News from Wellbeing

Wow, what a term it has been. It was only 9 weeks but I feel like we got so much done in such a short amount of time. We had fantastic Wellbeing Groups which saw some of the best activities yet; the Student Representative Council came up with some exciting ideas on what they can bring to the school in the future; we started up a Breakfast Club to give children an opportunity to eat breakfast before school; and we explored an exciting topic in Bounce Back focusing on Relationships.  

Wellbeing Groups

Wellbeing Groups take place once a week on a Friday. The students have an opportunity to do a fun activity where they can interact with students from the other classrooms. This term, the students participated in five enjoyable activities that ranged from sports games to science experiments.

I ran a sporting activity where the students played a range of ball games such as Tee Ball, Dodgeball, and Soccer. We started off with some warm up activities to get our muscles loose and our blood pumping. 

Some of our favourite warm up games were Infinite Tag, which is a game which has been around forever. The students tag each other but you can get back into the game when your tagger gets tagged. This way, it never ends, hence the word ‘infinite’ in the name. 

Another warm up game we love is Fruit Salad. An old favourite where each child is labelled a fruit and then when their fruit is called, they need to run to the opposite side of the oval. Last one to reach the zone is put into the Jam Jar. Fear not though, because you can get back in if the Jam Jar is called. If you reach the other side of the oval first, you get to go back into the fruit salad.

Mrs. Maher’s activity was a mixture of Art and Science. Her students built a marble maze out of a paper plate and straws, inspired by pinball machines. The students were given the freedom to create whatever pattern they wanted. The children created all kinds of interesting patterns on their paper plates for the marble to travel through. The marble would travel in all different directions as the children tilted their paper plate. The great thing about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) activities is that they allow the children to think and problem solve independently. 

Mr. Cirillo and Ms. Durrant hosted a cooking activity where the little ones had the opportunity to make pinwheels. A delicious, flakey appetiser made from puff pastry, rolled up with spinach and ricotta, or ham and cheese. An excellent choice to make as they are simple and only require a few ingredients. This hands-on activity saw the children preparing all the items they would need to put the pinwheels together, such as grating the cheese, cutting the ham and picking the spinach from our very own school Wellbeing Garden. I was lucky enough to taste the pinwheels and they were delicious.

Signora's activity was an Art one where the children got to make a mosaic picture out of little, coloured, paper squares. They were given a choice of an animal, such as a butterfly or a bird, and then they were given the option of which coloured paper squares they wanted to glue onto their picture. I saw some amazing pictures with lots of different colours. I love how creative our students are. This activity allowed them to express themselves in an artistic way. 

Lastly, Geraldine ran a STEM activity that really got the kids thinking. As I mentioned earlier, STEM activities give children the opportunity to approach problem solving in different ways. They need to open their minds and think outside of the box. In this activity, the students were given limited supplies such as cardboard, toilet rolls, and tape to build the tallest tower. They could work by themselves or in groups of up to four students. The tower had to be free standing and stable. 

Bounce Back

Term Two’s topic for Bounce Back was ‘Relationships’. As I spoke about in a previous newsletter, Bounce Back is a Wellbeing and Resilience program that we use to teach our students about social and emotional needs that affect their learning. 

Bounce Back aims to help young people function well both in school and life.

The topic of relationships focused on making good relationships with others because they make us happy. Not many children understand that a lot of people can struggle to get along with others when they first meet them. Social skills are ways of behaving when interacting with other people and they can be challenging to learn. This topic aimed at helping students learn and understand those social skills which are important for being a good friend. 

Kind regards,

Mr Tom Brophy

Wellbeing Leader