Student Wellbeing

Zones of Regulation

This week, all homerooms were introduced to the Zones of Regulation.

The 'Zones' consist of 4 zones which are red, yellow, blue and green. 

The zones of regulation allow  students to identify how they are feeling and use a variety of strategies to help them work through their feelings and get themselves ready to learn.

Please see the poster below for an explanation of the zones.

Here are some skills taught during The Zones of Regulation:

• Identifying your emotions by categorizing feelings into four zones.
• Self-regulation: Achieving the preferred state of alertness (zone) for a situation. This is all about regulating your body and emotional regulation.
• Identifying triggers: Learning what makes you “tick” and why
• Coping strategies: Various techniques and strategies that help achieve emotional regulation and manage strong emotions
• Size of the problem: Introduces the idea that the size of your reaction should match the size of your problem, how to identify the size of your problem, and strategies for problem-solving.
• Expected behavior vs unexpected behavior: This also covers perspective taking and how your behavior affects the thoughts and feelings of the people around you.

More information is included in the following link.

https://hes-extraordinary.com/the-zones-of-regulation

The link between food, mood and learning outcomes

All students deserve the opportunity to be successful, happy, healthy and resilient. 

Providing and promoting healthy foods plays an important role in the academic success of students.

The link between food, mood, and learning

We know that fuelling children with the appropriate foods helps support their growth and development. But there is a growing body of research showing that what children eat can affect not only their physical health but also their mood, mental health and learning.

The research suggests that eating a healthy and nutritious diet can improve mental health1, enhance cognitive skills like concentration and memory, and improve academic performance.

Children should be eating plenty of nutritious, minimally processed foods from the five food groups:

• fruit
• vegetables and legumes/beans
• grains (cereal foods)
• lean meat and poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts and seeds, and legumes/beans
• milk, yoghurt, cheese and/or their alternatives

Consuming too many nutritionally-poor foods and drinks that are high in added fats, sugars and salt, such as lollies, chips and fried foods has been connected to emotional and behavioural problems in children and adolescents. 

Why are schools an important place to make changes?

Schools can play a key role in influencing healthy eating habits, as students can consume on average 37% of their energy intake for the day during school hours alone!6

A New South Wales survey found that up to 72% of primary school students purchase foods and drinks from the canteen at least once a week7. Also, in Victoria, while around three-quarters (77%) of children meet the guidelines for recommended daily serves of fruit, only one in 25 (4%) meet the guidelines for recommended daily serves of vegetables8; and discretionary foods account for nearly 40 per cent of energy intake for Victorian children9.

It’s never too late to encourage healthier eating habits - childhood and adolescence is a key time to build lifelong habits and learn how to enjoy healthy eating.