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. 

Words to meditate on. 

This week, as we round the end of another week in lockdown and remote learning, I am still at a loss finding the right words to say to help everyone keep their spirits up. Especially with so much else going on in all of our lives and the world too. It's tough. We are all feeling it. We miss you all deeply and are craving the moment we can step back onto Sunny Heights grounds - all together. For now, let's wrap around each other in whatever way we can from a distance. 

And remember, don't be afraid to reach out! 

With love, 

Francine

<3 

Solidarity with our Afghan families and community

To our Sunshine Heights Primary School community. We would like to take this opportunity to express our solidarity with and care for, our students and families of Afghan background and to their loved ones still in Afghanistan. We want you all to know that we are here, we see what you are going through. We are so glad that you are here in our community and we want to offer our support to you and your families. We will be reaching out to families and please contact us if we can help.

Self-Care During the Covid-19 Outbreak

The amazing practitioners over at Orygen, who are leading the revolution in youth mental health, have put together this great self-care guide for young people and families during the Covid-19 outbreak. Self-care is hugely important, which makes this an even more important read. 

On the search for SHPS Body Kind Ambassadors!

Before going into lockdown, a group of our interested Grade 6 students were due to do a PD session with the Butterfly Foundation to help them become SHPS Body Kind ambassadors and develop initiatives for our school that promote body kindness and every child loving themselves and their bodies just as they are. 

Sadly, lockdown hit and Butterfly Foundation were unable to run the workshop with students remote. 

But Rona won't rain on our body kindness! 

Next week, I'll be inviting all interested Grade 6 students to join me on a webex on Tuesday 31st August at 11:30AM-12:30PM. They will learn about the Body Kind initiative, its importance, learn how to be a body kind ambassador and develop ideas to promote Body Kindness at our school. 

Check out the Specialist and Wellbeing extra special timetable for webex links and details!  

Brimbank Radio Ed Week

In other exciting news, we are lucky enough to be participating in Brimbank's 2021 Radio Ed Week! What does that mean? It means we will have all round legend and professional radio host, Ralph Barba, come to the school in November to work with interested Grade 5/6 students to write, develop, record and present radio show segments that promote our amazing school and its heartbeat! 

To get the project rolling, I will be inviting any interested Grade 5 and 6 students to attend a webex with me next Thursday 2nd September at 12:30-1:30PM. Students will learn about the project and work in teams in breakout rooms to brainstorm possible radio segments they wish to record that will celebrate our school! These ideas will be shared with Ralph so he can prepare for his exciting visit in November! 

All are welcome! 

An activity with all the webex details will go live on the Grade 5/6 Specialist Exhibition class on Seesaw at 9AM on Thursday 2nd September! 

Student Voice Survey

A big thank you to every single one of our students who shared their voice on the survey from one of our student leaders, Daisy. The survey is now closed but here is a summary of the results. 

Wellbeing Resources

I am absolutely obsessed with Wholehearted Counselling. She creates so many amazing resources to help support the social and emotional wellbeing of young people! Recently, I downloaded this amazing Social and Emotional journal, which I thought I would share! A great resource for our students right now to help them check in on themselves and build strategies to help their emotions in this challenging time! 

Firekeepers Nature Program

What better salve is there in times like this than nature? That's why Sunshine Heights are excited to have Firekeepers run a 5 week sponsored Nature Connection program with our school next term.

They are a Melbourne based not for profit organisation that encourages people of all ages to get outside and engage with their community, and nature.

We will be posting videos each week in the newsletter with different fun nature activities and local adventure ideas for school families, then they will invite us to an online meeting where we can share the stories of what happened. They would love to hear what you are interested in to plan the program. Have a look at their video and fill out the survey. Get in touch with Francine if you and your family are keen to participate.

You can access the survey links in different languages by clicking the links below for the relevant language  - 

English

 عربي

Türkçe

Tiếng Việt

somali

Introducing our Social Work Students

I am excited to introduce to you.... Shayla and Zaf (short for Zafifah), our social work students who will be doing their placement at our beautiful school and will be with us until close to the end of the year. Shayla & Zaf officially started on Monday and have spent the week planning, ruminating and processing. 

For the next three weeks, Shayla and Zaf will be supporting onsite, running some online sessions, developing exciting plans for Wellbeing drop ins and lunch time clubs and helping shape a Zones of Regulation implementation plan and scope and sequence, whilst also providing targeted individual and small group workshops and support. 

Zaf and Shayla will be running two online sessions next week for our students. On Tuesday they'll host a Play Therapy through Storytelling workshop for P-2 students and on Thursday they'll be stepping 3-6 students through creating their own worry box. All details for the online sessions can be found in the Specialist/Wellbeing timetable, which will be shared on Xuno, Seesaw and in the Specialist section of this newsletter! 

Please join me in welcoming them to the Sunny Heights family. Get to know them a little by watching their introduction videos below. 

Need to reach me? 

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