Wellbeing & Engagement 

Welcome back!

It was great to see all of our wonderful Rangeview students back at school over the first week of term. Term 3 is commonly known within teaching circles as the best term for teaching and learning - teachers and students have already built positive relationships and have gotten to know each other, classroom rules and expectations are now strongly embedded - and the busy period of summative assessment and report writing takes a back seat for a little while. Our teaching staff are ready to go with engaging programs and the aim will be to continue high levels of growth and achievement - in terms of wellbeing and academics.

Working Bee

What better way to kick off Term 3 than a Working Bee! We would like to send out a HUGE thank you to all parents, carers and students who attended last Saturday morning to assist us with a range of jobs around the school. I'm sure as you make your way around the school this week, you would all agree it's looking fantastic! We are very proud of the external environment and grounds we provide to our students, and it takes a team effort to maintain this high standard. For a cold and windy winter's morning, we were blown away by the amount of community members who came along to lend a hand!

Child Safe Standards

As of July 1st, a new framework of Child Safe Standards has been implemented across all Victorian schools. Ministerial Order 1359 replaces the previous Ministerial Order 870, outlining the minimum standards schools must meet to ensure they are adequately prepared to keep children and young people safe and protect them from abuse.

There are 11 Child Safe Standards:

• Standard 1: Culturally safe environments – Establish a culturally safe environment in which the diverse and unique identities and experiences of Aboriginal children and young people are respected and valued.
• Standard 2: Leadership, governance and culture – Ensure that child safety and wellbeing are embedded in school leadership, governance and culture.
• Standard 3: Child and student empowerment – Children and young people are empowered about their rights, participate in decisions affecting them and are taken seriously.
• Standard 4: Family engagement – Families and communities are informed and involved in promoting child safety and wellbeing.
• Standard 5: Diversity and equity – Equity is upheld and diverse needs are respected in policy and practice.
• Standard 6: Suitable staff and volunteers – People working with children and young people are suitable and supported to reflect child safety and wellbeing values in practice.
• Standard 7: Child-focused complaints processes – Ensure that processes for complaints and concerns are child focused.
• Standard 8: Child safety knowledge, skills and awareness – Staff and volunteers are equipped with the knowledge, skills and awareness to keep children and young people safe through ongoing education and training.
• Standard 9: Physical and online environments – Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed.
• Standard 10: Review of child safety practices - Implementation of the Child Safe Standards is regularly reviewed and improved.
• Standard 11: Implementation of child safety practices – Policies and procedures that document how schools are safe for children, young people and students.

In line with the new Child Safe Standards, a number of our school policies have been updated, including:

• Wellbeing and Engagement
• Responding and Reporting
• Complaints
• Volunteers
• Yard Duty and Supervision
• Digital Learning
• Visitors
• Bullying Prevention
• Inclusion and Diversity

Rangeview staff have also signed a new Child Safe Code of Conduct, ensuring all employees have an understanding of the new Standards and uphold all expectations and requirements of the Standards to ensure the highest level of safety at school.

We always welcome community feedback on our practices as a school - if you have any questions or comments about the new Child Safe Standards, you are welcome to contact the school for more information. 

NAIDOC Week

NAIDOC Week celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC Week is celebrated by all Australians and is a great opportunity to learn more about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Whilst NAIDOC Week was during the school holidays (July 3rd-10th), as a school we acknowledged this across the first week of term with a range of activities. Thank you to our leaders in this space, Kirilee Bell and Chloe Tomkins, for providing a range of options for students across the school to explore and further develop their understanding.

Active and Safe Schools Program  - WOW!

We are excited to be taking part in the WOW (Walk or Wheels Once a Week) program with Whitehorse City Council. Please check out the poster attached below.

What is it?

WOW is “Walk or Wheel Once a Week”. 

We have selected a day during the week to encourage everyone to walk or travel by wheels to school.  This will be WEDNESDAY.

Starting next week on Wednesday 27 July, we will be walking and wheeling for 6 weeks through to Wednesday 31 August. This is our Winter WOW!

Each class will have a WOW wall calendar to record the weekly participation. 

The class who walks & wheels the most for 6 weeks will receive the Golden Boot Award. There will be a golden boot award for the Junior School and one for the Senior School.

Other prizes will also be handed out.

When is it?

WOW starts in week 3 this term. This is on the WEDNESDAY (July 27th) and goes for 6 weeks until Wednesday 31 August. The Winter WOW!

Why are we taking part in the WOW?

The Council wants to help our school students to walk, ride, scoot or skate to school.

It’s great to improve health with daily exercise. We want to see more students being active travelling to school plus help to decrease the traffic around school.

We also want to help improve road safety knowledge as part of the program.

Student Attitudes to School Survey

In the final weeks of Term 2, our Year 4, 5 and 6 students all participated in the annual Student Attitudes to School survey. This is an anonymous survey that provides our students with an additional opportunity to enact 'student voice' and reflect on their experiences at Rangeview. 

We take the collected data and feedback from students very seriously, as we are always striving to improve our practices and programs to make this school the best place it can possibly be for our most important stakeholders.

The school leadership team has taken some time to view and discuss the data, and level teams will begin to explore this data over the coming weeks. We will be looking to celebrate the positives with our students and staff, but also look closely at any trends or patterns in the data that outline areas for future improvement. 

Health and Wellbeing

As a community we are continuing to face the health challenges of COVID and the flu. In an ideal world, all students would have 100% attendance at school, but in the current climate, it is important to keep your children at home if they are unwell. We appreciate your support in keeping students at home if unwell as we navigate this period and encourage everyone to use COVID-Safe practices of social distancing and hand washing to help keep us all safe and healthy.  We continue to require families to report positive cases of COVID-19 to the school and we will continue to provide updates to the community if there are cases within the school.

Liam Sommers

Assistant Principal

Wellbeing and Engagement