Student Wellbeing Update/SWPBS
Everyday Counts! Striving for 100%
Transition
We have been working closely with Echuca College and St Joseph's preparing our students for secondary school. We have been organising extra transition sessions for our Year 6 students who are attending the College and have been in regular contact with St Joseph's ensuring our students have the smoothest transition moving into the secondary sector of their education.
At the other end of the school, our new Prep students have been eagerly participating in our Stay and Play sessions this term and over the last two weeks they have experienced school first hand increasing their time with us. Our Prep teachers have been meeting with the local pre-school teachers, getting to know our new students and ensuring individual needs can be met earlier. This planned process ensures our new Preps have a super start at school next year.
Internal transition has also been occurring where our current students have been stepping up to the next year level and experiencing life in the community that they will be in next year. While the classes are not yet set, these 4 sessions prepare our students well in the lead up to school next year. Our teachers are working hard creating grade lists for next year ensuring there is equitable numbers in each grade and met a balance of males and females, a range of achievement levels, preferred social grouping requests, parent requests and behaviour. This is a very difficult yet rewarding job for our teachers and leadership team.
These times of significant change for your children and our students can evoke excitement, sadness or also some anxiety about the unknown. This is completely normal and talking about these emotions with your child will be most helpful. Let your child know it is normal to feel like this when things are new and unfamiliar and it can be helpful to share your experiences of starting something new. Reassure your child that these emotions won't last long - feelings are like the weather, they change often.
If you are concerned about your child, especially if levels of anxiety or sadness are prolonged, don't be afraid to reach out to our Wellbeing Team, your child's teacher or Kristy at Anglicare Early Help to support you and your child through the next phase of school.
Grade 5/6 Wellbeing Day
What a great day the Grade 5/6 students had at Echuca College last Wednesday at our ETRS Wellbeing Day. We had 4 rotations and each class group rotated through a physical and nutrition session delivered by Fitmob, a mental health session with Headspace, a vaping education session with ERH and a very entertaining tour with the Year 10 Echuca College students. Our students were then treated to a delicious morning tea and lunch that was catered for by Cafe Worx.
We'd like to formally thank the College ensuring we had great locations to run the sessions and also to our presenters who provided our students with a great range of informative information about maintaining and improving their health now and into the future.
Student Leadership Council Update
Our SLC have been working with Anthea (Wellbeing and Inclusion Coordinator) analysing the most recent Attitudes to School data. Overall, the data was very positive and in many instances we have improved significantly in areas of school connectedness, school safety and engagement in learning.
It was interesting to discover that the main areas to examine more closely were student's level of resilience, student voice and agency within the school and incidence of bullying with the data showing this is more prevalent in Grade 5 than other year levels. We are seeking more insight to this data and why the Grade 5 students' responses were less positive that other year levels.
Our SLC members now have the data knowledge and will be able to discuss this with their peers and come up with some reasons and possible strategies that could be implemented to help boost our data in these areas. This is student voice and agency at work!