Student
Wellbeing

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support

Each fortnight, we have a school wide focus around our school values of Be Safe, Be Friendly and Be a Learner. We call this a Mini Blitz!

Our current focus is on problem solving and conflict resolution.

Mini Blitz:

Sometimes we don’t always get along,
but it’s important to find a resolution for what went wrong.

From the Raising Children Website:

Why problem-solving skills are important

We all need to solve problems every day. But we’re not born with the skills we need to do this – we have to develop them.

Skills for problem-solving include:

listening and thinking calmly
considering options and respecting other people’s opinions and needs
negotiating and working towards compromises.

These are skills for life – they’re highly valued in both social and work situations.

For further information including strategies and advice click on the links below from the Raising Children website:

Pebble Tally

Each week, we count up our pebbles across the whole school. Pebbles are earned by students who are following the school expectations! These pebbles are tallied up and added to our thermometer below. Here's our updated tally! We are closing in on 2000 pebbles!

Weekly Winning Class

Our winning class for last week is 1CW who amassed an amazing 76 pebbles. They win the holding rights to our trophy which is full of a few little treats to share!

Casual Clothes Day Next Thursday 2nd April

Harmony Week

Last week we celebrated Harmony Week as a school. We shared a prayer of Harmony Monday morning before designing our own colourful handprint which included our names to show our commitment towards harmony. These handprints were placed around the school for students to find their own unique handprint! We spent the week celebrating different cultures during break-time. Students participated in activities ran by our senior students such as origami, bead making, lantern creating and harmony colouring in!

Ride2School Day

This morning we held our Ride2School event. Once again we had huge numbers braving what was a chilly morning departing from the Rotary Lake! Thank you to all the families who joined in on the ride and scoot to school. We were lucky to have Leading Senior Constable Corey from the Bendigo Highway Motorbike Patrol greet students as they arrived. Corey was happy to chat with students and show them around the impressive police motorcycle! Students from Year 4, 5 & 6 gathered on the basketball court to listen to Corey share important messages around bike, pedestrian and road safety as well as E-bikes and E-scooters. We thank Corey for taking time out of his day to spend the morning with us.

Sun Safety - Hats and Sunscreen

As we enter our final week of Term 1, we continue to encourage the importance of being Sun Smart with a focus on all students wearing an appropriate hat and applying sunscreen multiple times a day. The weather is warming up again in our final week so this continues to be an important reminder.

Attendance

You can view your child's attendance on the SimonEverywhere App. Attendance percentage appears just below the students profile when you click on the home icon.

Each edition of the newsletter we share the attendance percentage from the previous two weeks. Below is a break down of our first fortnight back at school. The aim is 95% attendance. While it's wonderful to be aiming for 95-100% we know that this is not always possible with illness, fatigue and family days all factors across the duration of a term.

Each newsletter will include a visual graph (below) as well as the breakdown of numbers. We will track our attendance through these graphs each edition of the newsletter.

Breakdown of last fortnight:

Year Level	School Attendance Percentage
Foundation	91.88%
Year 1	86.31%
Year 2	89.76%
Year 3	89.08%
Year 4	87.75%
Year 5	93.13%
Year 6	90.88%
School Average	89.86%

TAC - The Safe Migration Project

Choose safe active forms of travel to school this Autumn. As the warmer weather continues, we are seeing more families walking, riding, and scootering to school. Active travel is a healthy, social, and environmentally friendly way to get to and from school - but it’s important to stay safe on the journey. Here’s a quick safety checklist before walking, riding, or scootering to school with your child: plan the safest route (this is not always the quickest) choose quieter streets with lower speed limits (ideally 40km/h or less) cross at pedestrian crossings, signals, or where drivers can see you always wear a helmet (it's the law and reduces injury risk by 74%) choose footpaths, shared-use and bike paths stay close and actively supervise them at all times role model ‘Stop, Look, Listen and Think’ when crossing roads always hold their hand when near traffic and crossing roads. By taking these simple steps, we can all enjoy the benefits of safe active travel.

At St Monica's, we’re committed to supporting the safety of every child in our school community.

Starting-primary-school-fact-sheet.pdf

Cyber Safety Resources & Social Media Age Restrictions

As mentioned in previous newsletters at the end of last year, we have partnered with a well renowned cyber safety organisation Safe on Social (Ctrl+Shft). Recently this organisation released a parent and carer guide on the 16+ age restriction on social media accounts. Please click the link below for this highly helpful guide:

Ctrl+Shft+Connect_The Australian 16+ Age Delay.pdf

Another helpful resource (including a QR code for further support) from the eSafety Commissioner:

Social-media-age-restrictions-general-flyer-A4-Upd.pdf

As part of our partnership with Safe on Social (Ctrl+Shift), we have a library of resources, cheat sheets and supports regarding any aspect of Cyber Safety/Online Gaming/Social Media. If you are finding any of these a challenge with your child, please feel free to reach out and we can provide some specific information and support in this space.

For more information email: dboulton@smkangarooflat.catholic.edu.au

Fresh Fruit Friday

Thanks to The Mckern Foundation for donating fresh fruit to our school weekly.

This is a great initiative but please make sure children are still bringing a piece of fruit in their lunchbox for fruit break as fruit is not available all week.

Season’s for Growth

A grief and loss program

Change and loss are issues that affect all of us at some stage in our lives. At St Monica’s we recognise that when changes occur in families through death, separation, divorce or related circumstances, children and young people may benefit from learning how to manage these changes effectively. We are therefore offering a very successful education program called Seasons for Growth. This program is facilitated in small groups and is based on research that highlights the importance of social support and the need to practise new skills to cope effectively with change and loss. The program focuses on issues such as self-esteem, managing feelings, problem-solving, decision-making, effective communication and support networks. Seasons for Growth runs for eight weeks and each weekly session is 40-50 minutes during school hours. The program concludes with a 'Celebration' session. Later in the year each group will have the opportunity to meet for a re-connector session to build on their earlier learning and to follow up how each child is going.

Seasons for Growth is facilitated by Bronwyn Fieldew ( Family Liaison Officer) who has received special training in the use of this program.

For more information please contact Bronwyn at the school and/or express your interest in this program by filling out the email form below which will be sent to Bronwyn Fieldew. St Monica’s is pleased to be able to offer this important program and we are confident that it will be a valuable learning experience for those who request to be involved.

Please send an email below letting us know if your child would like your child/children to participate in this program. Please include the following information:

Student name, class and whether they have experienced separation or loss.