Wellbeing Zone

Enter the Wellbeing Zone

Welcome to the Wellbeing Zone. When you enter the zone, you will find a wealth of information about all the things happening in the Wellbeing space at Sunshine Heights PS as well as strategies, articles, book recommendations and events that will help build our dream and culture of Wellbeing throughout our school community, inside and outside of school, so that we can sail together through a universe of possibilities with all the emotional and social skills we need to thrive. 

Know Yourself, Show Yourself, Grow Yourself.

As you read on through this week's Wellbeing section of the newsletter, you might pick up on the very important thread surfacing through all the sub sections about knowing yourself, showing yourself and growing yourself. It's the driving motto of Wellbeing at Sunshine Heights PS and to set the mood for the rest of what you'll read, here's a little song to journey through this with. 

With love,

Francine

Excitement Central. 

Last week, we received some super exciting news. Last term, I had applied for a community recovery grant from Brimbank City Council, pitching a Mental Health Festival for March 2022. The exciting news is, we got it! $20,000 to run a mental health festival for our awesome community in Sunshine! The festival will be aptly titled the 'Know Yourself, Show Yourself, Grow Yourself' Mental Health Festival and will take place toward the end of March 2022, aligning with Harmony Day celebrations. 

The festival will be co-designed by a group of 2022 Grade 6 students from Sunshine Heights PS and Year 7 students from Sunshine College. 

Our first step in the planning process is to form an social and cultural advisory board that represents the diverse community of Sunshine to ensure that community voices are heard and represented. 

If you are interested in being the voice for your cultural or social group, and taking part in the advisory board, please express your interest by emailing me at Francine.Sculli@education.vic.gov.au 

Naturally, stay tuned to this space for further updates as we sail into a universe of possibility and shine a light on mental health, belonging, inclusion and diversity! 

Farewell Kanling

On Monday, our amazing Art Therapy student, Kanling, finished up her placement with us. Kanling has played a critical role in establishing a strong Art Therapy program at Sunshine Heights PS and has gone above and beyond to provide an extra layer of support to our students. She will be greatly missed and we wish her all the best in her future endeavours. Now that we have an established and strong working relationship with La Trobe University's allied health departments, we will continue to welcome Art Therapy students into our school in 2022, which means that this service will be able to continue. Very exciting! 

Positivity Values Postcard 

We were very excited to start our whole school, positive behaviour acknowledgements last week, via the Positivity Values Postcards. This idea was born from one of our student leaders, Petrina, as a way to both promote and celebrate positive behaviours that are connected to our four values across the school. We excitedly received a box of freshly printed postcards this week and can't wait to continue to celebrate acts of courage, collaboration, commitment and connection! 

Neurodiversity Day

Our wonderful school leader, Arlo, is organising a neurodiversity day as part of his student leadership project. He is looking for members of our community who are neurodiverse and would like to share their experiences. Please see his message below - 

Hi Students, Teachers, Parents and Sunshine Heights Community Members,

My name is Arlo Mykyta and I am one of the student leaders at Sunshine Heights Primary School. I am asking any neurodiverse people if they want to participate in a video about neurodiversity for the neurodiversity celebration day I am organising as part of my student leadership project. 

I would love it if you could do a 30 sec video answering some of the questions below (whichever questions you prefer). I will then put all the responses together into a video to share with my school community.

• Introduce yourself (name, age, your neurodiversity)
• What is it like being neurodiverse?
• What strengths does your neurodiversity bring?
• What challenges do you experience?
• What do you wish people knew about your neurodiversity?

If you are interested in being involved, please email your responses to Francine at Francine.Sculli@education.vic.gov.au

We will need responses by Wednesday 24th November. 

Thank you so much for your help. 

Arlo

Free Dress for Headspace

The student leaders just keep on giving with their wonderfully community-minded leadership projects. This one, by student leader Callum, is no exception. Passionate about raising funds for an important organisation that helps young people, Callum is putting on a free dress/casual clothes day on Friday 3rd December with a gold coin donation that will go directly to Headspace so that they can continue to provide amazing mental health services to young people. All students who bring a gold coin donation will go in the draw to win some Headspace merchandise! 

If you are interested in donating more than $2 prior to the day, you can donate via the link below. 

E-Safety for Parents

Need some important tips to help navigate e-safety with your child? The E-Safety Parents' Guide below is a great resource! 

Get Active Victoria Vouchers

The $21 million Get Active Kids Voucher Program is back, supporting children to get involved in organised sport and physical activities by providing vouchers valued up to $200 each, to help eligible families with the cost of memberships or registration fees, equipment or uniforms. Vouchers are available until 30th November. 

To find out if you are eligible for a voucher, and for further information, visit the link below - 

Social Work Survey

Our wonderful social work student, Shayla, needs your help! She is gathering demographic data from our awesome community to help create a social and cultural report for her placement projects. She would greatly appreciate it, if you were able to take a few moments to complete her survey and help her with this information. Survey responses are entirely anonymous. 

Need to reach me? 

To discuss anything Wellbeing related, feel free to contact me via email or the school phone number!