Secondary SS News

Welcome to Week 7 everybody!

Your stand-in Secondary SSLs are Dan Moloney and Ashley Stace.

To help you understand who can can support you on a day-to-day basis, please understand the following allocations:

Mondays and Tuesdays - Dan

Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays - Ashley

Each day, and in Linda's absence, we would like to work with you to support you with staff allocations, yard duty coverage and support, supporting the running of classroom team meetings, actions to follow up reporting (XUNO and Edu Safe), undertake morning and afternoon check ins.

What situations you need help with, we want to build your capacity to be more independent and work effectively day to day. Secondaries provides its fair share of curveballs and we need to work together to systematically overcome them. We can do it!

Staff Absence - REMINDER

This is a friendly reminder that you please call Fiona Micelotta via the Staff Absence Line 0438 789 711 by 7am  for you to be uploaded to SharePoint and develop a plan from there.

Canine Comprehension

Canine Comprehension starts up again for Primary, Middle and Secondary. A reminder that this takes place on Wednesday for the students involved. I can’t wait to see this in action!

PBS Celebration Days Term 4

We will be having two different celebration events for secondary in Term 4. 

Rooms 20, 25-27 attended and had a great time at 'Inflatable World' last week.

Rooms 19, 21, 22, 23 and 24 will have their turn on Friday, 3rd November.

Life Education Incursion 

Timetable has been sent out this week. Please check emails for times and dates. Every class will have an hour session with Life Education. The sessions will run in the CLH, as Life Ed no longer operate within a van. 

Week 7

Tuesday 14th November

Wednesday 15th November

Thursday 16th November

Week 8

Monday 20th November

Tuesday 21st November

Wednesday 22nd November

Thursday 23rd November

Excursions

Please ensure that you have:

• booked buses, 
• arranged for Myki cards
• log your trip on both SharePoint and the Student Activity Locator
• arrange for payment the excursion in a timely manner, to match your existing purchase order lodged, no later than Week 6 the term before

There is a checklist of tasks that need to be completed for excursion please ensure that you are completing these tasks. 

PBS Tickets

Thank you to all classrooms who have been giving out tickets to students. 

Could all staff please be sure to hand out tickets in the classroom and playground. 

Playground PBS Expectations***

Our kids need support to meet our school wide expected behaviours, particularly when 'Looking After Property'. As our end of play announcements say, it is time pack up FIRST. Sports balls and tennis racquets should always be packed away in PG4 and 5 before transitioning students out. Please be vigilant and model these expectations - offer PBS tickets accordingly.

Do not forget to also acknowledge the great work of your colleagues by offering blue PBS tickets to them for their great team work.

Accountability

Teaching and Learning Programs

A big thank you to all teachers for ensuring their accountability documents are uploaded to SP each Monday. There is always a lot happening but prioritising these means that your team approach is more consistent and your students' learning is 1) more predictable for them to follow and 2) more familiar and structured for them to experience success.

If there is any way Ash and Dan can help, please us me know. 

Classroom Team Meetings

Classroom Team Meetings are a clear means for your team, therapists and leaders to be operating on the same page. On SP, and with regard to Term 4, I have noticed that several classrooms do not have their CTM minutes uploaded to SharePoint for Ash and I access.

Please routinely upload your meeting minutes so that your decision are recorded and then valued by all team members. For without these, how can we ensure our desired impact on our students' learning and wellbeing?

Our current Classroom Team Meeting focuses for Term 4 are:

• Weeks 6-10: Updating Student Profiles

As always, plan to discuss 2 students at each meeting to address either IEP Goals/Success Criteria OR to revise your Student's Profiles for us all to provide input

Ash and I will be in touch with you to follow up either your programs or CTM Minutes so that we appreciate your work up until now. 

Term 4 Maintenance Programs

Teachers, I encourage you to upload an updated copy of your maintenance program prior to the end of term. Be sure to include any changes in staffing and/or student behaviour as well as changes to your regular timetable.

Seesaw

Please ensure that you are uploading pictures each week to all students. This is an important platform used to communicate with families and to share what their children are doing at school. 

Yard Duty

BE VISIBLE  

Please ensure that you are out to yard duty on time and wearing your vest. Everyone should be wearing a vest even staff assigned to 1:1 students. 

BE ON TIME

If you have students who take longer to transition encourage them to start transitioning earlier or get another member of staff to support the student so that you are able to get out to the yard on time. If you are running late please arrange someone to cover you until you get out there.

BE MOBILE/INTEGRATE/PRESENT

Pleas roam between the students to help them recognise that you are there. Encourage those students who are less likely to move to involvement them in interactions or use the sports equipment available to them. 

Work towards establishing trust with student who may or may not be in your class group.

You never know next year...

Kitchen Photocopier

Please do not access the Health Living Kitchen on Thursdays and Fridays. This is used for the canteen program on these days and is therefore a commercial kitchen on these days. It is important that you use your non-face-to-face time to plan ahead and photocopy ahead of time. The resource photocopier is available throughout the week for anyone to use. 

Staff Wellbeing and Mental Health 

The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a free, short term, and strictly confidential counselling service delivered for the Department through an independent provider, LifeWorks by Morneau Shepell (LifeWorks). The EAP is available 24 hours, 7 days a week for up to four sessions for Department employees to discuss any personal or work related issues. 

To access the service, call 1300 361 008 to make an appointment. The telephone number can be accessed 24 hours, 7 days a week. Once you have contacted LifeWorks, an appointment time will be scheduled within 24 hours. An appointment will be made to be undertaken within five days of initial contact. Urgent after hours counselling requests will be put through to an on call counsellor. All non-urgent counselling requests received after hours will be booked to occur during business hours (8am– 6pm). Appointments can be booked at a time and location that works for you, over the phone or face-to face.