Wellbeing and Inclusion 

Dear Karoo Community,

    Our 'Building a Resilient Child' Parent Information Session is fast approaching, don't forget to book your place.  As part of our PEPS, we are hosting Real Schools Facilitator, Shelia Bollard, on Wednesday August 9th, 2023 at 7pm.  We invite our school community to come along and engage in a fantastic evening of learning.  

BUILDING A RESILIENT CHILD 

    As parents, we all want our children to be resilient. Resilience helps us to deal effectively with the challenges that life throws at us and helps us bounce back from adversity. Its more than dealing with the challenges, as there is also a strong correlation between resilience and being successful, caring and empathetic. These are traits that we want to instil in our own children.  

This session is designed to support you with raising a resilient child in today’s world.  The tips and advice will be practical, easy to implement and immediately useful. 

To book your place, please click on the link below (link will also be available via compass).

Student Engagement Plan - Restorative Practices

   At Karoo PS we utilise the restorative continuum to elevate student behaviour, empathy and relationships.  We endeavor to work with our students, parents and community to build, maintain and restore relationships to fo a positive learning environment. Please find a copy of our Student Engagement Plan below for your reference.

Young Leaders Conference

On the 18th May, 1st of June and 3rd August, 5 of our Year 5 students, Tate Cutter, Georgia Kelly, Maddison Glancy, Maddox Nott and Cooper White attended the Young Leader’s for Equality and Respect Program.  

The 3 sessions, ‘Let’s Get Educated’, ‘Let’s Take Action’ and ‘Let’s Celebrate’, focused on:

• Setting up a safe space
• Understanding and promoting gender equity and equality
• Breaking down gender stereotypes
• Being an upstander for change and respectful relationship ambassador

The students explored these issues and looked at the change they could create within our school. They felt that students currently did not feel safe to play in all areas of the school ground and wanted to create a change. 

They came up with the idea to introduce friendship benches to the school with the aim of everyone having a safe place to go to if they had no one to play with at break times. 

During the process, they have collaborated together to plan, develop and implement their idea. They presented their idea to the Leadership Team of the school and met with the Student Leadership Wellbeing Team to discuss their ideas and have decided to place their friendship bench underneath the Wellbeing Team’s Kindness Tree. They have incorporated making macramé decorations to hang from the tree into one of our lunchtime clubs- ‘Rainbow Club’. 

Throughout this program, the students all displayed maturity, leadership skills, the ability to listen to each other’s ideas and a genuine passion to create change within our school. 

“This program has included learning about respect, equity, equality and that all genders should be treated equally. During this program I have learnt a lot of things which I enjoyed learning. We had to come up with an issue that we can fix at our school. We had 3 sessions, 2 that went for almost the whole day. We had to create a presentation to present on the last day.” – Maddox.

The year 5 students worked with Miss Wild to action their project and the whole school community is very proud of the work our leaders have achieved so far. We cannot wait to see their continued passion moving forward in the implementation of Karoo’s first friendship bench.

We will keep you up to date for the launch of the Kindness Tree and Friendship Bench, which will be presented to the scool community in Term 4!

Child Safety - Child Safe Standards

    Karoo Primary School is a child safe organisation which welcomes all children, young people and their families. We are committed to providing environments where our students are safe and feel safe, where their participation is valued, their views respected, and their voices are heard about decisions that affect their lives. 

    Our child safe policies, strategies and practices are inclusive of the needs of all children and students. We have no tolerance for child abuse and take proactive steps to identify and manage any risks of harm to students in our school environments. We promote positive relationships between students and adults and between students and their peers. These relationships are based on trust and respect. We take proactive steps to identify and manage any risk of harm to students in our school environment. 

    When child safety concerns are raised or identified, we treat these seriously and respond promptly and thoroughly. Particular attention is given to the child safety needs of Aboriginal students, those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, international students, students with disabilities, those unable to live at home, and any students experiencing risk or vulnerability. 

    Child safety is a shared responsibility. Every person involved in our school has an important role in promoting child safety and wellbeing and promptly raising any issues or concerns about a child’s safety. 

Attendance

Attendance continues to be a priority at Karoo PS.  We know that being at school every day has a lasting impact on a students learning and wellbeing.  Across our school all year levels are excitedly working on creating a design for our Attendance Motto! So watch this space for your opportunity to have your say on the final design.  

In the meantime, our Attendance Motto is being used everyday, in every classroom to continue to build the excitement and expectation about why it is important to be at school everyday.

To ensure clear communication with our school community regarding attendance processes, please find below our 'KPS Approach to Student Attendance.'  This is the overview of what to do if your child is away, as well as how our school will work with you if support is required to improve attendance.

Upcoming Parent Learning Session in Knox

Please find below the flyers for upcoming information sessions in the Knox network.

I hope you all have a fantastic fortnight and I look forward to seeing you all around the school!

Kind Regards, 

Courtney Hoffmann

Assistant Principal (A)