Wellbeing

 PBL

At SFS, our PBL (Positive Behaviours for Learning) school wide expectations are:

Respect, 

Responsibility and 

Kindness

This week’s PBL lesson was focused on KINDNESS Include others. This was to tie in with the message of Harmony Day which we celebrated on Friday. The students talked about why it is important to respect and celebrate our own culture and the culture of others. We practiced ways to have respectful conversations about our differences and celebrate what makes us special and unique.

Here are 3 of our lucky PBL raffle winners from last week who have been spotted demonstrating our school expected behaviours.

Respectful Relationships

The Respectful relationships program is a whole-school approach to primary prevention of gender-based violence, aiming to promote respect, positive attitudes, and behaviors, and to teach children and young people how to build healthy relationships and resilience.

In term 2, the students will be taught content from Topic 7, Gender norms and stereotypes. Maddison teaches some of this curriculum as part of the SWAP (Student Wellbeing and Performing Arts) specialist subject, which the children have fortnightly. The learning space teachers also cover content in fortnightly Circle time lessons. In term 2, we have 2 new exciting Respectful relationships events to help us build our school communities understanding. 

Firstly, we will have a student and child workshop online on Tuesday 6th May 7 pm to 7.45 pm. In this workshop you will do some activities together with your child to help you have a conversation about gender stereotypes. An Operoo notice will be sent out soon inviting you to attend the online workshop.

To follow up this online activity workshop, we will have a whole school dress up day for the students. 

On Monday 26th May we will have a “Come dressed as your dream job” day at school.

 We are looking for some parents or family members of our SFS community to come in and talk about what they do for work with the children. It would be great for some grandparents to come to school also and talk about what they did or currently do for their job. 

Stay tuned for some more information. If you would like to come and be a part of the day and speak to your child’s class, please let your child’s class teacher know or you can speak with myself or send me an email rlenko@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au

SRC

The SRC (Student Representative Council) met with me on Monday. The children shared what they found out from their playground audit. They counted how many boys and girls were playing in each area, what children were playing and whether they were being safe and following expected behaviours. 

We started to look at the Child safety policy that has been written in Child friendly language, that was developed with student a few years ago. We are in the process of updating this as there are now 11 Victorian child safe standards that we must follow and put into practice. The children will continue to work on updating this next week and then they will share this policy with the students at SFS in term 2. 

If any parents have safety concerns at school it is important to speak up and let the school know. If you have any safety concerns you would like to raise, please call the school, speak to me in person at school or send me an email.

On Thursday 27th March 2025, the 6 senior SRC reps went on an excursion with Rachel to the City of Casey's annual Student Leaders Reception at Bunjil Place Narre Warren. This was organised by the City of Casey Youth services. The aim of this Reception is to recognise the contributions of Student Leaders from across the City of Casey and provide an opportunity for these young leaders to connect with their peers and gain valuable insights.

The children had a very special guest speaker: Alice Pung OAM, award-winning Australian writer and lawyer present to them. Ms. Pung's critically acclaimed novels, including Unpolished Gem and Her Father's Daughter, are widely studied in schools globally. A dedicated advocate for social justice, Ms. Pung has taught and mentored students worldwide, lectured at prestigious universities, and championed workers' rights.She was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2022 and continues to inspire young people. It was an amazing experience for our 6 senior SRC leaders who proudly represented our school. 

Well done Evie, Gavin, Harish, Millie, Curtis and Rikki.

The children celebrated Harmony day on Friday 28th March 2025. The children learnt about diversity and inclusion during the week and talked about our diverse cultural backgrounds. 

We had an assembly lead by the senior teachers in LS 2 and we had some great performances. The choir sang the song Lean on me with an important message for us all. Despite our different backgrounds and cultures, we are all people and sometimes we need to lean on each other, work together and help each other out. 

If you have any concerns about the mental health or wellbeing of your child, please do not hesitate to contact me. I am available to speak to at school, via the phone or email on rlenko@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au

I will be available on the Parent Teacher Interview evening on the last Thursday of Term 1, so please make a time to speak with me on the Interview site where you book in the class teachers if you would like some wellbeing support for your child or I might be able to help in some way. Part of my role as Mental Health and Wellbeing leader is to help parents with clear referral pathways to services the school might be able to provide and external services for your child they may need to access such as community health services. 

Rachel Lenko  

Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader