Positive Climate for Learning

Richard Crawshaw

Assistant Principal

House System News

Last week, the Student Representative Council (SRC) collated all of the school wide voting results based on deciding upon our School House Team Names and Mascots.

Our results indicate that:

Our preferred House Names are our 'Natural Elements' of:

Earth - Green House
Wind - Yellow House
Fire - Red House
Water - Blue House

Our preferred House Mascots are Mythical Creatures relevant to each 'Natural Element', including:

Cyclops - Green House
Pegasus - Yellow House
Dragon - Red House
Sea Horse - Blue House

This is very exciting and we feel that the school community will appreciate these choices being that our students and staff played key roles in developing and deciding on these names. The SRC look forward to making arrangements accordingly when they next meet.

Learning from home

As we embark on our second lockdown period, it is timely to remember what we learnt from the first period, and prepare ourselves accordingly. We have been reminding ourselves of what really is important during this time, and that is to stay safe, look after ourselves and each other. In Term 2, we felt that we tried to cram a little too much in to our programs which left students, parents, and staff feeling overwhelmed and exhausted by the time we came to school. This time, we feel much more prepared and able to provide learning that is still pitched at the right level for students, but is also a manageable amount of work too.

Whilst working through the carefully thought out work that you are sent by the staff in your class, remember that it is a guide for you and your child so work through what you feel you can manage. Please make sure also, that you take the time for some brain breaks during your day, for example;

Step outside of the house regularly to breath some fresh air
Gardening
Dancing in lounge room to music
On the spot running, jumping, and star jumps
Backyard sports (with your beanie on!)

Smiling Mind APP

I will also again recommend to you a fantastic APP called Smiling Mind. You can download this for free from the APP store on your phone, and it is recommended by the Department of Education to support children's mental health through COVID and beyond. Smiling Mind has a great range of meditation activities for children and youth and is great way for them to ta take some time out, relax, and breath to help regulation. The Kids Care Packs are particularly good to address this also.

Student Voice and Agency

This learning from home time is also a great time for your child(ren) to vocalise what and how they would they like to learn. I know that many of our teachers have set both some 'closed ended' tasks (where the task is set for students), but also some 'open ended' tasks, where students can be creative and direct their learning from an interest based perspective. Take the time to go through your daily plan together and where possible give them a choice on how they would like to run their day, and even what activities they would like to do. This can be related to the work that has been given to you. This is also a good time to work on some life skills such as cooking, brushing teeth, cleaning up bedroom, making the bed, or sweeping up the leaves outside, and making a cup of tea. So make sure to make the most of this time to build some of these skills where possible and create some new routines with your children.

We will continue to make this term as positive as we can for everyone, and we really appreciate your understanding and cooperation during this time.