Wellbeing 

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to Term 1, 2025! What a fantastic start it has been. Seeing all those smiling faces on Day 1 truly reminded me why I love my career.

Wishing everyone a wonderful year ahead, I look forward to all the learning, growth, and memorable moments to come.

Curriculum Day

Our Term 1 Curriculum Day centred on the Child Safe Standards and our collective responsibility to protect the children in our care each day. While this is a serious and important topic, we felt it was essential to begin the year with a strong focus on our unwavering commitment to child safety.

During the session, all staff explored each of the 11 Victorian Child Safe Standards in depth and worked collaboratively to develop an EPS-specific version of the standards, ensuring they are meaningful and embedded in our practice.

Just a reminder that our Child Safe policies can be accessed on the EPS website.

https://elsternwickps.vic.edu.au/  

Classroom set up

Each classroom has been actively engaged in creating their Classroom Agreement, which takes various age-appropriate forms to authentically reflect student voice. Each agreement is grounded in our school values of Respect, Responsibility, Personal Excellence, and Curiosity. Alongside these agreements, Classroom Management Plans (commonly referred to as the ‘steps’) provide students with structure, routine, and clear boundaries, fostering a positive learning environment.

Research highlights that basic classroom structures enhance student learning by freeing up working memory, allowing students to focus on the intended learning (Brophy, 2006). These agreements, along with each classroom’s Digital Technology Agreement, form part of our preventative wellbeing approach at EPS—ensuring all students feel safe, valued, and respected.

Backflips Against Bullying

This term, Prep to Year 4 students will participate in an incursion with Backflips Against Bullying, marking the third consecutive year that EPS has engaged this provider. The program is evidence-based and endorsed by Evelyn M. Field OAM, a respected psychologist and author of Bully Blocking, the Australian school’s handbook on anti-bullying.

In addition, Backflips Against Bullying is a registered Trusted E-Safety Provider with the Australian Government, ensuring a high standard of cyber safety education. To extend the impact beyond the incursion, teachers receive comprehensive resources to integrate key concepts into the classroom as part of our wellbeing curriculum.

Parent/Carer Information Session 

**REMINDER** Tuesday 18th February 2025 8pm to 9:30pm

We are excited to once again be partnering with Vanessa Hamilton, our Sexuality and Consent Education Consultant, to deliver high-quality, evidence-based lessons to students across all year levels this year. 

This program complements the Respectful Relationships education that students engage with throughout the year.To learn more about the age-appropriate content covered at each year level and how you can support your child's understanding at home, please see the below flyer. You can also register for our online parent/carer information session this term via the link below.

https://events.humanitix.com/sexuality-edu-parents-elsternwick-ps