Education News

Room 7 Press

Dress Code/ Uniform Working Party

A small group of parents and staff making up the Dress Code Working Party met on Friday 14th May to create a community survey in order to capture feedback about the school’s Dress Code policy. A similar survey was also created for staff to give feedback around the policy. These surveys were designed to capture current understandings and gauge future considerations for the policy review.

The surveys will be open until June 3. It can be accessed via Google Forms here: https://forms.gle/i1KFcAtjesa9p58n7

Junior School Council (JSC) representatives will be seeking feedback from their classmates via an agreed process using a PMI (plus, minus & ideas) based discussion to seek feedback from the students.              

The feedback will be collated and shared to the Education Committee on 7th June. From here, the Education Committee will then make a recommendation to School Council based on this feedback. It is then School Council who make the final decision for the Dress Code policy. 

Cybersafety

With increasing access and use of technology, young people are facing more opportunities to engage in social media, online gaming and instant messaging (or online chat). Many of these have an age restriction of 13+ but are being used by our students. Unfortunately, school aged children do not fully understand the impact their comments or interactions online can have on their peers or themselves.

At Moonee Ponds West we educate and promote the safe and appropriate use of technology both in and outside of school. Part of this is the discussion and signing of the Digital Agreement document at the beginning of each year, and is constantly referred back to with students. Focus on cybersafety is generally incorporated with the hope of educating students in preventing online issues. 

In order to continue highlighting the importance of safe and appropriate use of technology in our community, we are currently pursuing Susan McLean, who is regarded as a leading expert in Australia, to hold sessions with our 3-6 students, staff and parents. We hope her expertise can continue to educate our teachers, students and the wider community in areas we need to be vigilant in. Demand for Susan is high and we hope to be able to secure her to work with our school as soon as possible.

For now, please find attached some information fact sheets and tip sheets that are well worth reading to remain informed.

Thank you,

 Jarrod Sutton