From the Assistant Principal

Dear South Melbourne Park Primary families, thank you for another wonderful fortnight, it has been great seeing our Preps settle into routines and all students have coped wonderfully well despite some sleepless nights due to storms and sticky weather.

Keep an eye out for “Language” dropdown at the bottom of the newsletter when viewing on a PC to help you choose a different language.

1. AIP (Annual Improvement Plan) Wellbeing Focus

In case you missed it – here is the Safety Lines video shared last week for Getting Around Safety at SMPPS. This week teams did some professional reading on some of the theory and purposes behind SOLE (safe and orderly learning environments). Whilst not all of this is relevant or going to be applied, you are welcome to have a read. Warning – it’s quite a dense read! We have also been developing some Learning Walk protocols which will enable us to gather some observational data on the implementation of our SOLE and what our next steps with teacher learning will be. It is very exciting to be so intentional and focused with our wellbeing work this year. One item on our non-negotiables is a visual timetable – this is intended to allow students to have a clear picture of the structure of their day and should include both images and words to support all students. It would be great for you to engage in discussion with your child/ren and ask if they know where the timetable is in class and explain what it looks like and how it’s used. Take a look at the photo of the 6A classroom space to see some of the SOLE at work.

1. SMPPS Re-engagement Process Focus

Building on last week’s focus on regulation, here’s an example of why this helps students to access learning: Hand Model of the Brain (scroll down for the child friendly section). The Hand Model is a great way of explaining in a child friendly way, how our brains work and the hormones coursing through our bodies when we are stressed. We can often think that children’s experiences of stress are insignificant compared to adult stressors, however it’s great to get down on the child level and remember what has happened in their lives so far, and how for them, dropping and breaking a favourite toy can in that moment, feel like the worst thing that’s “ever” happened to them.

Uniform

As you may have seen, the next 2nd hand uniform shop opening date is the 23rd February, please come along and also donate any clean items that could benefit another child. Another reminder to label and regularly check the lost property. Attached is a photo of our current collection of water bottles and we are only 3 weeks into school! Another call out for support from the community to help manage this, we are inundated with items and at present have only had one parent put their hand up to help. Please let the office or me know if you could spare some time to support with this. We will continue to aim to have a weekly cull and items that are not named will be washed and donated.

Have a great sunny and appropriately temperatured weekend, Trish (Ms Wan)