Ways to Wellbeing

Walk the Talk

On Tuesday 19th September (Week 10 Term 3) the whole of year 10 had the opportunity to listen to and learn about a program called “Walk the talk”. It is a pioneering program building awareness of domestic abuse and women’s homelessness.

Us boys were split up from the girls and had the pleasure of talking with a man named Jack.

Jack talked about the realities of the masculine youth and educated us with facts and statistics about relationships and encouraged and educated us on healthy, consensual relationships. He covered the differences between a healthy relationship and an unhealthy relationship from acquaintances to friends to romantic relationships. I liked his extensive range of knowledge in what he taught and how he listened when we needed to speak or ask questions. At the end of the day us boys met the other two program members; Dani and Julia who were both positive and warm people who told us about the women’s shelter that has come to Camden. I enjoyed the day and I found Jack to be very engaging and relatable because of his openness and his honesty about his upbringing. 

Jack, Yr 10

On Tuesday 19th September, Year 10 students had an incredible opportunity to listen to Danielle and Jack from Enlighten Education present "Walk the Talk". They talked about topics surrounding respectful relationships and domestic violence.

We found the three hour session incredibly eye opening and engaging. The session involved stories about the experiences of being trapped in an abusive relationship, the importance of empowering and supporting women, and understanding the differences between relationship red and green flags, and the hotlines that are available to call when need be. Danni shared many valuable tips and stories that we can use to help understand the unhealthy signs and how to navigate through them when we find ourselves trapped. 

It was a remarkable workshop to be part of and we appreciate the energy Danni brought and for coming in and building awareness of domestic violence by improving our education around relationships.

Taylor, Yr 10.

R.A.G.E. Wellbeing Program Term 4

This term sees the return of the award-winning wellbeing program R.A.G.E. to our school.

In conjunction with The Y NSW, our school is running the 6 week program for small groups for students from years 7, 8 and 9.

R.A.G.E. stands for Re-Navigating Angry and Guilty Emotions.  It is a strength based and solution focused program designed to help young people understand their emotions and learn effective ways to deal with frustration or anger with resilience and confidence.

In the first session, students were invited to participate in fun group activities whilst talking about the nature of anger. They were also asked to reflect on how they experience the emotion and either write or draw what it feels like. 

Some of the amazing artworks are shown below.

Create and Connect

Create and Connect is running again during Term 4, this time for our Year 9 students.

Big Yellow Umbrella are once again facilitating this creative wellbeing program, where students meet once a week to learn about self-care and self-esteem, friendships and connections, motivation and goal setting... and more. In the second session of this program, students were invited to write a letter to their future selves OR to write a letter to their best friend. This was to introduce them to the practice of journaling as a means of improving wellbeing. The students were given a choice of artistic media: paints, oil crayons, textas, pencil and stickers. The students enjoyed flexing their creative muscles and were given the opportunity to share their creative endeavours with the class at the end of the lesson.

Next week the students will talk about “motivation” and will be invited to work with clay / sculpting.

Camden Tradies

Since Week 7 of Term 3, the Camden Tradies have been working to construct a garden bed located just out the back of the Library. The Boys have been working collaboratively to ensure the plans were accurate, the site was going to get full sun and was dug out and prepared properly and most importantly, each sleeper and post was measured twice and cut once! 

Since the start of Term 4, the construction has ramped up screwing our sleepers and posts together and the boys have been working meticulously to make sure that everything is level and square. Reading and working out a spirit level has been one of the new skills gained, as well as Pete’s 3/4/5 triangle trick (Pythagoras theorem) to make sure we have right angles in all four corners!! 

Completing the building of the project in Week 2, the Tradies have now started filling the bed with some premium garden mix from Narellan Sand and Soil. The next step will be to plant some fruit and veg in there that the Tradies’ families can take full benefit from. Some potential plant ideas include a fig tree, tomatoes and some easy to grow veggies like lettuce and carrots. Stay tuned for some fresh produce shots in the next newsletter!! Our next project for the Camden Tradies is going to be to fix up the Long Jump Pit for Mr Garland and the PDHPE faculty to use. There may also be some new faces in the Tradies program later in the term with lots of girls knocking on the door to be involved – shout out to Bree and Ella who did help out with the final concreting job in Week 2. Watch this space!!!