From the 

Assistant Principal

Dear South Melbourne Park Primary families, what a wonderful start to the year, I am so grateful for all that you have done to support our young people to transition so amazingly well back to school. It is our biggest pride and joy when we see the eager faces bursting through the gates to get to their classrooms. 

Firstly, I would like to draw your attention to the link towards the bottom of newsletter pages that allows you to translate the page into a language of your choice, please take an opportunity to try this out as we have so many community languages, we are unable to create multiple translations to meet all needs.

Each newsletter I would like to include 3 key areas for regular updates:

1. AIP (Annual Improvement Plan) Wellbeing Focus
2. SMPPS Re-engagement Process Focus
3. Uniform Focus

AIP (Annual Improvement Plan) Wellbeing Focus

This year the school has one learning and one wellbeing goal, enabling a sharp focus on our key priorities. Our Wellbeing Goal is ‘To Develop an Orderly and Focused Learning Environment. Our steps towards establishing Safe and Orderly Learning Environment (SOLE) non-negotiables have already begun, prioritising consistent practices across the school. One change you may notice is that we have been working on Safety Lines for transitions. Our students will now line up and move around the school in roll order (maintaining individual adjustments to support students as needed) and focus on short, quiet transitions across classrooms. The teacher will walk at the back of the line to enable safe monitoring of students at all times. This has multiple benefits, not least of which is during emergencies where a Safety Line can save precious minutes and allow missing students to be identified instantly – thanks to Ms Kurts for coining the name Safety Line!

To see our students at work, Kaila Michaels our creative genius has enlisted Mr Beattie and the 6A crew to demonstrate in this video. We have gorgeous voiceovers from all over the SMPPS student community – see if you can recognise your child/ren’s voice!

Getting Around Safety at SMPPS

SMPPS Re-engagement Process Focus

We are continuing to refine our implementation of the Re-engagement Process we introduced last year. Our priority is proactive prevention through Tier 1 intervention practices such as SOLE but 

In the Refocus part, you will see ‘regulate’. Regulating our emotions is critical for both the child and the adult in a situation where a young person’s behaviour needs to be addressed. In addition, humans are unable to access the ‘logical’ side of the brain and be reasoned with or discuss choices until we are first regulated. When students reach my office, this most often looks like giving a child space to draw or write about what happened. Some may just want to sit. I have a range of plushies to choose from also. Other children may really need to move, and sometimes my first step is to take a walk alongside a student and talk about neutral topics until they are ready. Our students are always much more ready to talk, empathise and make reparations when this has happened. 

What does this look like at home? Regulate

Uniform

Safety is our priority at school and you may notice that your children may have had chats with teachers about any jewellery they have worn to school. We ask that all jewellery other than stud earrings remain at home where they can be safe, and also reduce the risk of injury – trust me, when you’ve seen and heard some of the stories, it is worth the puppy dog eyes if our kids ask to wear them still! We are a primary school and headlice remain endemic, so it is critical that hair longer than shoulder length is tied back safely. Lastly, please can we wear all black shoes for school other than on days where they engage in PE or sporting events? A uniform builds pride and belonging in the school community, and ours is gorgeous, so let’s get wearing it! We will hopefully hear soon about the next 2nd hand uniform shop opening date. 

Lost Property

Please can we all clearly label personal items and teach our children to let you know when the labels wear off. Our lost property is frequently inundated with unlabelled items, lunchboxes in particular are causing a health and environmental hazard with about 80L of unclaimed plastic lunch tubs at the end of summer. This year, we are seeking volunteers in the community to help stay across this. We will have a weekly cull and items that are not named will be washed and donated.

That was a big one from me! Have a fabulous weekend, 

Trish (Ms Wan)

Assistant Principal