We are excited to extend our new well-being program Peaceful Kids to include our Year 1 students.

Peaceful Kids is a developmentally appropriate program that helps children:

build their emotional resilience
learn coping strategies that help lessen the symptoms of stress and anxiety
learn problem solving strategies
understanding and recognise their own feelings.

The aim of the program is to teach children mindfulness exercises they can use for life, to teach a range of effective coping strategies and to develop emotional intelligence skills.

The program will be run in small groups of 4-6 children with participation being by parental nomination. Each group will do these sessions 1 day a week for 8 weeks during the lunchtime break (they will still have time to eat their lunch)

If you would like to nominate your child to participate in the Peaceful Kids program, or would like further information, please contact Sally Macey at smacey@arm.catholic.edu.au

What to expect in the weekly sessions:

To identify how they are feeling, learn names for feelings and gain more insight into their own feelings and how they can change them with effective coping strategies.
To learn how to calm themselves down when they are feeling anxious through using the breath meditation.
This week's Year 2 group learnt the ‘Breath Meditation’. This meditation helps children connect with their breath and begin to notice their breath. As the breath is always with us, connection with the breath becomes a powerful way to focus on the present moment and is a great introduction to practising Mindfulness. A shorter version of this meditation is to get your child to place their hands, or a soft toy on their tummy, take deep breaths, and just to take notice of their hands or soft toy going up and down as they breathe.

PEER SUPPORT K - 6 Each Friday before lunch

STRONGER TOGETHER: ANTI-BULLYING MODULE

What is Peer Support?

The Peer Support program provides students with a supportive environment where children and young people develop skills, understandings, attitudes and strategies to improve their mental, social and emotional wellbeing. Positive relationships are developed across the school through a series of engaging activities with a range of students of all ages. The program enables participating students to contribute in an environment where all can join in. Those students helping to lead the program also gain leadership skills.

How Does Peer Support Work?

Our students will meet in small, mixed level groups every week for 8 weeks. Sessions will run for about 40 minutes using materials from Peer Support Australia. Peer Support Australia’s mission is to provide an evidence based, peer led approach to enhance the mental, social and emotional wellbeing of young people. Peer Support has trained our staff, who in turn have trained student Peer Leaders (Years 5 and 6) to run supervised sessions to develop protective factors and strengthen positive relationships across the school. Peer Leaders will work with small groups of students from Kinder- Year 4. Using Peer Leaders means we have student role models who can help our staff and parents encourage positive relationships.

The Stronger Together Module builds on research from health promotion, prevention and positive psychology approaches. The students identify their own strengths and then discuss what is respectful and what are unhealthy behaviours and how strategies, including talking to staff and parents can help. The module reinforces some of our school's key values and our policy and procedures.

The module covers the following topics: •

Session 1 Feeling safe - Being me!

Session 2 Strong me!

Session 3 Including others

Session 4 Make the change

Session 5 Know your rights

Session 6 Make a choice

Session 7 Standing together

Session 8 Take the lead!

Bullying is defined in our sessions as unhelpful behaviour that is repeated and intends to cause harm and involves an unkind use of social or personal influence.

How can I support the Peer Support Program for my child? Discuss with your child the activities, concepts and understandings they are developing each week. This helps to foster a positive connection between school and home.

For further information please contact Cathy Downes cdownes@arm.catholic.edu.au

CENTACARE

The Rural Parenting Resilience Program (RPRP) is a free and flexible parenting support program developed by Centacare New England. They assist and support parents and carers by working with them to enrich their well-being, skills and parenting practices.

How children understand and express emotions impact all aspects of their life, especially their ability to learn and maintain friendships. This term we focus on strategies and skills to help children regulate their emotions. The Term 3 Newsletter which outlines Emotion Coaching – Skills for Parents Emotion Coaching – Skills for Parents.

For more information click on the this link .

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