Enter the Wellbeing Zone

Welcome to the Wellbeing Zone, now a regular in our new look newsletter. 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.

Professional Development with Sue Wilkinson and the Zones of Regulation

Last term, our Grade 3/4 teacher and aide team, together with our Specialist team, became a very important trial team in the school and started an exciting journey to better understand behaviour and social and emotional learning via the Zones of Regulation, led by behaviour specialist, Sue Wilkinson. Last term was full of observations and meet and greets with Sue, as we gathered information about our students and their needs.

On Tuesday this week, they had their first formal professional development session with Sue, which will be one of three sessions that will provide them with an introduction to the Zones of Regulation, a deeper understanding of behaviours and strategies on how to support our students to regulate and deescalate. The teams will trial a range of different strategies and apply their knowledge in the classrooms, and will work together to build their understanding of the Zones of Regulation, which will be shared with the whole school. This is part of our ongoing focus on developing the social and emotional literacy of our students.

The Zones of Regulation is not just a school-based curriculum. It can be used at home too! As we work through the process, we will be sharing more resources with families so that you can use the consistent language of the Zones to help support your children at home. Each week in the Wellbeing Zone, we will be sharing new information about the Zones of Regulation and some things that you can do at home to build the Zones into your day-to-day family life.

If you are interested in beginning your Zones of Regulation journey alongside us, and are keen to find out more, you can sign up for a FREE webinar over at Social Thinking, which will provide you with an overview of the Zones.

https://www.socialthinking.com/online-training/on-demand/webinar-zones-of-regulation

You can also read an overview here - https://hes-extraordinary.com/the-zones-of-regulation

PREP Health Questionnaire

It's that time of the year again; time for our PREP Health Questionnaires. This week, all Prep students will have come home with the Prep Health Questionnaire. This is a great opportunity for families to sit down and reflect on their child's development, share any concerns or observations and get connected to services if needed. The questionnaire will collect important health information, which will be sent to our school nurse - Melissa - who screens all prep students to see if any need to see the nurse.

Questionnaires are due back at school by Friday 4th June 2021.

Please return the completed questionnaire sealed in the envelope provided and return to your child's Prep teacher by the above date.

If any families need assistance completing the form, please don't hesitate to contact Francine via the school!

Parenting Workshops

In further exciting news, we are partnering with Mackillop Family Services to create some tailored parenting workshops that will be open for all parents to attend at Sunshine Heights PS. These workshops will be a great way for you to connect with other parents, share some of your successes and challenges and get some expert, research-based strategies.

To help us shape and tailor these workshops, we would love to hear your voice about the most pressing parenting hot topics you would love to explore to help you support your kids!

Share your hot topics via this short survey -

https://forms.gle/yRBoRVnbsLriQv9H9

REMINDERS

Don't forget that our Wellbeing Wish List gift registry is still open and there's still lots of great sensory items that you can purchase to help build our bank of resources that will help our students build the social and emotional skills they need!

IMPORTANT REMINDER - If you purchase something from our list, don’t forget to choose ‘FREE STORE PICK UP’ at delivery and enter school address if prompted to do so!

https://sistersensory.com.au/giftregistry/sunshine-heights-wellbeing-wish-list/

A big thank you to our amazing parents who have already volunteered a morning of their time to help support our Foodbank Breakfast Club starting up later in Term 2.

We still have one day weekly on a Thursday morning that we are looking for a volunteer to help out with. If that's you, and you have Thursday mornings from 8:30-9AM free, we would love to hear from you. Your children are welcome to come with you! You can email Francine.Sculli@education.vic.gov.au

Need to reach me?

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

EMAIL - Francine.Sculli@education.vic.gov.au PHONE - 8311 7100

Big Childcare

Our Out of School Hours Care Provider