Assistant Principal's Report

On Monday, I had the pleasure of joining Mrs. Menche and our Year 6 Leaders at the Glen Eira College (GEC) Leadership Conference. It was an inspiring day filled with engaging sessions designed to develop student leadership and teamwork skills. I was incredibly pleased with how our Year 6 leaders participated throughout the day—they showed great enthusiasm, asked thoughtful questions, and represented our school with maturity and professionalism. Their commitment to learning and leadership was evident in every session they attended. Here is what they had to say about their experiences.

Samuel: We learnt a lot about leadership, communication and teamwork. My favourite part of the day was when we got to create an action plan for things we want to add to our school. It was very fun and I am very grateful I had the opportunity to attend.

Emily: The leadership day was lots of fun. The Glen Eira College school captains ran the day and taught us lots of strategies that we can use as a leader. My favourite part of the day was the hula hoop game. 

Mieke: We had a really great day filled with many activities, including lots of fun games and different tasks. One of my favourite activities was when we played a communication game where we had to all hold hands and get through a hula hoop in less than 2 minutes. Overall, it was a great day and I would definitely do it again.

Harley: The day was packed with activities like teamwork building, communication with peers and many other learning opportunities to make us a better leader. We also had extremely good food and ice cream!

Wellbeing – Social Worker Engagement Process

I have had a few queries about our school Social Workers role at CSPS, and how you can engage if you feel your child is needing further support.

Please read the below information carefully. 

The Social Work job at CSPS entails 1:1 counselling (short-medium term), group counselling/restorative interventions, observations of students in classrooms, recommendations/advocation to teachers/parents/leadership regarding student needs, and education to students/staff. There are aspects of the Social Worker role I would like you to be aware of for full transparency. Please read the following:

• The Social Work role is a short to medium term one. If our Social Worker feels that your child is needing further support from another allied health professional, she will reach out to you and discuss. To ensure every student has equitable access to the service, she is unable to accommodate for long-term needs and will need to refer to external agencies.

   

• If your child has a current psychologist or allied health professional, this will be taken into consideration. Our Social Worker will speak with you to understand the level of involvement and ensure that having extra interventions in school will not derail any current interventions done by allied health/psychologists.

   

• If your child does not wish to engage or finds it difficult to engage, she will attempt to build rapport with them over a couple of sessions. It is understandable that some children take a little bit longer to build trust. However, if after these sessions they are not wanting to see her, she will need to take their own consent into consideration and cease sessions immediately. You will be alerted to this.

   

• Please note that our Social Worker has a specific caseload that she can carry. At times, this caseload becomes too large, and your child may need to be added to a waiting list. All referrals are triaged and actioned as soon as possible. Our Social Worker is available Mondays and Wednesdays. 

To engage with social work, please speak with me and/or your child’s classroom teacher. Once your child is referred, our Social Worker will meet with me to triage and identify which students will benefit from therapeutic intervention. If your child does not meet the criteria, our Social Worker can assist with referrals externally. As I oversee the Wellbeing space, I will also be able to point you in the right direction or delegate to our Social Worker if necessary.

If you have any questions, please contact me via email.

Wishing a wonderful Mother’s Day to all our amazing mothers and other important figures in our students’ lives this Sunday. I hope you all enjoy a beautiful day with your loved ones.

Georgia Despotellis

Assistant Principal