Vice Principal 

& Wellbeing

R U OK Day 

On Thursday this week was national R U OK Day. This is now a well recognised event which promotes the simple act of checking in on our mates, colleagues, family members and neighbours. 

Have you noticed someone you know or care about acting differently lately? Maybe they're more agitated, withdrawn, or just not themselves? Trust your instincts and take action. 

Starting a conversation and mentioning the changes you've observed could encourage that family member, friend, or colleague to open up. If they admit they're not OK, you can use our conversation steps to show your support and help them find ways to manage their situation. If they are OK, they'll appreciate that you care enough to check in.

At a St Mary's level, we have so many structures in place to check in with students, staff and parents. You could use some our our fantastic resources to guide a conversation. Our Toolkit is the best place to start! 

We can encourage our kids, friends and family to use their Helping Hand if they need someone to talk to or someone to help them. Encourage them to think of 5 people who are there to support and guide them, people who care about them and have some experience in helping others. Parents, teachers, support staff, admin staff, coaches and extended family members can all be on our helping hand.

When talking to our friends, we need to encourage them to use their Mind Master thinking. Use statements such as: 

"It's OK to feel this way, it won't last. Who can you ask for help?"

"I can persist when I am faced with a challenge"

"I can take a break and reset"

Keeping self-talk positive is a very powerful tool. This is not easy for some people, especially kids, so we might need to help them structure their thinking and actions by providing some strategies. Identifying that problems and mistakes help us grow, learn and change is all part of the journey. Thinking about the possibilities and opportunities and the steps we can take to get there helps us to problem solve and face challenges.

MACSSIS School Improvement Survey

MACSSIS is an annual process whereby schools listen to the thoughts and feelings that students, families and staff have about how their school can improve. These surveys help inform the ongoing improvement of schools across the Archdiocese of Melbourne. 

One of the main goals of the family survey is to identify the strengths and areas for improvement in our school. MACSSIS data benefits everyone within our school and provides valuable community insights on areas that each school can focus on. Our school believes it is important to encourage families to have a voice and contribute to shaping the ongoing improvement of the school.

The survey is available online, can be accessed from Monday 2 September and needs to be completed by Friday 20 September 2024. This survey may only be completed once.

For families with more than one child attending our school, we ask that you focus on the eldest child attending the school when completing the survey. The school has invited many families to respond via this survey and participation is completely voluntary. There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers – all responses are completely anonymous and at no point are any of the responses from students, families or staff identifiable by the school.