The Collective

From the Deputy Principal

Mrs. Audrey Fellowes - Deputy Principal - Head of Primary

60 Seconds Can Change A Life

To complement this year’s professional development focus on feedback and to enhance our Care@Clayfield Pastoral Care support, the College is excited to share a weekly wellbeing tool that will be used by students in Years 4 to 12. 

 

Pulse is an interactive online platform for students to ask for help, giving teachers real-time insights about students and will guide the Pastoral Care Team to further uncover actionable insights into the College’s wellbeing and culture.

Pulse helps to find the right help for a particular student at the appropriate time through a one-minute check-in which can accomplish the following for students.

  1. They can tell key staff how they are feeling. This is identified, so teachers can help students who are at risk.
  2. Normalising help seeking through building a culture where students know that there is a safe and secure pathway to reach out for help.
  3. Pulse can integrate into student life through the ability to send messages of gratitude to others, allowing students to feel valued and supported by their peer group.
  4. Real-time data allows leaders to put big picture measures in place while simultaneously caring for the individual needs of students.

Once a week during PC time, students will log a notification of how they are feeling by answering several questions. The Pulse Check-in app presents a pragmatic set of questions developed by the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) in collaboration with mental health and wellbeing experts. In ARACY’s research, they have conceptualised wellbeing as six interconnected domains that support each other to help children reach their potential. To have optimal wellbeing, a young person needs to be adequately resourced in all six domains. These domains are: 

  • Valued, loved, and safe 
  • Material basics 
  • Healthy 
  • Learning
  • Participating 
  • Positive sense of identity and culture

The checking in process allows for strategically selected stakeholders to be alerted to the needs of students who have flagged their concerns.

 

The College has previously relied on broad surveys and teacher check-ins to take the wellbeing temperature of their students. The use of Pulse takes student wellbeing from a reactive program to a proactive wellbeing initiative. Through Pulse, the guest speakers and professionals who are invited to the College under the Care@Clayfield framework can be guided by the needs of the students.

 

We look forward to rolling the Pulse program out by the end of this term.

Pre-Prep Play Area

Through the support of our community with last year’s P&F Fun Run, the Pre-Prep’s have thoroughly enjoyed their new outdoor space, which reflects the value of play pedagogy. It was completed just in time for the beginning of this term, making for a wonderful surprise. Thank you to the Parents & Friends Association and all the families who bought tickets, sponsored their child, and joined the community for a fun-filled day.

 

The Pre-Prep children are actively and imaginatively engaged with each other, their educators, the objects of design and the environment. The language of learning resonates as they explore and test ideas with each other, play imaginatively and build on their friendships through shared interests. There are moments of risk-taking, self-assessing risk and demonstrations of resilience. 

 

Most importantly, this is what the children think. 

“I like the river because you get to put water in it and splash in the puddle” Eloise 
“I like the keys and trying to know the code. It’s fun!” Lucy 
“I like balancing on the wooden blocks.” Luca 
“I like to do big water pumps.” Leonardo  
“You can put stuff on the blue and green thingy and move it.” Naomi 
“I like playing in the water.” Brandon 
“I can balance.” Penny 

On 12 June this year, the P&F will be holding another Fun Run for the College. Save this date on your calendars for a day of obstacles, running, fancy-dress costumes, delicious food stalls, crazy-hair and face painting! There might even be a parent/teacher fun run race. More information will be coming soon.