Student Wellbeing Update

The school year kicked off with a very successful CAPSE program where we saw all teachers and students working collaboratively to set up positive learning spaces in which we can all feel safe and can thrive. 

During this time, some of our students have also participated in workshops and training programs run by outside organisations, Toolbox Education and Resilient Youth Australia.

Toolbox Education

To build on the great work of our class teachers around emotional literacy throughout CAPSE, the 3/4 and 5/6 students have been taking part in workshops run by Toolbox Education. The aim of the sessions was to help students understand why emotions might build up inside them and to build strategies for regulating these emotions. 

The exploding coke bottle metaphor was used to symbolise what happens when our emotions start to build or get out of control. The graphic (below) shows some of the strategies the students learnt to use to regulate these emotions.

Whilst the workshops were extremely engaging and fun, they also laid the groundwork for students and teachers to further develop these valuable skills as the year progresses. Circle time sessions in Years 3-6 this term will focus on using follow-up resources provided by Toolbox.

If you would like to take a closer look at the work that Toolbox Education does, please follow this link. https://www.toolboxeducation.com/

Play Leaders

The Play Leaders program is one we have been running for several years here at SKiPPS. 

Play stands for: PLAY (Positivity, Leadership and Activated Youth) - a program designed to enhance the resilience and wellbeing of young people. 

https://resilientyouth.org/play

Play Leaders provides an opportunity for our Year 5 students to step up and be leaders in our school. The program provides a platform for students to support each other, practice positive values, take responsibility and develop their leadership abilities. 

In the first week of term the students were informed about the program and were given the opportunity to formally apply to take part in the training. We were extremely impressed with the time, effort and honesty shared in the applications. The twenty-two students selected then took part in a full day of training with our very experienced and extremely entertaining facilitators, Sally and Scotty and their guests Isaac and Daniel.

Through the program training, the students learnt how to facilitate safe and fun games for younger students at school during break times by taking part in the games themselves. They then spent the afternoon putting their learning into practice by running sessions for small groups of 1/2 students. This was full of challenges but also lots of laughs and a great step in the right direction!

Just as they were last year, Sally and Scotty were blown away by the commitment, the initiative, the energy and the willingness to make mistakes that they saw from our students. They asked great questions, listened to instructions and consistently looked for ways to adapt games to make them easier or more challenging, depending on the group they might be working with. Teachers in the making!

We were all incredibly proud of their efforts and exhausted from the energy expended, not just from the participating but also the amount of laughter!

This group is so enthusiastic that they were already brining new ideas to the table before the training had even commenced! 

We would like to congratulate our newly qualified Play Leaders

Our new Play Leaders will now begin promoting the program within the school and look to begin running sessions after we return from camp in Week 6 of this term. Watch this space for lots of exciting Play Leader reports!

Mel Borella

Learning Specialist

(Wellbeing)