Wellbeing and Inclusion

 Firstly, I would like to welcome our school community back to school and extend a warm welcome to our new families that have joined Karoo PS this year.

Wellbeing at Karoo Primary School

Wellbeing is fundamental to our health and overall happiness.  It enables us as learners to be more open-mined and to engage positively with the world around us.  At Karoo PS we strive to support both student academic and wellbeing development, as we know how closely these work together to help our students to thrive.

Building Positive Relationships

Building positive relationships in our school community is essential. At Karoo PS we do this in a number of different ways.

Start Up program

Through our start up program we support our students to focus on building positive relationships with all members of the school community, learn more deeply about our school values of Kindness, Personal Excellence and Tenacity, and to understand that they are an essential part of our school.

Home and School Communication

Effective and efficient communication between home and school is key to building strong and respectful relationships with our families.  There will be multiple ways in which this will occur, such as on your child's class compass news feed each week, this newsletter and face to face, email and phone conversations with your child's teacher and key staff at school.  We always strive to have clear communication with our school community and welcome feedback on what is working well and what can continue to improve.

Lunchtime clubs

Providing opportunities for purposeful play and interest based learning during lunch break and afternoon break enables students to connect with their peers.  In the coming weeks we will continue to establish our lunchtime clubs which students can come and be part of.

Buddies

Year 5 classes will also be establishing their buddy relationship with our Foundation students.  This connection between our senior students and the newest members of our school community is such a special relationship.  Not only does this provide our Foundation students with another person they know but also builds their sense of belonging at school, whilst our senior students continue to develop their social skills, communication and self-management skills.  Buddy breakfasts and buddy sessions are always a highlight throughout the year!

Circle Time

Each day the students begin and end the day with circle time.  This is a time that focuses on student wellbeing, connectedness to school and builds the student emotional vocabulary.  Often the Zones of Regulation are utilised to reflect on how the emotions that are being felt and what strategies that we can use to bring us into the most productive learning zone.  We look forward to sharing more information with regarding circle times and the zones of regulation soon.

Restorative Practice

In 2023, our school will continue its partnership with Real School and implementing restorative practices across the school.  Restorative practice focuses on building, maintaining and restoring positive relationships, particularly when incidents that involve interpersonal conflict occur. Restorative practices are high in accountability and high in support as they draw out what has happened and work towards rebuilding relationships.

Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships Curriculum (RRRR)

At Karoo we utilise the RRRR Curriculum to drive student learning around wellbeing.  There will be more to follow on this in the new newsletter.

Attendance

At Karoo PS we want our students to obtain an outstanding education and the building blocks for a great education begins with students being at school every day.  

School Support

The school can provide support for you and your child to ensure they attend school every.

Kind Regards, 

Courtney Hoffmann

Wellbeing and Inclusion Leading Teacher