In the Know

Community News 

Healthy Gaming – Kilvington PEP Talk

On Monday night this week, we held a webinar on Healthy Gaming as part of our 2021 PEP Talks series. Andrew Kinch from Game Aware offered insights and strategies into how to make gaming a more positive and healthy experience your child and your family.

 

Specifically, Andrew talked about how to:

  • Minimise compulsion and escapism by building resilience.
  • Reduce the conflict with family around gaming.
  • Maximise performance and enjoyment by doing more with less.
  • Learn how to play intelligently and sustainably.

Here is a link to a recording of the event. Be warned, it is quite lengthy – one hour, plus 20 minutes of questions and answers, but worth the time investment.

Next PEP Talk - Sexual Health and Consent 

Discussing sexual health and consent with our children can be vexing not only for them but also for us as parents and guardians. With the current intense focus on consent, we can do with all the help we can get to make sure our children are well informed and safe.   

 

Elephant Ed is a leading sexuality education provider to hundreds of schools around Australia. They have run many workshops for Kilvington students. For the first time, they will align our student workshops with this important PEP Talk for parents and carers of Year 5 to Year 12 students.

 

The Elephant Ed presentation will include the following:

  • Statistics and the prevalence of sexual assault.
  • Legalities surrounding consent.
  • Avenues to seek help.
  • Strategies to start the conversation at home.

It will be held on Thursday 26 August 2021 from 7.00 to 8.00pm at the Kilvington  Sport Centre (dependent on COVID restrictions, this event may pivot to a webinar. We will keep you posted). Register here to attend.

Lockdown Self-Care 

Matt Brinson, Head of Senior School

Here are some practical tips on how to get the ‘Feel Good’ self-care brain chemicals flowing. The simplest things can make biggest differences. It is all about the process; there is no finish line when it comes to self-care or our mental health.

 

If you are going well at the moment, ask someone else if they’re OK, if you’re not OK, ask for help! 

 

Try and tick of at least two items from the toolkit each day!

School TV Special Report - COVID fatigue and youth mental health 

As the nation remains in various stages of lockdown, with restrictions continuing to be mandated, children and adolescents could be paying a heavy emotional and developmental price.

 

This Special Report from SchoolTV explains the current state of youth mental health in a post-COVID era and offers guidance on how best to support young people today. 

School TV - Friendships

Learning how to make new friends and keep them involves a number of skills every young person needs to understand and develop.

 

For some these skills will come very naturally, allowing them to easily move between different friendship groups, sharing their experiences and opening up to new people. For others, this can be much harder to navigate.

 

Positive friendships are an important part of the journey to adulthood. We can support our children by providing guidance in the many social and emotional skills required for a healthy relationship and help them to obtain, retain and maintain friendships.

School TV has created a useful guide for parents and carers on this topic. Watch here. 

Monash University Safety Project - YourGround 

Monash University is leading a new project called ‘YourGround’, which is essentially an online interactive map where any woman, girl or gender diverse person can add a pin and a comment to an area they feel is safe and why, or unsafe and why. 

This is an effort to gather often unheard experiences and perceptions of safety in public spaces so local police and councils can act on them.  

 

This is an opportunity to have a say in the safety of the community, so that we can identify areas that aren’t safe and work to make those better.  

 

Find more information on how to participate here.

Independent Schools Victoria (ISV) Parenting Resources 

Independent Schools Victoria (ISV) has a website which offers lots of great parenting articles and tips. Check it out here. 

Camps, Sports and Excursion Fund (CSEF) applications

In order to support schools and families during the COVID-19 restrictions, the Victorian Department of Education and Training (Vic DET) has extended the 2021 deadline for schools to submit Camps, Sports and Excursion Fund (CSEF) applications.

 

Previously, applications for 2021 closed on Friday 25 June 2021. Families are now able to submit applications until Friday 13 August 2021. Applications submitted prior to 13 August 2021 will also be included in the calculation of the Student Family Background 1 – CSEF element of the Victorian Government’s 2021 general recurrent funding for non-government schools through the Financial Assistance Model.  

 

Students who are eligible to receive CSEF through criteria other than a means-tested concession card are eligible if they meet the relevant criteria on any day in 2021 prior to 13 August.

 

Visit the CSEF Portal for more information.