Wellbeing & Engagement 

Welcome back for 2023!

It was so exciting moving around all of our classrooms over the first week of school and see all the smiles on our students' faces. I loved hearing about their holidays and everything they got up to; but I also loved seeing how ready they were to be back at school!

As always, we are working very hard to ensure the wellbeing of all our students remains a priority. An Education State ambition, outlined by the Department of Education, is to develop 'Happy, healthy and resilient kids'. Our staff are so dedicated to this goal, and we have many programs and initiatives in place at Rangeview to guide our students towards these outcomes.

The Resilience Project (TRP)

We are very proud to be continuing our partnership with TRP in 2023. Our students and teachers engaged strongly with the philosophies of TRP last year, and this year our aims are to further embed TRP into classrooms and also increase community engagement and uptake of TRP from our families at home. The big ideas form around the ideals of Gratitude, Empathy, Mindfulness and Emotional Literacy - I would encourage you all to have some conversations around the dinner table at home about these concepts and provide the time for the children to share what they are learning in this space.

Our students have already participated in a number of TRP lessons to kick start the year. An early focus for the school is on students understanding gratitude and kindness. Visiting many classrooms during these lessons really has filled me with joy; the smiles, happiness and sense of belonging during these lessons is amazing to observe. Students are very quickly realising that if they can be a 'bucket filler' (showing kindness to others) it also fills their own bucket - it makes us feel good to do good things for others. 

Our staff will also continue to complete professional learning with TRP, and for our wider community, TRP will be offering a live, online webinar for everyone at home. This presentation, 'Discovering Resilience', will be a wonderful opportunity for families and the wider community to hear directly from Martin, one of TRP's leaders. He is an extremely passionate, engaging and funny speaker - our students have loved seeing his videos in our lessons - so we would love to see this event attended by as many Rangeview community members as possible. At this stage, the event is scheduled for Wednesday March 15th. More details will come out shortly.

Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships

Rangeview remains a lead school for the 4Rs this year and we are looking forward to working in this space with fellow schools in our network. The 4Rs curriculum is set to be updated later this year, which our leadership team will then review and work with teachers to implement as positively as possible.

Across the year, lessons from the 4Rs will be integrated within our wellbeing program, running alongside TRP. The school will also participate in Community of Practice sessions with other schools, sharing and developing ideas together to ensure respectful relationships are promoted and maintained in all schools.

Cyber Safety Project

Being safe online is another vital component to an individual's wellbeing. We will utilise the Cyber Safety Project curriculum to teach our students about conduct online. Given the prevalence of technology in our students' lives these days, it is so important for them to learn how to use devices safely.

We have already had our first big cyber safety event of the year - Tuesday 7th February was 'Safer Internet Day'. This year the theme was 'connect.reflect.protect' - and as the theme suggests, the learning centred around reflecting on our online practices and ensuring we are doing our best to remain protected from any threats or potential harm online. 

More information can be found at the Safer Internet Day website here.

Student Leadership 

Congratulations to the students who have been selected to represent our school as our 2023 student leadership group.  

I am really looking forward to working with this year's student leaders! We have begun our Monday morning leadership meetings, and many have already started fulfilling their roles. Our school captains, voice captains and tech leaders have already run assemblies and created an edition of the Rangeview News, our peer mediators have done their training and been out in the yard each 'big break' supporting the younger students at play time, and many other leaders have learnt about their positions and are excited for what's coming up!

Whilst we have these students in formalised roles, it is important to acknowledge that we look well beyond this group in terms of student leadership - we consider all of our Year 6 students as leaders of the school as they set the example for younger year levels. To extend that further - all students at all year levels can act as role models to others, and we are proud to see this every single day. 

Liam Sommers

Assistant Principal

Wellbeing and Engagement