News From Mr Smith

Dear School Community Members,

Earlier in the year, I engaged in a webinar focussed on supporting the wellbeing of primary aged students. One of the guest speakers was Mental Health advocate, Wayne Schwass. Wayne Schwass begun his session with his personal journey with mental health (and his darkest day) and shared his expertise in creating an environment where people are welcome and invited to talk about their emotions and feelings.  Below is a snapshot of Wayne Scwhass’ presentation on ‘Creating a culture to share our emotions’.

• 50% of 7-12 year olds show stress related symptoms
• Each year, over 65,000 Australians self harm
• More than 3,000 Australians died by suicide in 2022 
• Suicide is the leading cause of death for Australians between 15 and 44 years of age
• In 2022, about 75% of people who died by suicide were males and 25% were females
• Males have been taught to hide emotions and this is highly damaging
• Discussing emotions (how we feel) is so important
• Discouraging people, especially primary school aged children, from crying is harmful
• Asking people ‘R U OK?’ is a great start 
• Resilience is the ability to cope and return to “normal” as quickly as possible
• Telling students to be resilient is not effective
• Resilience is a learned skill and can be taught

Mrs Forsyth and the Wellbeing Team will continue to explore how we can better create a culture whereby students are comfortable in expressing and sharing their emotions and feelings.

Student Reports and Parent/Teacher Discussions: 

As many of you will be aware, our Student Reports and our Parent/Teacher Discussions are fast approaching.

Student Reports

Our Student Reports will be available through Compass on Friday, 21st June at 4.00pm.

Families can request a ‘paper copy’ from the Office if required – please contact Georgia if you would like a ‘paper copy’.

Parent/Teacher Discussions

Our Parent/Teacher Discussions will be held on Thursday, 27th June from 2.00pm until 7.00pm. We have approx. 75% of our families who have ‘booked’ their Parent/Teacher Discussion. Families who have not ‘booked’ their Parent/Teacher Discussion can do so via Compass.

A reminder that students will be dismissed at 1.30pm on this day.

Term 2 Social Service Activity: 

Following Mano tradition, our Junior School Council invite our community to partake in a Social Service activity each term. 

A Social Service activity is where our Junior School Council identify a charity they would like the Mano community to support.

We are pleased to inform you that our Term 2 Social Service activity has been finalised by our Junior School Council.

Date:                     Friday, 28th June

Charity:                Andrew Love Cancer Centre  

Donation:            Gold coin

Students and staff are invited to come to school dressed in their favourite ‘movie character’!  Please see poster in this edition of the newsletter for further information. 

Thank you for supporting our school and have a great week.

Christian Smith