This year in the wellbeing space, our school continues to focus on:

Building teacher capability to activate student voice and agency within the classroom
Reducing the % of students with 20+ days absence from 39% in 2019 to 25% in 2024.
Embedding a whole-school approach to the development of the social and emotional wellbeing of students
Developing and implementing strategies that involve parents and carers as partners in their child’s learning

Dear Parents and Carers,

Term 2 is proving to be another busy term with some very exciting events planned for our staff, students and community members.

Playgroup

ETRSS and ETRS Playgroup is finally up and running with a great turn out on the first week. We had 14 families attend with children of all ages attending from 3 months old to 5 years old including children with additional needs. We have also extended our invitation to Inter-Reach Family Daycarer and we hope to feature in the Riverine Herald in the next week. It has been wonderful partnering with Kristy at Anglicare Early Help and the Specialist School for this initiative. This is one of our key improvement strategies when building relationships with our community.

Upcoming Parent Seminars

We are lucky to have been asked to host 2 Triple P Parenting Seminars in May as part of the Flood Relief Funding. These have been widely promoted on our Facebook Page and also on Class Dojo. We have Fearless addressing anxiety in children and ways to help combat this on Thursday the 18th of May at 9:15am in the library. The second session is Building Resilient Kids on Tuesday May the 30th at 6pm in the Library. Don’t forget to register by clicking on the QR code at the bottom of the flyer. More details can be found in the flyers advertised in the newsletter.

Berry Street Education Model PL

On the 1st and 2nd of June, our staff will attend the final two days of the Berry Street Education Model Training. This professional learning was financed through the DET Mental Health Menu initiative launched in 2022. The four-day course is arranged around the five Berry Street Education Model domains:

Day 1: Body – How to help your students to regulate their stress response, de-escalate in school and classroom contexts and provide strategies for increased focus.
Day 2: Relationship – Positive relational classroom management strategies that promote on-task learning
Day 3: Stamina – How to create a culture of academic persistence in your classroom by nurturing student resilience, emotional intelligence and a growth mindset. Engagement – How to motivate students with strategies that increase their willingness to learn
Day 4: Character – How to harness our values and character strengths approach for effective learning and for future pathways.

School Attendance

School attendance continues to remain front and centre of our 2023 key improvement strategy. Our school currently has 82% of students attending 80% of the time so far this year. This is a significant improvement on last year’s data and believe the newsletter promotion and the acknowledgment at assembly for both individuals and classes is positively impacting our data.

Attitudes To School Survey

Attitudes to School Surveys are due to be completed next week for students in Grade 4, 5 and 6. This is an annual survey and aims to gather data about how our students feel about attending our school, the relationships they have with the staff and their peers, incidence of bullying among many other areas including overall life satisfaction, weekly screen time and weekly physical activity. We use this data to identify future Key Improvement Strategies and enjoy analysing the results with our students.

IOC and Diverse Learner Hub

Michele Soleski who is an Inclusion outreach coach working with us for the next 2 terms. Michele’s role is to support staff to implement and tweak Tier 1 practices and also support the implementation of Disability Inclusion across the school and provide targeted professional learning to our staff in the wellbeing space. We look forward to working closely with Michele.

Social Media and Phone Use

We’d like to remind families that most social media apps are for students 13 years and over. Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter etc stipulate users must be 13 years of age or older. If you do allow your child to access social media, we ask for your vigilance. Just like their interactions in person, online interactions require supervision and support.

Below are some strategies that are known to be successful when monitoring social media usage. These include:

• Monitoring your child’s phone or devices for apps that are downloaded

• Enacting parental controls on phones and consoles

• Reviewing the messages they send on platforms and apps.

• Consider making monitoring part of a daily or weekly routine

• Setting expectations about what space and times they have access to devices. Ideally this should be a shared space in the home.

• Encouraging your child to share or discuss with you what they are doing online

• Encourage your child to share their concerns with you when they arise

There is a phone ban during school hours and phones must be handed into the office or your child’s classroom teacher upon arrival at school. Phones will be secured in a locked cabinet during the school day and returned to students at the end of the day. The is a Victorian Department of Education directive.

We are addressing these issues at school and educating our students about the permanency of what is posted online even if it ‘appears’ to disappear. Additionally, we are addressing the social, emotional and criminal implications for individuals if these platforms are used in a way to threaten, cause hurt and or bully others. Our values are inclusion, respect, resilience and responsibility and we wish to instill these values in all facets of our students’ lives. However, behaviours arising from social media misuse that spill over into the school environment will be addressed in accordance with our Student Engagement and Wellbeing Policy.

Please take the time to discuss this with your child and if you have any concerns regarding your child or would like some advice around this topic, please contact your child’s classroom teacher or the Wellbeing Team.

Have a great weekend!

ETRPS Wellbeing Team ☺

Anglicare Early Help Services at ETRS

Free Positive Parenting Seminars

Wishing everyone a great weekend.

Kind regards,

ETRS Wellbeing Team.

2023 ETRS School Leaders

Our School Group Leaders