding the brain, we can begin to regulate our own behaviours so that we can help our young people manage theirs.  

Please find a video below presented by Sheila Bollard, our Real School Facilitator, to share further information with you about the brain and behaviours.

Parent video #3 The Human Behaviour Muscle

I hope that you have a wonderful week and I look forward to seeing you around our sensational school!

Kind Regards, 

Courtney Hoffmann