Principal's Report
Building Positive Relationships
Positive relationships are a key component to students engaging with and thriving at school. They are also obviously at the heart of a rewarding and fulfilling life. Human beings are an inherently social animal and we innately develop relationship skills. However, we are aware that specific instruction and support for the development of these relationship skills is crucial for so many children. This has never been more true than during this year of pandemic and isolation.
This term, under the umbrella of Positive Education, teachers are using the 'Friendology' curriculum from URSTRONG, to build student capacity to develop and maintain positive relationships with their peers.
These photos below show some of our Foundation students practising conversations through an 'ask and throw' game. They asked their partner a question, threw them the teddy and listened to their response.
A few key points about this program that we would like to share with you are:
- Consistency is key. It's important that teachers and parents speak the same language and support kids as a team.
- The word 'bullying' is confusing. Using the term 'Mean-on-Purpose' is more useful.
- About 85% of conflicts are 'Friendship Fires'. Children are rarely intentionally mean. Hurt feelings, misunderstandings and disagreements are normal.
- Kids can solve their own problems. Our main goal is to empower kids with the skills to put out their own Friendship Fires and stand up to 'Mean-on-Purpose' behaviour.
- Friendly vs Friendship. We teach kids to be kind and friendly to everyone, but encourage them to spend time in healthy relationships.
- Mirror Neurons are real. Children mirror the behaviour of people around them and it is important that we all show children how to be kind.
Please reach out and chat to your child's teacher if you would like some more information about this work and also refer to the attachment below for some more details.
2021 5/6 Canberra Camp
Our 5/6 Canberra Camp is coming up next year. Normally this camp is held towards the end of Term 1. We have moved the camp booking for next year to the beginning of Term 4. The camp will be held on 4-8 October 2021.
We made this change in order to give students more time to build relationships with one another, to give the camp more chance of going ahead under COVID restrictions and to give families more time to manage the financial cost of the camp.
Student Check-in Resource
Kalinda Primary School is committed to supporting the health, wellbeing and safety of all students.
While most students will adjust to the return to on-site learning without requiring additional support, we are mindful that some students may need support with their social and emotional wellbeing, or to maintain engagement with their academic learning.
Kalinda uses a range of resources to help us monitor the wellbeing of our students, including a new Student Check-in resource provided by the Department of Education. This checklist is one completed by the class teacher and used only for our confidential purposes.
The resource will complement existing approaches we use to ensure we are providing all students with the support they need.
As always, we will let you know if we identify opportunities to provide further social, academic and behavioural support to your child.
Please let us know if you have any questions about this resource or concerns about how your child is adjusting to the return to on-site learning.
We are kind. We are resilient. We are respectful.