School Wide Positive Behaviour Support

After an extended focus on being calm and ready to learn, this fortnight, our focus shifts to the toilets. Unfortunately, this has been an area of concern recently.

Mini Blitz: Be Safe

We know how to use the toilets safely
We know how to use the toilets privately
We consider our classmates and cleaners by keeping the toilets neat and tidy

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 into house team and class totals. We announce these results at assembly.

Backhaus House Celebration Lunch

Next Thursday 5th of June, the students of Bakhaus (Yellow) House will celebrate winning the Term One pebble challenge! They will share a pizza and hot chip lunch together. More information will be shared regarding this celebration. Please note, that children are still encouraged to bring along their usual lunch on this day.

Resilient Youth Survey

As mentioned in the most recent newsletter, our Year 3-6s completed a survey that explored each students resilience and general wellbeing.

Over the coming editions of the newsletter, we will continue to share some “snapshots” of our data.

This week we wanted to highlight the importance of encouraging problem solving skills and resilience with your child.

The graph below shows where we are comparatively to the Australian average.

Our Year 3 and 4 females as well as our Year 4 males are all above the Australian average.

Unfortunately, this means the remaining cohorts surveyed fall below the Australian average.

If you are finding that your child is experiencing difficulties in problem solving and resilience, please read over some of the wonderful advice from the Raising Children Network Australia website in the link below.

https://raisingchildren.net.au/school-age/development/school-age-social-emotional-development/resilience-how-to-build-it-in-children-3-8-years

Key Takeaways:

How to build resilience: skills for children

Your child can develop emotional and practical skills that help them respond well to challenges. This lays an important foundation for resilience.

Here are skills for resilience and ways to help your child develop them.

Understanding and managing emotions – for example, your child might be worried about a family member who’s sick. You could say, ‘I can see you’re really worried about Grandpa. It’s OK to be worried. But remember we’re doing everything we can to help him get better’.
Being persistent – for example, encourage your child to have another go when things don’t work out the first time they try something. Praise your child for trying, no matter the result. You could say, ‘I’m proud of you for finishing the race’ or ‘Well done for giving it another go’.
Solving problems – for example, if a child at school says or does something unkind to your child, brainstorm how your child might respond next time. Helping your child to develop problem-solving skills is better than trying to solve every minor problem for them.

How to build resilience: helpful thinking habits and attitudes for children

Resilience is about facing challenges or disappointments, finding the positives and moving forward. There are thinking habits and attitudes that can help your child with this.

Here are ideas:

Be a role model for resilience. When your child sees you try again, handle your emotions or think positively in difficult situations, they learn that they can do the same.
Find positive role models for your child. These people can show your child that it’s possible to handle challenges and be OK. For example, if you and your child’s other parent have separated, it might help your child to have an older friend who shares this experience.
Avoid predicting and preventing every problem for your child. When your child experiences small disappointments and learns to do things differently, it will help them with bigger challenges. For example, it’s OK to let your child hand in homework that you know is wrong.
Build your child’s self-compassion. Self-compassion helps your child deal with disappointment, failures or mistakes by being kind to themselves. In turn, this helps them to move on from difficult experiences.
Help your child recognise and acknowledge when things are going well, rather than focusing only on the difficulties. For example, you could make it a habit during family meals for everyone to share one positive thing from the day.
Encourage your child to see themselves as resilient. You can do this by reminding them of a time they were resilient. For example, ‘I remember you were nervous about joining the team at first. And look at you now!’

Attendance

Each edition of the newsletter we will share the attendance percentage from the previous two weeks. Below is a break down of the previous fortnight. The aim is 95% attendance.

Unfortunately, we had no year levels that reached this goal over the past two weeks. Once again, there have been a number of colds and bugs going around recently. Hopefully we can stay healthy and boost these numbers for the remainder of term.

Year Level	School Attendance Percentage
Foundation	84.47%
Year 1	76.08%
Year 2	87.41%
Year 3	92.00%
Year 4	89.53%
Year 5	90.50%
Year 6	79.90%
School Average	85.70%

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 will commence in term 2 and will be facilitated by Carina Johns(5/6 Teacher) and 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.

Helpful Parent resources:

rch.org.au
earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au
parentingideas.com.au
australia.gov.au
kidsafe.com.au
betterhealth.vic.gov.au
kidsmatter.edu.au
youtube.com - Centre on the Developing Child at Harvard University

Sport

Regional Cross Country

Netball