Student Wellbeing
St Fidelis' Catholic Primary School
GEM Highlight
It is wonderful to be involved in such rich discussions and learning about The Resilience Project throughout our school. Across all classes, we are hearing a common language and shared understandings about TRP and GEM.
As a school community, we have been working together to incorporate TRP and GEM Chats into the daily lives of our students, engaging in Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness practices each day. A big congratulations to our wonderful GEM Leaders for running these chats within their classes with confidence and enthusiasm. Their leadership and commitment have helped create positive and meaningful moments for students across the school.
Classroom TRP Learning
Over the past few weeks, students in Years 3–6 have been focusing on developing their emotional literacy skills. They have been learning about the different clues we can use to understand how a person may be feeling, including facial expressions, body language and gestures.
As part of this learning, students explored the FACE acronym to help identify emotions and better recognise how others may be feeling, as seen on the poster below. Students also discussed a range of emotions and practised ways to respond empathetically in different situations by thinking about what they could say or do to support others.
These conversations and activities continue to support students in building empathy, understanding emotions and strengthening positive relationships with others.
Social Media and Online Safety
As families are aware, Australian law now requires users to be at least 16 years old to hold accounts on many social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, X, Reddit and YouTube. The changes were introduced to help protect young people from online harms and to provide them with more time to develop the social, emotional and digital skills needed to safely navigate online spaces.
We continue to encourage families to monitor the content their children access online, particularly through YouTube Shorts and other short-form video platforms. While much of this content is entertaining, some videos promote inappropriate language, disrespectful behaviour, and trends that are not aligned with our school values. We are seeing an increase in students repeating language and behaviours that have originated from online content.
Supporting children to reduce recreational screen time, engage in offline activities, and discuss what they are viewing online can have a positive impact on their wellbeing, relationships, and learning. By working together, we can help students develop healthy digital habits and maintain a respectful and positive school environment.
Have a wonderful week!
Bianka and Vicky