Welcome back to Term 3! I hope you all had a restful and enjoyable break, filled with moments to recharge and connect as a family. It has been lovely to see the students return with smiling faces, ready to learn and engage with their classmates again. We’re looking forward to another great term of growth, learning and connection.

Respectful Relationships: Stress Management and Help-Seeking

This term, students are exploring the important topics of stress management and help-seeking as part of our Respectful Relationships program.

Children experience stress for many different reasons—friendships, schoolwork, trying something new, changes at home, or simply having a busy schedule. Through classroom discussions and activities, students are learning that feeling stressed is a normal part of life, and that there are healthy ways to recognise, manage and respond to these feelings.

Students are also developing their understanding of help-seeking by identifying trusted adults in their lives and learning that asking for support is a sign of strength. Building these skills early helps children develop resilience, confidence and positive mental health.

How you can support your child at home:

Take a few minutes each day to ask, "What was the best part of your day?" and "Was anything tricky today?"
Encourage your child to name and talk about their emotions without trying to solve the problem straight away.
Practise calming strategies together, such as slow belly breathing, stretching, listening to calming music, reading a book, or spending time outdoors.
Help your child create a list of trusted adults they can talk to at home, school or in the community when they need support.
Model healthy ways of managing your own stress by talking about strategies you use, such as taking a walk, deep breathing or asking someone for help.

Helpful Wellbeing Resources for Families

The following free Australian resources provide practical strategies and advice for supporting children's mental health and wellbeing:

Be You – Evidence-based information for families on children's mental health, resilience and emotional wellbeing.
Raising Children Network – Expert parenting advice on managing anxiety, stress, emotions, friendships and building resilience.
Kids Helpline – Resources for children, young people and parents, plus free counselling for children aged 5–25.
Beyond Blue – Practical information to help families understand anxiety, stress and mental health.
Smiling Mind – Free mindfulness activities and guided meditations suitable for children and families.
The Resilience Project – Simple wellbeing strategies focused on gratitude, empathy and mindfulness that families can practise together.

By working together, we can help children understand that everyone experiences challenges from time to time, and that they don't have to face them alone. Knowing when and how to seek support is an important life skill that will benefit them both now and into the future.

Wellbeing Programs for Families

We are lucky to have Uniting services supporting our local community. Brogan, who is a Family Wellbeing Practioner works at our school every Monday to support families who may need some extra support. For more information about the services that Uniting provide please visit this website.

This is a referral based program. If you think your family could benefit with some extra support, please reach out to Sarah Hodgson (sarah.hodgson@education.vic.gov.au).

Lunchtime Clubs

Run Club

Our Friday Run Club has now journeyed over 927km! This is as far as Kumasi to Monrovia!!

We are very proud of our amazing runners!

Useful Websites:

Looking after your child's mental health:

https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/parents/family-health/your-childs-mental-health-advice.pdf

Easing into Adolescence

The Department of Education has launched an Easing into

adolescence webpage for families of students aged 10 to 14 (Grade 5 to Year 8).

The webpage has information and strategies you can use to help ease your child into adolescence and secondary school. These include:

a guide to emotion coaching. Staff from The University of Melbourne’s Tuning in to Teens Kids program developed the guidance.
how to support your adolescent with their studies and more generally. Parenting expert and clinical psychologist Andrew Fuller helped develop this resource.

Subtitles for videos by The University of Melbourne on the webpage are available in 10 languages. You can select your preferred language on the translations page.

Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Supports

Reward System

SWPBS focuses on multi-tiered interventions to promote positive behaviours. As part of the approach to enabling a strong school culture which embodies our school values, we have put in place a whole school sticker rewards system.

Aim of the Reward System

At DPS we have implemented a reward system to reward positive behaviours that are necessary for promoting a positive and supportive school environment. These positive behaviours are based on our four values of Compassion, Resilience, Respect and Responsibility. Part of our reward system includes the handing out of stickers which are distributed by staff when the students are "caught" displaying one or more of the values.

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