Wellbeing

 PBL

At SFS, our PBL (Positive Behaviours for Learning) school wide expectations are:

Respect, 

Responsibility and 

Kindness

For this week’s PBL lesson we focused on RESPECT: Use good manners. 

The children learnt about expected behaviours with using manners at school such as: greeting people when you see them, saying please and thankyou when speaking to others and holding the door open for people.

Here are some of our PBL raffle winners from last week.

Respectful Relationships

After the popular turn out from our first Respectful Relationships parent and child workshop this term, we will be offering a second online parent and child workshop in Term 3. 

Our focus at school for Term 3 will be on the topic 5 Stress Management. This will be on Wednesday 30th July (Week 2 of Term 3) from 7 pm until 8 pm. 

More information will come out on Operoo soon about the Parent and Child online workshop. 

Why is it important to teach children about stress management?

Stress is a normal part of life, especially as children get older. Children who cope better with life’s stressors develop good mental health and wellbeing.

10 Assisting students recognize their personal signs and symptoms of stress and develop effective strategies will help children cope with challenges in the future.

School Attendance

In accordance with the Education and Training Reform Act 2006, schooling is compulsory for children and young people aged from 6 – 17 years unless an exemption has been granted.

Parents/guardians must enrol a child of compulsory school age at a registered school and ensure the child attends school at all times when the school is open for instruction.

Going to school every day is the most important part of your child’s education. There are no safe number of days for missing school – each day a student misses puts them behind and can affect their educational outcomes and their social connectedness. The best thing you can do is support your child to get to school every day. A positive attitude towards school, healthy habits and routines, and parental involvement can support your child’s regular school attendance and prevent chronic absence patterns.

You need to let the school know if your child is unable to attend and why they are unable to attend.

If your child is showing signs of school refusal please speak to your child’s class teacher or myself to see how the school can help. 

Here are some signs that your child might be not wanting to come to school and some ideas that might help.

Signs of school avoidance to look out for 

• feeling sick before school, e.g. waking up with a headache, stomach-ache or sore throat 

• tearfulness, clinginess and dawdling before school – struggling to get out of bed, leave the house or get out of the car

 • complaints about attending school and reluctance to talk about school 

• missing classes and being late for class.

What can you do when you see the signs of your child not wanting to come to school? 

• Work with your child to understand what is happening and so that they feel supported and empowered. Listen with compassion but be consistent in expectations.

 • Speak with your child’s teacher(s) about your concerns.

 • Consider taking your child to the GP to rule out or address any physical or emotional health problems. 

• Request and attend school meetings with your child and their teacher to develop strategies to support increased attendance.

SRC News

Our Semester One SRC reps have been busy working on their passion projects and some ideas to make SFS better for all students. 

The Senior students spoke at our school assembly last Friday about something that is important to them and then shared an action in the school. Ricki loves Badminton and would like to share his love of this sport with the school. He will be running lunchtime clinics from next Monday in the hall for those children who have signed up. 

Gavin and Harish are passionate about cricket and are bringing back a weekly lunchtime cricket match. Millie would like all children at SFS to feel welcome and like they belong. She has made some kindness cards that she has been handing out to children that she sees being kind to others. Evie cares about the environment and would like to see our school cleaner. We will be making an effort to bring “nude food” to school and not bringing food in wrappers. Students have been reminded about not taking wrappers outside with them to play.

The Junior SRC reps wanted to create more activities for Junior students to do at lunch time as they noticed that most of the Lunchtime clubs were only for Senior students. The children chose 5 activities that they would like to do at lunch time (soccer, basketball, skipping, line tiggy and Octopus). These lunchtime activities started last week. 

Well done to all the SRC reps for getting up to speak at the assembly. Stay tuned as we will be announcing our new Semester 2 SRC reps soon. They will be presented with their badges in the first week back of term 3.

Annual SFS Twilight Market

We will be having our annual SFS Twilight market this year on Thursday 6th November 2025. 

This is an event always enjoyed by our school community. I am in the process of looking for stalls. If you have a small business you would like to promote or you know of someone that would like to promote a small business, please email me or contact the school for an expression of interest form. 

The market will run from 5pm to 8pm and the cost of a stall is 30 dollars. 

You need to provide your own table, chairs, float of money for change and whatever you need for the stall. It is an outdoor market unless in the event of rain, will be held in the hall.

There will be a variety of delicious food trucks to choose from and some student lead stalls from the Action teams. If any students are interested in having a stall they will need the help and supervision of a parent or carer. 

Applications for stalls will close at the end of term 2 so please make sure to get your expression of interest form filled out and returned to school. For more information, please contact me on rlenko@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au

BeYou

At SFS we are a BeYou school where we work together to build a mentally healthy community. Be You is the national mental health and wellbeing initiative for learning communities in Australia. 

BeYou provides educators with knowledge, tools and resources to create positive, inclusive and responsive learning communities where every child, young person, educator and family is empowered to achieve their best possible mental health. 

For more information visit www.beyou.edu.au

I am available at school Monday to Thursday. If any parents have a wellbeing concern they would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to contact me at school or send me an email rlenko@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au

Rachel Lenko

Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader