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Dear Parents and Carers
What a wonderful day we celebrated when our Choir joined the choirs from St Francis Xavier College, Catholic College Sale & Nagel College Bairnsdale, as we celebrated the Diosecan Catholic Education Mass last Wednesday 21 May. Representatives from Schools from across the diocese came together to celebrate Catholic Education Week with Bishop Greg Bennet, clergy, education leaders and guests.
- Olivia Year 5
- Amity Year 4
- Charlise Year 6
- Alexia Year 6
- Lacey Year 6
- Phoebe Year 5
This Friday our Parents and Friends Group have arranged a Music Bingo Event which should be a "musical" evening with some healthy competition between everyone. Thank you to our parents who put their hands up to arrange such events - they not only provide a fundraising opportunity but also community gathering.
We remind everyone that next Friday 6 June there is NO SCHOOL for students. Staff will be participating in Professional Development. Then Monday 9 June is the King's Birthday Public Holiday, so there is NO SCHOOL on this day.
UPCOMING DATES:
On Tuesday of last week, the Year 6 students were fortunate to have four AFLW Richmond football players visit for a Q & A session. The students met Mon Conti (midfielder), Montana McKinnon (ruck), Isabel Bacon (defender) and Mackenzie Ford (forward) and had the opportunity to ask a range of questions about their journey as well as their commitment to pre games, training, finals and during the off season. Students were very excited by this opportunity and some have even taken inspiration from their hard work and dedication to strive for an elite level themselves.
The Foundation, Year One and Year Two students were lucky to have a visit from the Victoria Police on Monday 26th May. The visit was a wonderful opportunity for students to learn more about the important role police officers play in keeping our community safe. We had lots of questions for the officers including 'what do you love about being a police officer?', 'how do you become a police officer?' and 'how do we know you are a police officer when you are not in uniform?'. The officers, Dale and Brad, also showed us their important equipment including the body camera and their radio. After the visit we had many students say they may like to become police officers in the future.
Our May Aussie of the Month Recipients are as follows:
- Henry FJT
- Lajwok 4EH
- Wani 3MH
- Riley 3EP
- Riaan 3MD
- Mya 5GD
- Izack 6TP
Congratulations!
This initiative is coordinated by the school leaders Alexia and Charli.
In this edition of SchoolTV - Friendship & Belonging
Learning how to make new friends and keep them involves a number of skills every young person needs to understand and develop. For some these skills will come very naturally, allowing them to easily move between different friendship groups, sharing their experiences and opening up to new people. For others, this can be much harder to navigate. Belonging to a group that is like-minded with similar interests is highly beneficial to a young person’s wellbeing. It gives them a sense of security helping them feel valued which in turn builds their confidence.
Positive friendships are an important part of the journey to adulthood. Adult carers can support their child or teenager by providing guidance in the many social and emotional skills required for a healthy relationship. This will help them to obtain, retain and maintain friendships. However, not all friendship are regarded as positive. Sometimes young people develop negative or toxic friendships. Therefore it is also important for them to learn how to identify, avoid or deal with such a friendship.
In this edition of SchoolTV, adult carers can learn how to support their young person’s friendship so that they experience a sense of belonging.
We hope you take time to reflect on the information offered in this edition of SchoolTV and we always welcome your feedback. If you have any concerns about your child, please contact the school for further information or seek medical or professional help.
Here is the link to the Friendship & Belonging edition of SchoolTV
https://stclaresofficer.catholic.schooltv.me/newsletter/friendship-belonging
Immediate Crisis Support in Australia:
1800RESPECT - https://www.1800respect.org.au/
Kids Helpline - https://kidshelpline.com.au/get-help/webchat-counselling
Liz Hunt
Mental Health in Primary School Leader
How to Help Kids Stay Safe Online
Adapted from: https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/blog Office of the eSafety Commissioner
- Start the chat
It’s not possible to be at your child’s side every second of the day, so it’s important to talk with them about online safety issues to help develop their critical thinking and ability to make good choices. It’s also good to let them know they can come to you for help if they have any concerns. You may feel they know more about the latest technology than you do, but you have more life experience to guide them.
- With primary school aged children use online devices in the open living spaces at home to make parent supervision part of the expectation for your child.
- Take the opportunity to set some boundaries around when and where they can use devices like tablets, smart TVs and gaming consoles, to help limit potential tech tantrums — you could even fill in an Early Years Family Tech Agreement
- Screen free time before bed is important for good sleep. Consider charging devices in a central location at a regular time each night to allow an hour screen free before bed.
- While you are all at home more, it’s a great time to co-view and co-play with your kids, so you can understand what they are doing and experiencing online.
- Learn about the games, apps, social media and platforms they are using at The eSafety Guide, including how to protect their information and report inappropriate content or conduct.
- Use parental controls and safe search options
Parental controls can help block your child from accessing specific websites, apps or functions. They can also monitor your child’s use of connected devices and set time limits. But beware! You cannot always rely on them — they should be used in combination with other online safety strategies.
- Parental controls are available on most tablets, smartphones, computers, TVs and gaming consoles.
- You can also download family safety controls or buy robust filters out of the box.
- You can set up child-friendly search engines, or select safe search settings on digital devices, to help prevent your child from stumbling across inappropriate sites and content.
- Check smart toy settings
It’s surprising how many toys or devices can connect online these days, from drones and smart teddies to tablets and wearables. While they can be both entertaining and educational, they can reveal your child’s personal details and location — and allow other people to contact them without you knowing. You can help keep them stay safe by:
- setting strong passwords
- turning off location settings
- limiting the amount of personal information shared.
The eSafety Gift Guide has advice on what to check for and how to stay safe.
- Look out for unwanted contact and grooming
Unwanted contact is any communication that makes your child feel uncomfortable or unsafe, even if they initially welcomed the contact. It can come from a stranger, an online ‘friend’ or even someone they actually know. At worst, it can involve ‘grooming’ — building a relationship with the child in order to sexually abuse them.
You can help by:
- making sure their accounts are private — including chat functions on games
- encouraging them to delete requests from strangers and any contacts they don’t know in person
- checking in with your child as they use online devices in the open living spaces at home
- reporting and blocking anyone suspicious on a website or service
- remembering that if suspicious online contacts become aggressive or threatening you should contact your local police.
- Know the signs of cyberbullying
Kids who are bored by long periods at home can pick at each other, and that happens online too. So it’s important to keep an eye out for cyberbullying. It can include mean posts, comments and messages, as well as being left out of online group activities like gaming.
- Remember, when they are away from school, kids have less access to their usual support systems, including friends, teachers and counsellors.
- eSafety research shows that girls are more likely to be affected than boys and the person doing the bullying is generally someone they know from school.
- Watch out for signs such as your child appearing upset after using their mobile, tablet or computer, being unusually secretive about their online activities or becoming withdrawn.
- Cyberbullying can make social isolation worse and the longer it continues, the more stressed kids can become, impacting on their emotional and physical wellbeing.
What to do if your child is being cyberbullied
As parents, our first instinct may be to ban our children from social media, disable the wi-fi or turn off the data access. But this can actually compound the problem, making your child feel as if they’re being punished and heightening their sense of social exclusion.
There are four simple steps that can help minimise the harm:
- report the cyberbullying to the social media service where it is occurring
- collect evidence of the cyberbullying material
- if the material is still public 48 hours later, make a report to eSafety — we work with social media platforms to have the harmful content removed.
block the offending user.